So it was announced late last week that the R2 wave Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012 products is to be RTM on October 18th 2013. In parallel to these releases Microsoft is also going live with the long awaited Windows 8.1. This is surely the biggest date in Microsoft’s calendar this year, the…
I got bitten by this one for the second time today until I realised I’d seen it before. The symptoms are a failure to complete the installation of the Data Warehouse Configuration step during a System Center Operations Manager 2012 SP1 installation which causes a roll back of the whole install like so: The setup.log…
This is possibly one of best ‘minimum effort maximum gain’ jobs you can do in your Configuration Manager installation, it’s a real no-brainer. By integrating Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) with Configuration Manager you get the best of both worlds in your deployment scenarios as MDT can extend the functionality of Configuration Manager, pretty much the…
Having passed this exam a number of different Microsoft exams myself, I thought some people may find it useful to get some feedback and guidance from someone who’s been there and done it. Now obviously I’m not going to give away any answers or suggest what the questions may include due to the Non-Disclosure Agreement…
One of the great features of Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2012 SP1 is the ‘Pull distribution point’. This allows you to specify certain distribution points (DP’s) in your Configuration Manager environment to pull content from others. You can specify multiple source DP’s for your pull DP which will give you a little more control…
As part of the Configuration Manager 2012 installation you need to download the latest Configuration Manager update files as a pre-requisite to the installation. If you don’t have internet access on your server this can be a problem. Luckily you can pre-download the files using a utility file found in the installation media. Use the…
Nowadays with the advent of Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 you no longer require WAIK for use with Configuration Manager 2012 SP1. Instead you should download and install ADK. Be aware that this download is effectively a web installer, once you run adksetup.exe you are given the option to download on the fly or store…
I fell foul of this problem this week whereby I had been installing a System Center Configuration Manager 2012 SP1 site server. This was a new build Windows Server 2012 but as I began the installation a handy error message alerted me to the existence of an SCCM client. It became apparent that the existing Configuration…
So I thought it about time I started to get to grips with Orchestrator 2012. It’s a product I’ve been aware of and known a bit about since Opalis (pre-Microsoft) days and as someone who frequently uses other Microsoft System Center and server products I know it’s capabilities and how useful it can be to…
Whilst searching for a SQL Infrastructure Planning and Design (IPD) guide I stumbled across this link http://bit.ly/A8nQsI (69MB zip file) which allows you to download 92 current (and some past) IPD guides in one fell swoop. Really handy to keep hold of as a point of reference whether you’re a multi-skilled consultant or internal sys admin, these…
More than patches 