Config Manager

There is a great article on the NAP team’s blog on just how update enforcement works in NAP. 

"The easiest way to discuss update enforcement is to step through each part of the “Security Update Protection” section of the WSHV user interface. This is the dialog that appears within the Network Policy Server (NPS) console on Windows Server 2008"

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E

http://configmgr.com

© Anthony Clendenen

Windows XP SP3 went RTM today.  It will be available to the public on April 29th.  For ConfigMgr the biggest piece of this is that now you can use NAP on your XP clients as well.  There is also a rumored 10% increase in performance – YMMV.

Find out exactly what will be included when this link goes active in the next 24 hours or so.

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E

http://configmgr.com

© Anthony Clendenen

This is not a part of ConfigMgr, this this a separate management tool that does a ton more than what you can do with mobile devices in ConfigMgr.

You can get a 120 day eval of Mobile Device Manager (MDM) from Microsoft’s TechNet site here.

What is MDM you ask?

"The goal of MDM is simple: Enable Windows Mobile powered devices to become managed and authenticated members of the IT infrastructure of an organization. The Windows Mobile platform is the ideal platform for this solution. The features of MDM help extend this platform in a manner that is both manageable and protected."

Get more detail here at the MDM 2008 site.

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E

http://configmgr.com

© Anthony Clendenen

After you win the Wii at the 1E booth (311) at MMS and you have made Pro on all the sports, have made all your family members and friends into Wii peeps, the next logical step is to stream all your music and videos with it from your PC upstairs to your Wii downstairs in your media room.  XBox does this out of the box (no pun intended) from what I have heard, since my daughter is only in second grade and my son is just in junior high they aren’t quite ready for an XBox, plus I suck at video games so I am not a gamer.  The Wii doesn’t have a whole suite of additional features, and streaming music and video is not one of them.  It does come with a built in wireless adapter so you can get it on your home wireless pretty easy.  It also uses Opera for a web browser.  I mention both of these because you will need them for streaming.

I was first introduced to Orb several years ago when I got my first Netgear wireless router, it was 802.11B, so that should give you some idea on how many years ago.  The Orb CD came in the box and I checked it out to see what it was.  Set it up, showed it off at work a few times and then I didn’t use it much again.  Back when I was still working at ESRI I played Classical music in my office all day and it was local plus I didn’t want to use up the bandwidth needlessly.  I looked at it again when I started to travel with my last employer (Hey everyone!) I even bought a tuner card, but I don’t really like TV, and really don’t like 99.99% of movies for a list of reasons so I didn’t really end up using Orb or the tuner card. 

But now that I have a home office upstairs, and my wife’s art studio is downstairs when I am at home and the kids are in school and I am not on the phone I will play music, but I have to play music we both like and loud enough for her to hear.  So this is not ideal.  But our Wii is hooked up to the surround sound system and LCD downstairs, so if she could play music from it and choose her own music, and what level that would just about be perfect!

So what you will need:

1. Wii
2. The Opera browser installed on your Wii (500 Wii points or $5)
3. Your Wii connected to your LAN
4. Orb
5. Wake-On-LAN (if you are going to use Orb on a laptop)
6. A computer with music, videos, pictures, files…! 

Download Orb here.

Get additional addons for Orb from their MyExtras here.

extras include video mail, watching Internet videos on your mobile device, and watching you video content on your TV instead of in Flash in the Wii’s Opera browser.

You can get version 1.0 of Orb here.

Once you have Orb installed you will have to create an account.  Next specify what folders you want to include in the different categories.  Keep in mind that any folder you put on there you and your family will be able to access from the Wii console.

After you have Orb configured you will need to get the browser installed on your Wii if you haven’t got it already.  Once it is just go to orb.com, put in your account info and you will be listening and viewing in just a few seconds. 

In Orb you can search by artist, title, genre, playlist, resume a playlist, shuffle your search results, it’s pretty nice.

And if you have bluetooth in your car, a phone with an unlimited data plan and bluetooth…

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E

http://configmgr.com

© Anthony Clendenen

This is from the 1E site, but down towards the bottom you can see the schedule for demos at the 1E stand.  I will be presenting at least a couple times.  Brian Tucker and Neil Kimberly will also be presenting at the stand on other topics.  If you think I know SMS/ConfigMgr then you haven’t spent much time talking to Brian and Neil these guys are AMZAZING!

1E MMS Focus

1E will be exhibiting as a Gold Sponsor at the Microsoft Management Summit at the Venetian Hotel, Las Vegas from April 28 to May 2, 2008.

With a focus on System Center Success and ‘green’ IT, we will be highlighting:

• Expertise in deploying System Center solutions
• Automation solutions that dramatically reduce cost and complexity
• PC power management
• Self-service provisioning with licence control
• Content distribution and OS migration/deployment for distributed environments
• Actual customer experiences with proven ROI

SPEAKER SLOT: Real-world System Center success including PC power management: Significantly lower your PC and server management costs

Speaker: Sumir Karayi, CEO 1E

Date/Time: Tuesday 29, 11.45 – 13.00

Location: F-Veronese 2402-2503

Sumir Karayi, CEO 1E, will be speaking following Bill Anderson’s “ConfigMgr – State of the Nation” session. Sumir will talk about System Center and PC power management customer success stories.

