System Management

Recently I reinstalled ConfigMgr server in my company and was looking for an easy method to upgrade all Configuration Manager clients to 4.00.6487.2000 version.
Put some notes on the table and finally made the following plan:

• Create a report that counts all client versions. (This is optional, just for information purposes).
  Report query is:

  SELECT TOP (100) PERCENT Client_Version0 AS [ConfigMgr client version], COUNT(Client_Version0) AS Total
FROM dbo.v_R_System GROUP BY Client_Version0, Client0 HAVING (Client0 = 1)
ORDER BY Total DESC, [ConfigMgr client version]

• Create a collection (“Older Clients” for example) with all system resources with a client version not 4.00.6487.2000.
  Collection query is:

  SELECT SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceID, SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceType, SMS_R_SYSTEM.Name, SMS_R_SYSTEM.SMSUniqueIdentifier, SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceDomainORWorkgroup, SMS_R_SYSTEM.Client
FROM SMS_R_System
WHERE SMS_R_System.ClientVersion != "4.00.6487.2000"

  This way, system resources with older client version will be members of this collection.

• Created a package and program with ConfigMgr client upgrade with custom command line parameters.
  Program command line is:

  CCMSETUP.EXE /noservice SMSSITECODE=CFM SMSCACHESIZE=1024 SMSSLP=CFM.DOMAIN.COM SMSMP=CFM.DOMAIN.COM RESETKEYINFORMATION=TRUE

• Advertised it to “Older Clients” collection.

Now, as system resources with older client version are members of this collection they will receive the advertisement and will silently install the latest ConfigMgr client.

When the collection will have no system resources, I will know that all clients are upgraded. Also, I can check this by opening the same report from any browser on any computer.

Recently, I needed a collection with all computers that do not have Adobe Reader 9 installed.

I created a collection with this query: SMS_G_System_ADD_REMOVE_PROGRAMS.DisplayName not like "%Adobe Reader 9%". Everything was fine except the fact that my computer was also listed, despite the fact that I have Adobe Reader 9 installed. Well, I’m not an SQL geek but I know that SMS_G_System_ADD_REMOVE_PROGRAMS.DisplayName like "%Adobe Reader 9%" should return all computers with Adobe Reader 9 installed. This one was ok – the collection listed only me. Something was wrong with my first query so I asked for help our SQL guys and in a few minutes I had the right query

Also, I didn’t want to install the Reader on server computers with SCCM client. So the final query looked like this:

select SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceID, SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceType, SMS_R_SYSTEM.Name, SMS_R_SYSTEM.SMSUniqueIdentifier, SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceDomainORWorkgroup, SMS_R_SYSTEM.Client from SMS_R_System inner join SMS_G_System_COMPUTER_SYSTEM on SMS_G_System_COMPUTER_SYSTEM.ResourceID = SMS_R_System.ResourceId where SMS_R_System.OperatingSystemNameandVersion not like "%Server%" and SMS_G_System_COMPUTER_SYSTEM.Name not in (select distinct SMS_G_System_COMPUTER_SYSTEM.Name from SMS_R_System inner join SMS_G_System_COMPUTER_SYSTEM on SMS_G_System_COMPUTER_SYSTEM.ResourceID = SMS_R_System.ResourceId inner join SMS_G_System_ADD_REMOVE_PROGRAMS on SMS_G_System_ADD_REMOVE_PROGRAMS.ResourceID = SMS_R_System.ResourceId where SMS_G_System_ADD_REMOVE_PROGRAMS.DisplayName like "%Adobe Reader 9%")

I’m sure there are more ways to do this, but this is the query that worked for me.

Last week I tested how Office 2007 installs via Group Policy.

I created a software installation package and it worked successful; except the fact that it is not fully installed when a user logs on and that it will not upgrade (or remove) the existing version of Office even if I added the Office 2003 package that should be upgraded. After the Office 2007 installs, the users will have both version of Office – 2007 and 2003.

This is because Microsoft changed a little the way Office 2007 installs; and here they explain why they did this. Bellow are some considerations from that article:

• Difficulties with scheduling installation, consistently managing network bandwidth, and providing feedback on the status of the installation.
• Limited ability to customize features or user settings before installation of the 2007 Office system. You cannot use Office Customization Tool to create an .msp file. All customizations have to be made in the Config.xml file.

So, the best way to install Office 2007 in a medium organization is to use System Center Essentials or Configuration Manager in a large organization. Using these tools you can know exactly what features to install, when to install and how to install or upgrade Office 2007 suite.