SCCM Tips, Scripts and Tools

Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) is a versatile and powerful tool for managing devices, applications, and updates in an organization's IT environment. Among its many features, SCCM allows you to deploy software to your end-users in two primary ways: Applications and Packages. Although both methods have a similar goal, they have some key differences that IT administrators should understand when choosing the appropriate deployment method. In this blog post, we will explore these differences and help you decide which option is best for your organization. Definition and Deployment Scenarios SCCM Applications: An SCCM Application is a high-level, user-centric deployment method that focuses on providing the desired user experience. Applications are designed to be state-based, meaning they can detect if the application is already installed and only perform the necessary actions if the application is not present or if a newer version is available. Applications are suita...

  In the last day or so CVE-2022-29072  was released. This is a vulnerability that allows an attacker to use a malformed 7zip archive to gain local administrator rights to a computer. Until an official patch is released one of the recommended ways to resolve this is to remove the 7-zip.chm file as it is the Windows help system. We have put together a script to do just that.   $Vols = Get-Volume | Where-Object -Property DriveType -NE "CD-ROM" | Where-Object -Property DriveLetter -ne $null foreach ( $V in $Vols ) { $Files = ( Get-ChildItem -Path $( $V.DriveLetter + ":\" ) -Recurse -Filter "7-zip.chm" ).FullName foreach ( $F in $Files ) { Remove-Item $F -Force } } You can plug this script into an SCCM package to deploy to all your systems. Since 7zip offers a portable version and some software uses 7zip as a built-in utility we made the script scan all volumes on the computer that are not CD-ROM drives and that have a...

One common issue we face as SCCM Admins is trying to keep common software up to date. Things like Chrome, Firefox, and VSCode always have new updates and maintaining that across Application deployments and Task Sequences can be tricky. I have started to use some script wrappers to help with this. These scripts are able to be packaged up as an application and deployed however you need it to be used.  I have created 2 scripts for each application, First is the app.ps1 and the second is install.cmd. The app.ps1 script is what does all the heavy lifting, the script will download the latest version and install it as well as find the needed string to run an uninstall command so an uninstall action can be provided in Software Center. The install.cmd script is a simple batch script that executes the ps1 script. I have included this to make it easy to create an application for the script as well as provide a simple way for a technician to run the scripts independently of Software Center or ...

  A new version of the windows 10 setup script has been added to our PowerShell gallery repository. We have made a few changes that not only make the script easier to read and understand but also add more functionality to the script. One of these changes is adding the ability to disable SMBv1. By disabling SMBv1 you can add more security to your devices as many crypto viruses use this to encrypt all your data. Disabling the protocol helps to prevent these types of attacks on your data. We have also added a Parameter to the scrip that gives you the ability to disable location and tracking services on the OS. This will provide better privacy and further reduce resource consumption on the device. More information about the script can be found on our official Windows 10 Setup Script page along with links to download the new version. 

 When a little after windows 10 build updates started coming out Microsoft released a new feature in SCCM called Windows 10 Serving. This feature is used to deploy windows 10 build to devices, However the deployment status and some of the reporting are not always the most accurate. So I will show you away that you can deploy the update using a standard application deployment. You will need to enable the windows 10 serving feature in your SCCM environment or have access to a SCCM setup that has windows 10 serving enabled.  If you dont have it enabled here is a good way to do so  Download the Windows 10 Serving Update, to do so find the update and right click Download  Once you have the update downloaded navigate to the path you downloaded the update to and copy the content of the GUID folder to a folder in your content library source. You should see a esd file and a WindowsUpdateBox.exe file in the folder. In the folder you copied the content to create a bat fil...

