Andrew Armstrong
I had been given a task to build a Software Catalog application where Outlook must be closed to allow the successful installation of the software. We had previously just packaged the software and made it available to the Software Catalog with a message stating that users must first shut down Outlook before attempting to run … Read more
I have been working on a method to send our helpdesk an email notification when an OSD task sequence has completed. I started by looking into using the Status Filters and Powershell but this didn’t seem to work well enough for what I wanted to do, which was to create a fancy looking email by … Read more
I’ve now taken the plunge and installed Windows 8 Enterprise on my testing laptop and I’m actually quite happy with it after spending the last few months moaning about my Windows 8 Home Premium laptop! Some of the features are excellent and I’m getting used to not having a Start Menu (adding everything I need … Read more
I’ve recently had a situation where I needed to install Windows Updates as part of the OSD process. However, the updates had to be run directly from the local WSUS server rather than from SCCM built in software updates solution. To do this, all you need to do is to install and integrate MDT. Once … Read more
I’ve recently started to use Orchestrator in our live environment to conduct a number of actions but mainly to solve the issue of lack of email alerts within Configuration Manager. At the moment, we are not using Service Manager so finding an alternative to what that offers has become a task of mine. Using Orchestrator … Read more
We have recently had a large amount of Nokia Lumia phones appearing in the business and as you may know, they do not support mass storage, so you cannot just plug in a USB cable for them and copy videos and photos to a computer. Due to this, more and more people are asking to … Read more
I’ve been working for Windows language pack lately, particularly in the OSD part of SCCM. So part of that is knowing what the language pack codes are for various languages. The Windows language pack codes are very useful for dictating which language packs get installed during the deployment phase of your task sequence. 2024 Update … Read more
I thought it was time I started to test Windows 8, I’ll keep my opinions to myself on it for now but one of the many things that does not seem to work very well on it is the Windows Activation. Every time I tried to activate Windows it failed and I couldn’t find a … Read more
I’ve been using ConfigMgr for many years now and I’ve used OSD in every version I’ve been involved with, however, for some reason, I’ve never used USMT before. In most cases this is simply because I didn’t need to use it as my only need was for bare metal deployments but, our environment is changing … Read more
This is a guide on upgrading System Center Configuration Manager 2012 to Service Pack 1 in a lab environment. Your setup may be slightly different so remember this is a guide, so if you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this post. Note that I am using … Read more
This query for SCCM will tell you the devices that have been discovered by Configuration Manager in the last 24 hours. This query can be amended to change the amount of days you wish to look back at for newly discovered devices by changing the last digit in the code. SQL Query More Queries Our … Read more
I’ve been asked a lot of questions about the various ways of using queries and there are almost no limits to what you can do with a query and of course, you can then go on and use these queries for creating collections or just to supply you with the information you require. I have … Read more