This is a great tool for automatically backing up SCCM task sequences. It basically monitors task sequences and will back them up whenever anyone attempts to change one. It’s very good for version / change control when there are potentially multiple people working on task sequences.

I have implemented this before but can never find the URL for it when I want it, so here it is for all to see:

http://mdtcustomizations.codeplex.com/releases/view/65824

Share/Save

This is an old trick, one that I have been using for many years, but I’ve never documented it. Often when working with SCCM, you will need to test how something will operate when running in the SYSTEM context (as opposed USER context) – scripts, exes, msis, lots of things. I’ve used the trick with PSEXEC, where you just run ‘psexec.exe -i -s cmd.exe’ and you are presented with a command prompt running in the SYSTEM context – from here you can run your test commands. There is a good writeup about it over here – http://verbalprocessor.com/2007/12/05/running-a-cmd-prompt-as-local-system/ if you need any further information.
 
 

Share/Save

I came across this very useful free tool for alerting when a certificate that has been issued by an internal Microsoft Certificate Authority is going to expire (SCOM can do this too but this is a good alernative). In the words of the developer:

The Certificate Expiration Alerter helps IT departments monitor the expiration status of all their certificates which are issued from an internal Windows Server Certificate Authority (CA). When a certificate is about to expire, the Certificate Expiration Alerter sends a notification email with information about the certificate. This allows IT administrator to be proactive and take action by renewing the certificates before they expire and prevent possible service downtimes.

For more info, see these 2 websites – http://blogs.technet.com/b/nexthop/archive/2011/11/18/certificate-expiration-alerting.aspx and http://sourceforge.net/projects/certexpalerter.
 
 

Share/Save

I came across an interesting and free tool. In their own words, this tool Quickly Generate Credible, Personalized ROI presentations and Proposals for System Center. The System Center ROI/TCO tool enables a comprehensive business case for the entire System Center suite including:

System Center Operations Manager
System Center Configuration Manager
System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM)
System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM)
Opalis
System Center Service Manager

This generates a pretty good starting point for a business case for any of the System Center products and the output includes predefined Word and Powerpoint documents.

See here for more info – https://roianalyst.alinean.com/microsoft/system_center/launch.htm

Share/Save

I came across a great tool called Ping Them, great for pinging multiple hosts. See http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/doli/archive/2011/08/17/free-tool-ping-them.aspx for more details.

This is similar to a Powershell script of mine over here – http://blog.danovich.com.au/2009/06/10/nifty-powershell-script-to-ping-multiple-servers/ – but this new tool adds a great GUI and some additional functionality.
 
 

Share/Save

I had a requirement to report on SQL Server installations in our environment as part of our Microsoft EA true-up process. This included SQL 2000, 2005 & 2008 installations. The difficulty was that you can’t run a simple Add / Remove Programs report because it will report all of the SQL client tools installations as well as the Express and Windows Internal Databases version. I needed to actually report on just the SQL Server Developer, Enterprise and Standard version installations.

After using the MOF edit by Sherry Kissinger (http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/skissinger/archive/2010/12/20/installed-sql-05-and-08-version-information-via-configmgr-hardware-inventory.aspx), I then create a report that filtered out much of the details and gave me a summary of SQL 2000-2005-2008-2008R2 Server Developer, Enterprise and Standard version installations. The query for the SCCM report is:

select
sys1.Netbios_name0 as [Machine],
max(Case sql.PropertyName0 when 'SKUName' then
sql.PropertySTRValue0 end) as [SQL 2008 / R2 Edition],
max(Case sql2.PropertyName0 when 'SKUName' then
sql2.PropertySTRValue0 end) as [SQL 2005 Edition],
sys1.ad_site_name0 as [Site Name],
v_R_User.Full_User_Name0 As [Primary Machine User]
from v_r_system sys1
left join v_gs_sql_property0 sql on sys1.resourceid=sql.ResourceID
left join v_gs_sql_property_legacy0 sql2 on sys1.ResourceID=sql2.ResourceID
left Outer Join v_R_User On sys1.User_Name0 = v_R_User.User_Name0
where
(sql.PropertyName0 in ('SKUNAME','SPLevel','version','fileversion')
or
sql2.PropertyName0 in ('SKUNAME','SPLevel','version','fileversion'))
and
(
sql.PropertyStrValue0 LIKE '%standard%' or
sql2.PropertyStrValue0 LIKE '%standard%' or
sql.PropertyStrValue0 LIKE '%enterprise%' or
sql2.PropertyStrValue0 LIKE '%enterprise%' or
sql.PropertyStrValue0 LIKE '%develop%' or
sql2.PropertyStrValue0 LIKE '%develop%'
)
group by sys1.Netbios_name0, sys1.User_Name0, sys1.ad_site_name0, v_R_User.Full_User_Name0

Share/Save