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myITforum.com, Inc. is the premier online destination for IT professionals responsible for managing their corporations' Microsoft Windows systems, especially for IT pros working with Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS). The centerpiece of myITforum.com, Inc. is a collection of member forums where IT professionals actively exchange technical tips, share their expertise, and download utilities that help them better manage their Windows environments. Our email discussion lists are also legendary. Updated Daily!


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  • The Deployment CD v2.0

    The second version of Johan Arwidmarks “Deployment CD” has been made available. The CD contains the following detailed Step-by-Step Guides and Video Tutorials:   MDT 2010 Lite Touch Deployments (deployment without ConfigMgr 2007 SP2 R2, just the free tools) - LTI01 - Installing the server for MDT 2010 Lite Touch - LTI02 - Creating a Windows 7 reference image using Lite Touch - LTI03 - Deploying a Windows 7 image using Lite Touch - LTI04 - Dynamic Settings, creating and using the deployment database MDT 2010 Zero Touch Deployments (deployment with ConfigMgr 2007 SP2 R2) - ZTI01 - Installing the server for MDT 2010 Zero Touch and ConfigMgr 2007 SP2 - ZTI02 - Creating a Windows 7 reference image using ConfigMgr 2007 SP2 - ZTI03 - Deploying a Windows 7 image using ConfigMgr 2007 SP2 - ZTI04 - Dynamic Settings, creating and using the deployment database Additional Presentations - E01 - New features in MDT 2010 - E02 - Upgrading MDT 2008 to MDT 2010 - E03 - Migrating Windows XP to Windows 7   It’s a great introduction to MDT 2010 so give them a shot. To download a copy you have to register on http://www.deploymentcd.com/. It’s primarily targeted for US customers. So if you are living in the “Outer Rims” like me, just fill in all the details which fit to your country and nag him a while to get your copy. It’s really worth it ;-) - 4 hours ago

