Category Archives: SCCM

SCCM

Unable to license Office 365 ProPlus

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I don’t know quite how widespread this issue is but it’s something I have had some trouble with on and off since I updated my OS to Server 2019 last year. That said, I’m not saying this is an issue limited to this OS; indeed I have seen it on other OS’s too.

The issue is this : Word will ask you to sign in and after entering your email address, it will freeze for 5 minutes before returning you to the (unlicensed) state you were previously in. Similar with Outlook – you enter your email address and the white password box appears but appear blank and freezes for 5 mins before returning you to the previous (unlicensed) state.

There are a number of things that you might try (including full uninstall/reinstall in desperate cases) but I’ll show you a couple of things you should try before doing this (or calling Microsoft, as they will ask you to do this too, more likely than not).

First – Remove previous license information

  1. Open C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16
  2. From a cmd prompt, type cscript .\OSPP.VBS /dstatus
  3. This will give you a list of previous license keys used. Remove all these using cscript ospp.vbs /unpkey:<5 digit code>

Second – (if the above doesn’t work) Disable Modern Authentication.

Open up regedit and navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\Identity

Add a new DWORD value called EnableADAL with a value of 0.

Open up Outlook and it should now present you with a password window you can actually use. Word/Excel etc should open up as expected.

For a little more info on Modern Authentication in Office 365 see here.

SCCM

Phased deployments not deploying

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AKA…

Exception: System.ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: objectID
at Microsoft.ConfigurationManager.PhasedDeployment.Application.Deploy(IDatabaseOperation databaseOperation, List`1 phases, String phasedDeploymentID, String objectID)
at Microsoft.ConfigurationManager.PhasedDeployment.PODRuleEngine.EvaluatePhasedDeployments(SqlConnection connection)

    I was testing a phased deployment the other day and couldn’t get it to work for the life of me. Although the phased deployment appeared under the Phased Deployments tab for the Office 365 application I was targeting, a corresponding deployment didn’t appear for the phase 1 collection under the Deployments tab.

    I took a look at the SMS_PhasedDeployments.log on the site server and all I could see was the error message above. I would also see it repeat about every 2 minutes as below.

    It kept mentioning there were two phased deployments it was trying to evaluate, but there were no other phased deployments set. There is a well-known bug when a task sequence can get locked and the admin will typically go into the db and remove the offending ID locking the task sequence from the database. Well it turns out this is a similar issue with an equally similar solution.

    SOLUTION:

    1. Go into the ConfigMgr (sorry, Endpoint Manager!) DB and find dbo.PhasedDeployment, right-click the table and click Select Top 1000 rows.
    2. Identify the offending Phased Deployment from the list and copy the PhasedDeploymentID.
    3. Click New Query from the toolbar and type:

    DELETE FROM dbo.PhasedDeployment WHERE PhasedDeploymentID='<PhasedDeploymentID>'

    I would be inclined to delete and recreate your original phased deployment (from the console!) to be sure of a clean deployment but technically you be good from here on.

    SCCM

    Add SSL Certificates For SCCM

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    Arguably there are newer and more fancy ways to do this in recent iterations of SCCM. If you wish to set up a standard internet facing SCCM environment or just an SSL secured environment this is the old skool way.

    CREATE SCCM CERTIFICATES

    1. Open CA | Right-Click Cert Templates > Manage
    2. Right-Click Web Server template > Duplicate template
    3. Open new duplicate template :
      a Request Handling tab: Check ‘Allow private key to be exported’
      b General tab : Change name to “ConfigMgr IIS Cert”, validity 5 years
      c Subject name : default (‘supply in the request’ should be checked)
      d Security tab : remove the ‘Enroll’ permission from Domain Admins and Enterprise Admins, add your SCCM_Site_Servers group and add Enroll and read permission to this group | Click OK
    4. Open CA | Right-Click Cert Templates > Manage
    5. Right-Click Workstation Authentication template > Duplicate template
    6. Open new duplicate template :
      a Compatibility tab: keep defaults (ensure Windows Server 2003)
      b General tab : Change name to “ConfigMgr DP Cert”, validity 5 years
      c Security tab : Add your SCCM_Site_Servers group and add Enroll and read permission to this group | Click OK. Remove ‘Enroll’ for Enterprise Admins. On Request Handling tab, select Allow private key to be exported
    7. Right-Click Workstation Authentication template > Duplicate template
    8. Open new duplicate template :
      a Compatibility tab: keep defaults (ensure Windows Server 2003)
      b General tab : Change name to “ConfigMgr Client Cert”, validity 5 years
      c Security tab : Click ‘Domain Computers’ group and add AutoEnroll and read permission to this group (don’t uncheck ‘enroll’) | Click OK
    9. Open CA | Right-Click Cert Templates > New > Certificate Template to issue
    10. Select the three new certs from the ‘Enable Certificate Templates’ box. | Click OK
    11. Open the GPMC, open default domain policy (or wherever you have your PKI policy)
      a Windows Settings > Security Settings > Public Key Policies > Trusted Root Certification Authorities
      b Open up ‘Certificate Services Client – Auto-Enrollment’. Change ‘Configuration Model’ to ‘Enabled’
      c Check ‘Renew expired certs…’ and ‘Update certificates that use cert templates’

