Productive IT Management Insights | Configuration Manager

Automating Application Creation in ConfigMgr with ITS Partners

Anyone who has ever created an application in Configuration Manager knows that they can be a bit more complex than creating a package. Today we wanted to talk about how ITS Partners can simplify application creation within your Configuration Manager...

6 Commonly Misconfigured SQL Server settings in Microsoft Configuration Manager Environments

When working in customer environments, we commonly see a lack of oversight of the Configuration Manager database instance. Often combined with a general lack of familiarity with the settings configured, or teams having the ability to rely on other...

Windows Imaging and Configuration Designer (ICD) / Windows ADK Insider Preview Build 15021 – Part 2 – Provisioning School Devices

Note: This is part 2 of a series of posts. I decided to break this topic up into multiple posts and to release a post a day to try and keep the content short(er) and retain-able. Sometimes when we have a lot put in front of us all at once, an...

Windows Imaging and Configuration Designer (ICD) / Windows ADK Insider Preview Build 15021 – Part 1 – Simple Provisioning

Note: This is part 1 of a series of posts. I decided to break this topic up into multiple posts and to release a post a day to try and keep the content short(er) and retain-able. Sometimes when we have a lot put in front of us all at once, an overly...

Troubleshooting PowerShell DSC in a Configuration Manager Task Sequence using ServiceUI.exe and CMTrace.exe

These past couple months I have been playing around with a lot of PowerShell. Particulary in the form of GUIs and Desired State Configuration (DSC). Today I am here to talk about a nifty little utility that is part of the Microsoft Deployment...

Applying Windows Updates using the Windows 7 Convenience Rollup in Configuration Manager or MDT

In this post I am going to review the process of applying the Windows 7 Convenience roll-up package during the image build and capture process. (This is not a service pack, as a service pack would extend OS supportability.) Edit 05/27/2016: It has...

Extending the Configuration Manager (Current Branch) Console – Part 1

In my next series of posts, I will be talking about extending the Configuration Manager (Current Branch) console. This is a topic I am just starting to dig into myself, so follow along and we can learn together.

Package Creation Internals in Configmgr

In this article, I will describe in depth how a package and program is created. Why the older package and program process and not the newer application model? The application method may come next, but mostly I wrote this to share the information...

10 Things You Must Know Before Your Next Windows Deployment

This is the first article in a series of articles on Windows 10 deployment and management. In this first article, I will cover some of the basics for a refresher or if Windows 10 is your first time deploying an OS. I will also cover what has...

Applying Windows 10 Provisioning Packages

With the release of Windows 10, we also seen the introduction of the Windows Image and Configuration Designer. The WICD tool is the utility that allows us to create and modify provisioning packages or a provisioned Image build. The goal of this...

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