SCCM and other IT stuff

Download an appx application locally to be used in SCCM CB I got some inspiration to this blogpost from: http://woshub.com/how-to-download-appx-installation-file-for-any-windows-store-app/ Here is an easy way to download an appx from Microsoft store. This can be used to add an appx application in SCCM CB and the distribute it to devices. Why all this hazzle, when you can get the app from the store? Quite simple: our company policy don't allow app update over the Internet Requirement: The application must be installed, to be able to copy the download link. Next: Search for the application and chose share. (Sorry for the danish. Lommeregner = Calculator) In the share dialog box, select copy link Browse to this URL:  https://store.rg-adguard.net/  and paste the URL into the textbox Find lines with the version number you would like to download and place them all in the same folder. Also download the files for x86 & x64 or an easier way...

Agent fail to download policies Agent fails to download it’s policies and there is no errors on management point and the  ClientIDManagerStartup.log  shows [RegTask] –  Client is already registered. Exiting . Uninstall of the agent ( ccmsetup.exe  /uninstall) and reinstalling do not help at all. The issue is that the uninstall do not clean up in ROOT\CCM in WMI Run this line in a admin powershell prompt: Get-WMIObject -namespace “root” -query “SELECT * FROM __Namespace where name = ‘ccm’” | remove-wmiobject Then run the agent installation and grab a cup of coffe, and the agent will installed and are able to download it’s policies After a few SCCM minutes it will be active and have the “green” icon in the console

List applications in a task sequence Ever needed to list all  applications  in a Tasksequence via powershell? Function TaskSequenceReferences()   {   $AllTS = Get-CMTaskSequence | select Name, sequence   Foreach($TSName in $ AllTS.name )   {   $TS = Get-CMTaskSequence -Name “$TSName” | select Sequence   $TSxml = ConvertTo-Xml $TS#.Sequence   [xml]$XML = $TSxml.OuterXml.Replace(‘&gt;’,’>’).Replace(‘&lt;’,'<‘)   #Application info   $AppList = ($XML.SelectNodes(“//defaultVarList/variable”) | Where-Object {$_.property -like    “AppInfo*DisplayName”}).’#text’      Foreach($Appl in $AppList)     {     Write-Host $Tsname”,”$Appl     } } }

Phased deployments Applications: If you're looking into phased deployments and wonder why you can't create more than two phases for an application, then it is quite simple. It is not supported with more than two deployments for applications. You can't currently manually create phases for an application. The wizard automatically creates two phases for application deployments. Create phased deployments with Configuration Manager Tasksequences: It is another story for Task Sequences and Software Updates Hrmmmm: I do not understand why Microsoft has made the limitation for Applications, apparently they have done the hard work coding the framework to work with TS & SUP, so why not Applications??

Server Groups aka Device Availability Groups - and MS finally gave it its new name:  Orchestration Groups 28 september 2019 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/core/get-started/2019/technical-preview-1909 The feature was introduced way back in technical preview 1602 and and is still only available as a pre-release. At MMS 2019 the product group introduced the new name and look for server groups and it seem to be Device Availability Group. the feature has been recoded and will now have its own node in the console. (sorry for the pic quality, it was screen captured during the session at MMS) It was not 100 % clear what kind of deployments the feature will support, so I asked @Djammmer on twitter if they will support updates, applications and packages. It is a good start, but it will be required with support for all deployment types, otherwise it will be quite difficult to get the full benefit for device availability groups