System Center Guide

In Randy George’s “Rolling Out Windows 7″ article for InformationWeek, SCCM is compared to LANDesk, KASE, Snap Deploy and others. Yet, the accolades for SCCM kept “rolling” on in…

Read the article here.

Here are the 5 key upgrade tips for an enterprise considering Windows 7:

1. Make application compatibility the first priority.
2. Use System Center Configuration Manager for image creation and deployment.
3. Start with basic group policy settings but then update.
4. Work with ISVs early and often.
5. Align Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 deployment timing.

Read the full article on the System Center team blog.

There are many occassions where we want to install software on only particular platforms such as desktops, laptops or servers. By using a combination of System Center Configuration Manager 2007 and the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, we can make this happen. Sadly, however, this hasn’t been very well documented and put into a step-by-step guide, so I’ve done that here.

The following 20 steps are what it takes to get Configuration Manager to use the MDT variables isDesktop, isLaptop, and isServer during an operating system deployment task sequence. If I’ve missed anything, please let me know.

1.  Download Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2008, Update 1.
2.  Install MDT to site server.
3.  From the Start menu, select Microsoft Deployment Toolkit | Configure ConfigMgr Integration.
4.  Create a package for the toolkit using the “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Deployment Toolkit \Templates\Distribution” folder as the package source. No program needed – just create the package.
5.  Configure your packages distribution points, as normal.
6.  In the Task Sequence Editor, click Add | MDT | Use Toolkit Package. Select the package that you created in step 4.
7.  Move this task between Install Operating System and Setup Operating System.
8.  Again, click Add | MDT | Gather.
9.  Choose the radio button for “Gather only local data (do not process rules). 
10.  Move this new task beneath the Use Toolkit Package task.
11.  From the Task Sequence Editor Install Software section, select the software package you like to have installed only on laptops (VPN software for example).
12.  Click the Options tab.
13.  Click Add Condition.
14.  Select If Statement.
15.  In the If Statement Properties page, select All Conditions.
16.  Highlight the line you just added beneath the “This group/step will run if the following conditions are met:”.
17.  Click “Add Condition” again.
18.  Choose Task Sequence Variable.
19.  In the Task Sequence Variable properties page, type isLaptop for the Variable, leaving the Condition set to equals and type TRUE for the Value.Remember, you also have isDesktop and isServer options to use as well.
20.  Save your Task Sequence.

I hope you’ll find this useful. Enjoy!

While attempting to install the User State Migration Toolkit on a Windows Server 2008 system, you will be presented with an error stating that “There is a problem with this Windows Installer package. A program run as part of setup did not finish as expected. Contact your support personnel or package vendor.”

This problem has been noted on the USMT team blog.

When you click the OK button on the error message the USMT301 folder will be erased. However, as a workaround to obtaining the source files to build a USMT package for operating system deployment with Configuration Manager, you can keep the error message up, copy the source files from the C:\Program Files\USMT301 folder to another destination. Just make sure to do this prior to clicking OK. Otherwise, they’re gone!