  • IE 8 Accelerator for SMS Remote tools web page

    Have you ever been reviewing a report out of SMS or ConfigMgr and wanted to be able to send a machine name to your SMS Remote Tool Page?  Well with IE 8, and accelerators you can.  If you don't know what SMS Remote Tools Page is see http://www.myitforum.com/articles/19/view.asp?id=8662  & http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/skissinger/archive/tags/RCrumbaker+3.21+Customizations/default.aspx We may be able to do this as well with the now infamous Web Essentials, but we won't know until it is officially released. (Sorry had to get that jab in there) The first thing you will have to set up in making your Remote Tools Web Page accept passed variable. http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/csummers311/archive/2009/02/12/use-a-query-string-to-populate-the-computer-in-ron-crumbaker-s-web-remote-tools.aspx Now time for the accelerator:  Accelerators are created using an XML file - so lets start by creating one of these I will walk us through it.  Below is the code you will want in you XML file. I called mine SCCMADM.XML <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <os:openServiceDescription     xmlns:os="http://www.microsoft.com/schemas/openservicedescription/1.0">     <os:homepageUrl>http://servername/smsremote</os:homepageUrl>     <os:display>         <os:name>SCCM Admin</os:name>         <os:icon>http://servername/smsremote/oscar.ico</os:icon>         <os:description>Open to ConfigMgr Remote Tools Page</os:description>     </os:display>     <os:activity category="ConfigMgr">         <os:activityAction context="selection">             <os:preview action="http://servername/smsremote/?SMachine={selection}" />             <os:execute action="http://servername/smsremote/" method="get">                 <os:parameter name="sMachine" value="{selection}" type="text" />             </os:execute>         </os:activityAction>     </os:activity> </os:openServiceDescription> The first line we are concerned with is os:homepageUrl>http://servername/smsremote</os:homepageUrl>  This is the your SMSremote page edit the servername and path to your SMS remote page The next section is what will show up when you hightlight and right click on a machine name in IE8 -> this shows up in the accelerator section. <os:name>SCCM Admin</os:name> - This is the Name that Shows up <os:icon>http://servername/smsremote/oscar.ico</os:icon> - this is the Icon that shows up <os:description>Open to ConfigMgr Remote Tools Page</os:description> - this is the discription that shows up I put an ICON file in the same directory as SMSRemote web page.  you can change all of these if you want to whatever you would like. The last section is the meat of the accelerator:  This is where you tell it what you want it to do. <os:activity category="ConfigMgr">         <os:activityAction context="selection">             <os:preview action="http://servername/smsremote/?sMachine={selection}"/>             <os:execute action="http://servername/smsremote/" method="get">                 <os:parameter name="sMachine" value="{selection}" type="text" />             </os:execute>         </os:activityAction>     </os:activity> The OS:activity category can be whatever you like, there are a set of standard categories like blog or map, but you can only set one accelerator per category to be a default, so I suggest making your own category like SMS or ConfigMgr.  The OS:preview action gives you a preview of the page you are going to send it to.  You can remove this if you don't want to see a preview.  The OS:execute action is the page that will actually open when you click on the accelerator.  The method "get" is what passes the parameter name and value to the web page. The biggest problem people have with making your accelerator is that all web address must be in the web page.  So the icon file, the preview page, the execution page and the homepage all have to match. That is basically it for making the accelerator now you have to get it installed.  To do this you have to create an HTML page to install it.  See Below for a sample HTML page. The orange section is the important part of the Html doc. <html> <head>   <title> VIEW SCCM ADMIN Page </title>    </head> <body> <h3>Click on the button below to install the "VIEW SCCM ADMIN Page" IE8 Accelerator</h3> <br/> The "VIEW SCCM ADMIN Page" IE8 Accelerator can be used with Machine names. <br/><br/> <button id="myButton"     onclick="window.external.AddService('http://servername/accelerators/SCCMADM.xml')">     VIEW SCCM ADMIN Page</button> <hr/> <br/> <br/><br>Note:- This Accelerator works in IE8 browser only. <script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript"> </script> <script type="text/javascript"> _uacct = "UA-245201-2"; urchinTracker(); </script> </body> </html> You now just have to put the HTML on a website, you can just copy it into the SMS remote tools page and in your web browser go directly to the HTML file or you can setup a separate page for your accelerators that you create and publish. Once you have the accelerator installed you will want to set this up as your default accelerator for category “ConfigMgr”.  To do this open IE, goto Tools | Manage Add-ons | go to the Accelerators button | Scroll down until you find the “ConfigMgr” section | Highlight your accelerator | click set as default. That is it.  Have fun with it I would like to thank Ron Crumbaker, Sherry Kissinger, and Chris Summers for the above mention articles. - 19 hours ago

  • McAfee - New Corporate and Home Support Forums

      In 1997, our company adopted McAfee as an AV standard for all PCs and servers.  Even durng these early years for the Internet, they were one of the 1st AV Vendors to use public forums to leverage support costs.  I've been a member of these forums for over a dozen years, primarily sharing security news and safe practices.  In November 2009, McAfee implemented a state-of-the-art community forum environment, which includes home and corporate product support forums, security awareness forums, and other resources.  NOW LIVE! McAfee Online Support Community http://www.avertlabs.com/research/blog/index.php/2009/11/04/now-live-mcafee-online-support-community/ QUOTE: The McAfee Online Support Community gives you a way to interact with other McAfee business users to ask questions and share best practices. Additionally, you’ll be able to talk with McAfee professionals about McAfee products, security awareness issues, and emerging trends — plus give us feedback on product and service enhancements. McAfee - Home Page for New Community Forums http://community.mcafee.com/ - 23 hours ago