I have just released a new version of my windows 10 setup script. If you are unfamiliar with the script, the script is designed to be used in a SCCM task sequence to clean up a Windows 10 image during the deployment steps. The script can be used to remove built in windows 10 apps,Export a Custome Start Menu config file,Import a default start menu config file, Disable OneDrive, Disbale Cortana, Disable Hibernate, Join a workstation to a domain, Rename the workstation, Set the page file size, Disable Windows Tips, Disable the Consumer experience and Disable the Xbox Services. Even tho the script is designed to work in SCCM it can be used on the image before you have deployed the computer. You can get the script from here https://github.com/mosaicMK/Windows-10-Setup For more information on how to use the script in a SCCM TS https://www.sccmtst.com/2018/01/sccm-task-sequence-gui-how-to-set-up-ts.html  Othere tools can be found here http://www.mosaicmk.com

Queries that can be used for SCCM collections All Windows 7 Computers 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_OPERATING_SYSTEM on SMS_G_System_OPERATING_SYSTEM.ResourceId = SMS_R_System.ResourceId where SMS_G_System_OPERATING_SYSTEM.Caption like "Microsoft Windows 7%" Windows 7 x86 Computers 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_PROCESSOR on SMS_G_System_PROCESSOR.ResourceID = SMS_R_System.ResourceId inner join SMS_G_System_OPERATING_SYSTEM on SMS_G_System_OPERATING_SYSTEM.ResourceId = SMS_R_System.ResourceId where SMS_G_System_PROCESSOR.AddressWidth = 32 and SMS_G_System_OPERATING_SYSTEM.Captio...

Some of you may have had the issue where the ISS Application pool for WSUS keeps stopping. In most cases the stop is do the the Application Pool needs to use more memory then it is configured to use. 1. The way to resolve this is to open IIS expand the node and click on application pools in the list find the Application Pool called WsusPool and right click on it choosing Advanced settings. 2. In the Advanced Settings window scroll to the bottom, You are looking for "Private Memory Limit (KB)" 3. Once you find the settings change it to a larger amount be sure you do not set it higher then the memory you have installed on the server. Settings the amount to 0 will get it to unlimited. That's it once you click ok you should stop having this issue.

SCCM is able to do a lot but sometimes you need to sometimes you need to Install software uninstall the old version move some config files then remove a old shortcut and this all needs to be done as an application deployment. By default SCCM isn't able to handle all of that as an application deployment so you will need a scrip to do it. A while ago I was given a scrip that dose all of that and more the script was old and not all parts of it functioned  so I doctored it up and made it a little more user friendly. The scrip is called Install-Wrapper.ps1 is very easy to use.  You can get all the scripts from HERE To start enter the appropriate information under Software Information and uncommnet the actions you want to run. Then in SCCM create an Application for the script and for the install parameter enter. powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -NoProfile -File Install-Wrapper.ps1 The msi file should also be in the same folder as the script. If yo...

For some addons and features you will sometimes need to add additional components to your SCCM boot image, things like PowerShell and HTML support. I will show you how you can do this for your x64 boot images. To do this for x86 images just replace x64 in the file paths with x86. 1. Create a folder where you keep your content called BootImages 2. Create a folder called Custom-x64 or something that will tell you what boot image is held in this folder. 3. Navigate to \\<SiteServer\SMS_<sitecode>\osd\boot\x64\ .  In this location you should see a boot.wim file, this is the built in boot image file. Copy this file to the folder you created in step 2 4. Open your SCCM Management console and navigate to Software Library > Boot Images. Create a folder called Custom 5. Click on the folder you just created then from the top ribbon click add Boot Image  6. Navigate to the Boot.wim file you put in the BootImages\Custom-x64 folder 7. Give the Image a good d...

Before I have posted how you can create a TS for windows 10 , add a GUI to your TS and run a script to configure your windows 10 install . However all of this has become out dated and so I wanted to update all of that. This how to will walk you through how to create a TS that will allow you to choose a windows 10 or windows 7 image, name the computer, add the computer description to AD, Choose form a list what applications you want to install, Choose to enable BitLocker and set the PIN as well as create a local account. Prerequisites: MDT integrated to SCCM A boot image with the following components added Windows Powershell(WinPE-DismCmdlest) HTML(WinPE-HTA) Microsoft .NET (WinPE-NetFx) Windows Powershell (WinPE-Powershell) A windows 10 and windows 7 image  1. Download the package I have put together containing the scripts you will need https://github.com/sccmtst/SCCM-Management-Scripts/tree/master/TSGUI 2. If you have not already done so download and in...