1E has been providing robust integrated Windows systems management solutions for over 10 years. Come and listen to Sumir talk about real-world experiences of System Center success and PC power management implementations in large, complex, distributed environments. In this session you will learn how to address universal time and cost-saving initiatives such as:

• PC power and patch management including client health and energy usage reporting
• Automated self-service application provisioning with license management and control
• Optimization of software and OS deployments to bandwidth-constrained complex branch environments

Visit the 1E Stand 311

MMS provides us with a great opportunity to see friends – old and new. Please drop by the 1E stand to say hello, collect ‘green’ giveaways, enter our competition to win a Nintendo Wii, and attend ‘live’ technical demo sessions.

‘Live’ Theatre Demonstrations and Presentations

Tuesday April 29

1:10 – 1:30 PM PC Power Management: Go Green Overview Presentation Simon Francis

2:00 – 2:20 PM Self-Service Provisioning and License Control Anthony Clendenen

3:30 – 3:50 PM Fully Automated OS Deployment/Migrations Neil Kimberley

Wednesday April 30

1:10 – 1:30 PM PC Power Management, WOL and Client Health Brian Tucker

2:00 – 2:20 PM Fully Automated OS Deployment/Migrations Neil Kimberley

3:00 – 3:20 PM Self-Service Provisioning and License Control Anthony Clendenen

3:30 – 3:50 PM Bandwidth Optimization for Complex/Branch Environments Brian Tucker

Thursday May 1

1:10 – 1:30 PM Bandwidth Optimization for Complex/Branch Environments Brian Tucker

2:00 – 2:20 PM PC Power Management & Energy Usage Reporting Brian Tucker

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E

http://configmgr.com

© Anthony Clendenen

I have read of reports where systems will not resume from hibernation but have not seen it replicated myself.  Well if you have seen this problem in your environment this patch, released on April 7th by Microsoft (KB 951126), may be just what the doctor ordered. 

Insomnia? Ambien…

I have also heard reports of a software vendor that claims to have a patch for a situation they refer to as insomnia.  They claim that a bug in the Windows operating system will actually prevent the system from going into hibernate and have a patch to fix it. 

In reality there is no bug and here is what happens.  In the power scheme settings there is a specified time for the system to go into a low power state after n minutes of idle time.  Idle time is when there are no keyboard inputs, mouse movements or changes in window focus, all actions typically performed by the user.  Once the computers idle timer expires the OS will go into a low power state but before that it will query running applications to see if they are busy doing anything and if any of them respond with a "Yes, I am still working!"  the idle timer gets reset and the system stays in its current power state.  The idle timer will reset to n minutes and when it expires it will check again. 

This process is actually handled by SetThreadExecutionState function, which allows application to respond to this request with various values to be able to complete their tasks.  So not only is this not a bug in the OS, if there is a bug it lies in the application that is incorrectly responding and keeping the OS from going into a low power state or it truly is working and needs the computer to stay up.  The whole idea is to keep applications from crashing, causing a BSOD or worse a RSOD and corrupting files.  And personally, the only patch I am going to install for my operating system is going to have to come from Microsoft, I will apply patches from vendors for their own software but if they issue a patch to fix another vendors software I would be a bit concerned to say the least.

More technical details of the function can be found here on msdn.

If you are coming to MMS see you in just a couple weeks!  You can find me hanging out at the booth or in sessions.  I will actually be putting on a couple demos during the week at our booth as well.

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E

http://configmgr.com

© Anthony Clendenen

I have an advantage, my son is in seventh grade and my daughter is finishing second, so all those geography questions, and factoring, I have done them recently. 

But the real question is are you smarter than a seasoned ConfigMgr admin? Find out by taking some the ConfigMgr quizzes, recently updated and located here.  If you take them post your scores in the comments section and I will buy the winner lunch at MMS.

Configuration Manager 2007 Client Installation Quiz

Configuration Manager 2007 Client Management Quiz

Configuration Manager 2007 Client Site Assignment Quiz

Configuration Manager 2007 Desired Configuration Management Quiz

Configuration Manager 2007 Internet-Based Client Management Quiz

Configuration Manager 2007 Native Mode Quiz

Configuration Manager 2007 Network Access Protection Quiz

Configuration Manager 2007 Wake On LAN Quiz

New! – Configuration Manager 2007 Software Updates Operations Quiz

New! – Configuration Manager 2007 OSDeployment Quiz

New! – Configuration Manager 2007 What’s New Quiz

New! – Configuration Manager 2007 Software Updates Configuration Quiz

New! – Configuration Manager 2007 Mobile Device Management Quiz

New! – Configuration Manager 2007 Fundamentals Quiz

New! – Configuration Manager 2007 Client Roaming Quiz

New! – Configuration Manager 2007 Software Updates Interop Quiz

New! – Configuration Manager 2007 Setup Quiz

New! – Configuration Manager 2007 Software Distribution Quiz

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E

http://configmgr.com

© Anthony Clendenen

This tool coverts Security Content Automation Protocol files into DCM packs.  It is in public beta and you can get it here.

Overview

The SCAP Conversion Tool for DCM can convert any SCAP stream files into DCM Configuration Packs for use with Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007. This Beta release includes a user guide that provides detailed instructions for using this command-line tool, as well as detailed information about the mapping between the SCAP protocol and DCM.
Please note this is a Public Beta, the review period runs from April 3 to May 8, 2008. After using the tools and reading the documentation, please provide feedback by completing the Security Compliance Management Beta survey on Microsoft Connect. The survey provides opportunities for written feedback. Alternatively, you can turn on the Track Changes feature in the Beta documents to use the Comment feature to include your feedback. Please e-mail commented documents to SCMBeta@microsoft.com.

Regards,
Anthony

Anthony Clendenen | Solutions Engineer | 1E

http://configmgr.com

© Anthony Clendenen