If you haven’t seen the parent post for this article, jump back here to see a complete list of all new features in Configuration Manager 1906.

This post covers the specific additions and improvements to Client Management that were added to Configuration Manager 1906.

Support for Windows Virtual Desktop

1906 introduces functionality to help you use one of Microsoft other new technologies – Windows Virtual Desktop or WVD for short. If you’ve not seen this go check it out here – https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/services/virtual-desktop/

As you are probably aware, WVD is essential a virtual Windows 10 desktop running in Microsoft Azure. All this addition this really means is that Microsoft will now support a Configuration Manager client running on that virtual desktop. Whilst it would have been technically possible anyway, if you call up Microsoft for support on the Configuration Manager client running on WVD, they will no doubt need you to be running 1906.

Support Center One Trace – Preview

This is a really nice addition to the current branch release of Configuration Manager which was seen previously in technical preview. This is the latest and I think the best tool for working with Configuration Manager log files ad as we know there are quite a few. As good as CMTrace, Trace32 or Notepad are, One Trace is better.

In my installation on the D: drive, the installer for this can be found here
D:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\tools\SupportCenter\supportcenterinstaller.msi

That is something to note too, One Trace has to be installed when CMTrace previously didn’t. Probably not an issue for too many people but certainly worth knowing. It makes sense to create an application from this in Configuration Manager which can be deployed at will.

In One Trace we have some nice features, I’m going to list them here but it’s worth installing and having a play around with this.

A tabbed view
Dockable windows
Improved search capabilities
Ability to enable filters without leaving the log view
Scrollbar hints to quickly identify clusters of errors
Fast log opening for large files

Version 1906 client requires SHA-2 code signing support

Hopefully this shouldn’t be a problem for very many installations, but nevertheless if you have older clients in your environment you should be aware that any clients within Configuration Manager 1906 must support SHA2 code signing. My understanding of this is because any binaries from Microsoft, which will include client upgrades for example, will now be signed by Microsoft using a SHA2 algorithm. If you have Windows 7 or equivalent server systems (2008/R2) then these will require patches as they did not natively support SHA-2.

More information on the requirements for this can be found here – https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/4472027/2019-sha-2-code-signing-support-requirement-for-windows-and-wsus

Configure client cache minimum retention period

As we move towards a focus around peer to peer and delivery optimisation technologies in the Windows client management world, this control is very relevant as it allows us to set a minimum life time for content within a Configuration Manager client cache.

The default setting for this is 1440 minutes, or 1 day.
The maximum value is 10080 which equates to 1 week.
The minimum value for this field can be as low as 1 minute, but I’m not sure I would recommend this.

To be clear, the content will remain within the client cache after this time has expired, but it will be tombstoned which effectively marks it to be cleared out by any other content that needs the space it is occupying. We need to really consider this setting as part of any deployment strategy too so that we can phase content deployments without actually needing to do the content distribution all over again.