    ADD CERTS TO SCCM

    1. On the DP open the certificate MMC > Computer > Personal > Certificates | Right-click folder > All Tasks > Request New Certificate
    2. Next > Next | On ‘Request Certificates’ page check ‘ConfigMgr DP Cert’ and click ENROLL > Finish
    3. While still in the certs MMC, Right-click the DP cert you have just imported > All Tasks > Export > Next. Select Yes, export private key
    4. Keep defaults on Personal Information Exchange – PKCS #12 (.PFX) and click next.
    5. Enter a password > Next > Save the file as C:\Temp\SCCM_DP_Cert. Click finish
    6. On the MP open the certificate MMC > Computer > Personal > Certificates | Right-click folder > All Tasks > Request New Certificate
    7. Next > Next | On ‘Request Certificates’ page check ‘ConfigMgr IIS Cert’ and click ‘moe information is needed…’ link
    8. Under Subject Name, select ‘Common Name’ and add the name of the server, eg SCCMMP01 > Add
      9.Under Alternative Name, select DNS and add the FQDN of the server > Add
    9. Under the GENERAL tab, add the name of the server as the friendly name
    10. Under the Cert Authority tab, select your CA if it’s not already selected. Select Enroll > Finish.
    11. On the MP (internet facing if there is one) open IIS > Default Web Site > Bindings… | Edit HTTPS
    12. Select the new SSL certificate. If you don’t see HTTPS, click add and create it.
    13. Repeat the above on any other MPs
    14. From the SCCM console go to Admin\Overview\Site Configuration\Sites | Properties > Client Computer Communication. Add the Root CA Certificate you created earlier.
    15. FINALLY!!!! Go to Admin\Overview\Distribution Points | Properties and add the certificate and password you created on the DP in point #5. Rinse and repeat for all your DPs.
      Just select YES if you get a message about it being a copy of one used on another DP.
    16. To add certs for the SUP/WSUS see https://www.petervanderwoude.nl/post/how-to-configure-a-software-update-point-to-use-ssl-for-communicating-with-wsus/
    C#, ConfigMgr 2012, ConfigMgr Current Branch, Front End, OSD / SCCM / MDT, PXE, SCCM, Windows 10

    Simple Configurable Front End SCCM

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    The business of adding a front end for a PXE-driven SCCM OS build is generally a pretty important consideration if you want to specify some basic information prior to deployment. It’s also something that I’ve felt has never been properly addressed by the SCCM development team. To be fair you could argue it’s not their job to do this but with more functionality being adding to every single aspect of SCCM in every new release, it does feel like something that probably should be looked at in the future.

    For now, there are plenty of examples of great front ends on the internet – look up ‘Pretty Good FrontEnd’ by Johan Arwidmark or ‘Pretty Good Front End Clone’ by Maik Koster. These two have been around donkey’s years. One of my favourites is Nicolaj Andersen’s very neat ConfigMgr Front End which offers a whole world of features. Additional infrastructure is necessary to accommodate this however, in the form of web services.

    So why create another? Well I’m certainly not pretending to  set the world alight with some kind of ingenious new approach but I always felt there was just a little too much fiddling about with most of the solutions I saw elsewhere. What I wanted was something I could ideally just drop straight into my WinPE image which would just work.  There are certainly features I could add (and may indeed do so if enough people ask) such as ability to remove certain sections, eg, domain, OS, etc. However in an effort to keep things simple I have left this for now.