  • Upgrading your custom wizard panes to MDT 2010 – Database and Webservice calls

    In a previous Post (Making custom database and webservice scripts work again in MDT 2010) I wrote already about some changes in MDT 2010 which make it necessary to update your custom scripts if you are dealing with database and/or webservice calls. Recently I had to upgrade some custom wizards making some webservice calls directly from the wizard (similar to the example posted on Create your custom boot wizard - Display dynamic data). I updated the information about the namespaces and gave it a try, but it was still failing. The problem is, that the Wizard provided with MDT 2010 does not load the ZTIDataAccess.vbs which is necessary to access any data source. The wizard only loads ZTIUtility.vbs on default. in MDT 2008 this was ok as ZTIUtility contained all the Data Access Functions so you could utilize them to e.g. create a list of Roles directly from a webservice. But as we know, this has now been moved to it’s own file ZTIDataAcces.vbs. OK, how do we fix this? The easiest solution is simply reading the content of ZTIDataAccess.vbs dynamically into the running script. Sounds a bit strange but is not as hard as it sounds. Michael Niehaus posted this recently in a Blog Post (Michael Niehaus - MDT 2010 Wizad Example: Role Selection). The following snippet has been taken from his example: ' Make sure that ZTIDataAccess.vbs is available since it isn't loaded by Wizard.hta sScript = oFSO.OpenTextFile(oUtility.ScriptDir & "\ZTIDataAccess.vbs", 1, false).ReadAll On Error Resume Next ExecuteGlobal sScript On Error Goto 0 Looking at this snippet, it will try to load the file and read the content. Then make the content available “globally” by using a helper function called “ExecuteGlobal”. Now the content of ZTIDataAccess.vbs is available for the script and your current database and webservice calls will work again. But you have to do this for every script you are utilizing with the wizard. A more elegant solution would be to have the wizard loading this on default. To be able to achieve this, we need to make a small change in the wizard itself. Yes I know, this is a custom hack, it won’t be supported by Microsoft and you have to redo it again if they update MDT. So you have to ponder this yourself ;-) The “fix” itself is quite simple. Just open the wizard.hat in a texteditor of your choice and search for “ZTIUtility.vbs”. You should end up in line 41 of the wizard.hta. Copy the whole line and paste it in as a new line below the current block of references. In this just pasted new line rename “ZTIUtility.vbs” to “ZTIDataAccess.vbs” and save your changes. This should now look similar to this: If you now place this updated wizard.hta in your “{MDTInstallationFolder}\Templates\Distribution\Scripts” folder (after making a backup of the original file ;-) ) it will be used in all new Deployment shares and Boot images/medias. On existing ones you probably need to update this by hand. From my personal point of view, a long term solution would be to have the MDT Team referencing the ZTIDataAccess.vbs as default in their wizard, as getting information from different sources is an essential feature. At least for me and probably most others ever utilizing this to dynamically influence the deployment. It has been available in the last version so I hope they will make it available again in a future Update/Version. - 24 hours ago

  • Troubleshooting: Advertisement Status for a Specific Advertisement not updating from child site assigned clients

     Issues observed:   Component Status no longer displays most recent results in "Last Status Message" -- date is old The report "Advertisement Status for a specific advertisement" does not correctly reflect clients at child sites' Last Status Message for new advertisements  (they just say "No Status").  That's because the data behind v_clientAdvertisementStatus isn't getting updated. Cause:  Status Filter Rule, "Write all other messages to the site database and specify the period after which the user can delete messages", on the Actions tab in there, do NOT check on the box "Do not forward to status summarizers". That change was inadvertently done, and that broke the summary data getting into v_clientadvertisementstatus . If you're having this issue, (or something similar), also check the "Write audit Messages..." status filter rule as well. PS: Just writing this up mostly for myself.  It was one of those wierd things that took a while to track what changed between a Friday and a Monday (didn't notice the problem over the weekend!).  So since I'm afraid this will end up being one of those nuggets of knowledge where one day I'll say to myself "hmm...I remember seeing that before... now what was it?!) If I blog it, I have a chance of maybe remembering.  Or at least letting a search engine remember for me. - 34 hours ago

  • Book Review: System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Unleashed

    I've had this book for a while, and have meant to write a review.  Finally took a few minutes to write out my thoughts! I really like it.  It covers well all of the aspects of SP1, including some of the newer elements, which a current SMS2003 administrator might have little previous knowledge of, like Native mode, and DCM.  And has some really great step-by-step guides for the most-often used reasons for ConfigMgr, like patching and Software Distribution.  I especially appreciated the "Real World" and other tips when you are planning or configuring--the gotcha's that you might not see as obvious, but are obvious once you read their explanation. As with any technical book, I always learn something new when reading a tech book.  For me, I haven't had a work-related reason (yet) to dive deep into App-v with ConfigMgr, so reading that section gave me a good grounding for when that project comes up (because you know it will eventually). - 34 hours ago

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SolidSnake  says:
3 years ago

Working on MS Products since 1989

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