    The Front End

    This is a typical illustration of what it looks like in my lab. Most aspects are configurable via a small ini file (yes I know it’s a bit 90’s but let’s face it, it’s a damn sight easier to use than an xml file for this kind of thing). The ini file below is configurable for the OUs in your environment, the domain (or domains) and even colour and font size. One area I went a little off the beaten track is the ability to select different images you want to use in your task sequence. This is great in my lab as I often want to test stuff out on different OS’s and will routinely add a new image when necessary to my tried and trusted task sequence.  As such I’ll detail this a little more.

    If you want to use the same task sequence but have different images available in that sequence, you can enter them in the ini file. Just be sure to enter the appropriate option/filter in appropriate task sequence step. For example, in the image above we have  a number of different OS’s which relate to separate images. Under the INSTALL section of your task sequence you might have one or more separate steps to Install Windows 10, Install Server 2016, etc. On each of these steps, click Options and add a Task Sequence Variable condition, eg:

    TS VARIABLE: OSDImage Equals <Windows 10 1803>

    It is important that the text in the OS box above equals the OSDImage value of your condition. 

    Of course, you can just add a description in the Config.ini file instead and have one image step in your task sequence with no condition set and all will be well. I suspect this is what most people will want. The option to do it this way is just there if you want it.

    CONFIG.INI

    Typical Config.ini settings below. This file must always exist in the exact same folder as the NewFrontEnd.exe executable.

    :: [ORG_UNIT] - Enter all OUs you want displayed in format OU=Dept, OU=Org, DC=domain, DC=suffix one after the other.
:: [DOMAIN] - In most cases, this is more for show but can be used to build a workgroup machine too if WORKGROUP is specified underneath the primary domain.
:: [OS] - If your task sequence can build more than one image, add it here, eg Windows 10 1607 LTSB. Then add a task sequence variable condition called OSDIMAGE and equal it to the image name in your TS.

:: [MISC]
:: LOGO, recommended max size is approx W:120, H:120 for a font size of 8-10
:: BACKGROUND, Enter standard OS colour names, eg Red, DarkRed, Marroon, MidnightBlue, etc
:: FONTSIZE, recommend, 8-10 but it will go bigger. Seems to jump in 2s, eg, 8,10,12, etc. This has a bearing on the size of the form.
:: FONTCOLOR (American spelling, sorry) see BACKGROUND, above.
:: SMSTSPREFERREDADVERTID, If specified, enter the Deployment ID of the task sequence you want to run. This will override any other advertised task sequence either 'available' or 'required' and the wizard won't show.

:: HIRESDISPLAY, If HIRESDISPLAY=True the size of the form is increased so it doesn't get 'scrunched up' on the display. This has been tested against a Surface Pro 4.

:: NOTE - [ORG_UNIT], [DOMAIN] and [OS] should all have at least one value (ideally) so the interface has something to show. Settings under [MISC] can be removed or ignored by adding a semicolon before the setting.

[ORG_UNIT]
OU=Workstations,OU=Bondynet,DC=BONDYNET,DC=org
OU=Servers,OU=Bondynet,DC=BONDYNET,DC=org
OU=Secure Workstations,OU=Bondynet,DC=BONDYNET,DC=org

[DOMAIN]
BONDYNET.org
WORKGROUP

[OS]
Windows 10 1803
Windows 10 1607
Windows Server 2016
Windows 2012 R2
Windows 10 1607 LTSB
Windows 7
Windows 8.1
Windows Server 2008

[MISC]
LOGO=logo-3.png
BACKGROUND=LightSteelBlue
FONTSIZE=8
FONTCOLOR=Black
SMSTSPREFERREDADVERTID=PR120019

    WinPE Setup

    So how do you get this working in WinPE?

    1. Create a share somewhere and drop NewFrontEnd.exe, Config.ini and your company logo png into it (and/or possibly RunFEUI.vbs – see end of post)
    2. In SCCM go to your chosen boot image, right-click | properties | Optional Components. Select Microsoft .NET (WinPE-NetFx). This is a C# application so it needs this option available in your boot image binaries.
    3. Select the Customisation tab. Under Prestart Command Settings enter “X:\sms\PKG\SMS10000\NewFrontEnd.exe”
    4. Select Include files for the prestart command
    5. Select the share you created above with the files in for the source directory.

    If you want to, add a background, click OK  and you’re done. After the update distribution points wizard has completed, double check the Last Update information in the bottom section of the SCCM console to ensure the time matches the time you ran the wizard and everything has updated as it should. This is important as it hasn’t usually finished updating just because the wizard progress bar has completed.

    .

    For The Adventurous.

    One of the neat things about using the above method is that there is no ugly command prompt in the background as it brings up the front end interface. However the downside of this is that all the files are inside your WinPE image so if you want to update them you have to go through the above process once again which is both time consuming and laborious. One solution though is to simply point to a script that will map a drive to a share that exists elsewhere on your network and execute the files from there instead. This facilitates updating the files on the fly.

    In the zip file included below, there is a file called RunFEUI.vbs. Simply open it and edit it to fit your environment (ie edit line 4 with the appropriate drive mapping and account).

    DOWNLOAD HERE:

    NewFrontEnd_v1.2

    Please ask any questions or suggestions for improvements in the comments below.

    [*** UPDATE ***]

    I have added a new variable, HIRESDISPLAY=True. If you have a Surface or another slate type device, it is common to see forms get squashed up. Set this if you need a larger form to display.

    ConfigMgr Current Branch, Office365, SCCM

    Office 365 Client Updates Not Showing Up in SCCM Summary as ‘Required’

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    Had a tag-team of problems with Office 365 Client updates and this one reared its ugly head just a I managed to successfully get the O365 updates syncing successfully.

    The Problem

    Under Software Library|Office 365 Client Management|Office 365 Updates none of the client updates were checking in as ‘required’. Given that the O365 client on 5000-odd machines was at version 16.0.8201.2207 (v1705) this seemed odd to say the least. Everything was set correctly in SCCM for O365 Client Deployment so the summary screen should theoretically be showing that the whole estate needed at least every version beyond this.

    The Solution

    After some considerable digging I discovered that for updates to work in SCCM, the CDNBaseUrl and the UpdateChannel settings in the registry MUST BE IDENTICAL. In my case, whoever had packaged the application had a bogus entry in the UpdateChannel setting that made no sense. I copied the CDNBaseURL setting (something along the lines of http://officecdn.microsoft.com/pr/492350f6-3a01-4f97-b9c0-c7c6ddf67d60) into the UpdateChannel setting, restarted the Microsoft Office Click-To-Run service and ran an update scan and update deployment policy refresh from the SCCM control panel applet. Immediately O365 client updates showed up as required. This can be checked under the following ConfigMgr report:

    Compliance 8 – Computers in a specific compliance state for an update (secondary)

    I then set up a GPO to push this URL out to the estate and watched the count increase.

    ConfigMgr Current Branch, Office365, SCCM, Software Updates

    Failed to download file- “http://officecdn.microsoft.com/xxx/xxx.cab” from internet. Using proxyserver – 0. Error = 12029

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    This one caught me out recently. Scenario:

    All http://officecdn.microsoft.com is whitelisted and available, definitely no issue there.

    • All other updates seem to come down fine.
    • There are no ADR rules at all in place.
    • Running a full sync produces the error below:

    My client downloads updates through a proxy server and naturally the correct details for the proxy were in place on the Site System Settings under Site System Roles. Also the checkbox for Use a proxy server when synchronizing software updates was checked under the Proxy And Account Settings tab under the Software Update Point Properties role.

    SOLUTION:

    Despite the fact that ADRs were NOT created or used in any way, it transpired that the checkbox Use a proxy server when downloading content by using automatic deployment rules also had to be checked. Once this was selected, O365 updates started syncing.

     

    OSD / SCCM / MDT, PXE, SCCM

    PXE only works for X number of clients; DHCP works fine

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    Difficult to pick a snappy title for this so suggestions welcome!

    Anyway, I had an issue recently where we needed to load test 100+ machines, all booted from PXE. All machines were fresh out the box and all ethernet adaptors were fully registered in SCCM in the ignore list. In short, there was no reason for any machine not to PXE boot as expected. All went well until the 29th machine and then every machine thereafter refused to PXE boot. However, they did still receive an IP address. Additionally, the message Server response timeout E-18 flashed up very quickly before booting from the SSD.

    Digging a little further, the machines that were able to PXE boot fine had to receive an IP address between .2 and .31 to work. Any IP after just refused to work.  Having accepted that all was well from a firewall perspective, I was forced to concede that the problem was somehow local.

    Solution:

    To cut a long and boring story short, the problem turned out to be a mis-configured subnet mask on the PXE server, in this case 255.255.255.224 instead of the 255.255.255.0 that it was supposed to be. The PXE server itself was allocated an IP within the range of PXE bootable clients and anything outside the range didn’t work. So easy when you know but one expects the basics to be correct so it took a while to track down. Hopefully this will provide some more ideas for anyone else who finds themselves with a similar issues.

    ConfigMgr 2012, DISKPART, OSD / SCCM / MDT, SCCM, SCCM 1511, SCCM 1602

    0x8007000f Task Sequence Error

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    Really quick post on issue experienced recently.

    We were trying to build some Lenovo T470Ps and one was exhibiting this error just before the task sequence was to start and failed as a result before we even got off the ground. The error translates to The system cannot find the drive specified. However I knew for a fact that the drivers were OK as other T470Ps were building fine.

    Transpires that somewhere along the way, something had indeed got mixed up on the disk and it was having problems with the config. I initially tried a DISKPART then CLEAN but this wasn’t enough and it was continuing to fail.

    In the end I resorted to doing the task sequence’s job manually and recreating the partitions as follows:

    Open CMD prompt (F8):

    1. Diskpart
    2. Select disk 0 (0 being the disk to setup)
    3. Clean
    4. Convert gpt
    5. Create partition efi size=300
    6. Format quick fs=FAT32
    7. Create partition msr size=128
    8. Create partition primary
    9. Assign letter=c
    10.Format quick fs=NTFS

    Exit DISKPART and try again – this time the task sequence continued as expected.

    ConfigMgr 2012, SCCM, Software Updates

    Adding a Software Update Point to a Secondary Site (for those who already know how to add it to the primary site!)

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    This is something I’ve meant to get round to writing about for months as the first time I did this I couldn’t find any direct answers in the multitude of blogs I read about it.

    On the face of things, installing WSUS/SUP on a secondary site sounds pretty straightforward if you’re used to adding them to a primary site but when you start it soon becomes clear there are a few unanswered questions which start to materialise. It’s important to first consider whether a SUP is even required for the secondary site: remember, the update packages will be present anyway. The secondary site SUP is really only there for scanning purposes and to relieve associated traffic which is really quite minimal. Assuming you are over this and need it anyway then here are a few other things to consider, some of which have changed since CM2007.

    1.  Since CM2012, there is now a DB on the secondary site so should we be installing to that?
    2.  WSUS Content?
    3. How does it interact with the Primary SUP?

    This blog is only intended to answer one or two questions you might have as regards specifics of installing on a secondary site and there are plenty of answers out there for general installation. In short, the SUP on the secondary site is a secondary SUP and when you install it ConfigMgr will actually take care of marrying it up to the Primary SUP.

    So the high level tasks are as follows:

    1. Install the pre-req’s for a Software Update Point. I thoroughly recommend Nickalaj A’s PreRequisite Tool  for this job, see https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/ConfigMgr-2012-R2-e52919cd. I must confess this has made me lazy and I barely remember what the pre-reqs are these days but to be honest I don’t need to with this.
    2. Install the database on the secondary site SQL instance. Best practice is to have separate instances but I’ll leave that to you. Personally I don’t find there is any real performance issues using the same instance. Also, as an aside, if you have full SQL on the primary, (and you will) then I don’t really see why you wouldn’t use it on the secondary. Why use SQL Express when the licence is free for the full version? Just my opinion though.
    3. WSUS Content should always be local. It’s a requirement to specify this during installation but it’s not really used when part of a SUP in ConfigMgr.
    4. Finally, after WSUS installation, add the SUP role to the site. ConfigMgr will take care of the rest. Click on the secondary site under  the Sites node, and click the SUP under the site component properties to check the sync status. It should be greyed out because SCCM has recognised it as a child of the primary SUP.
    5. A good, detailed explanation of the whole process can be found here

    Happy Deployments…