SoftwareCentral 5.7 release - What's new!?

What’s new in SoftwareCentral 5.7?

To start with, this blog will not show all new changes, but the once that I thought would be great to show you.

AD MODULE

In SoftwareCentral, if you are a customer with the AD module, it will be possible to track the events while the user were granted local administrator permission.

 An example where I granted local admin permission to a test computer. Steam were installed during the lease period.

SoftwareCentral are able to revert the action from within the “Show overview” menu in certain cases. Example: A user created a new account with permissions on the local computer.

All software installed during the period will show. 

Note: that software installed via SCCM also will show as the data will be read from WMI.

Changes of interface for a better overview

 New tabs added which give a much smoother overview of the process.

DEPLOYMENT MANAGER

This function helps support / help desk to be more productive and solve issues by themselves.

In the deployment manager we can deploy software or operating systems more dynamically. 

What is new in this module is the overview

All deployments can be tracked by this overview without having to go to the config mgr console and monitor tab.

If we open a view to see further information

Based on the error SoftwareCentral will suggest what to do

SOFTWARE SELF SERVICE

Added a better overview to where the package / application are visible.

You can assign software based on collection membership or AD group membership. When assigning to collections this includes device collections and can be a very good idea to use in a migration project from Windows 7 to Windows 10, as software only available for Windows 10 and vice versa will be available for the end user.

The software shown are available for Domain users which typically all users of an Active Directory will be in.

Enhanced search possibility makes it better for the end-user if typo errors sneak in.

Remove client from OSD collection

Case:

You use required deployments on your OSD task sequence with a "always rerun" option. You like to remove that client from OSD collection as soon it has finished deploying successfully.

Solution:

Go to technet and download this script.
https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Remove-client-from-SCCM-92cc46e0

Edit the script and change the values:

Save the script and copy it to the SCCM primary server.

Open the Configuration Manager Console

Go to

\Administration\Overview\Site Configuration\Sites

1.       Give it a name: Remove from OSD collections where TS "bla bla" are deployed.

2.       Tick Source

3.       Choose Client

4.       Tick Message ID

5.       Insert 11143 which is the message ID for a successful finalized task sequence.

6.       Click on Actions pane.

1.       Tick Run a program

2.       Insert 

C:\Windows\System32\cscript.exe <scriptpath>\RemoveFromOsdCollectionV3.0.vbs PRI00023 %msgsys

(where PRI00023 is the package ID of the task sequence)

3.       Click OK

Logging looks like this:

Now the client will be removed from any collection where that task sequence are deployed.
Thanks to Max and Holger who contributed to the script.

Distribution Point with negativ content status

Case:

You have a primary site on 1702 with installed distribution point.

Error:

Content status are showing negative count

Solution:

Open SQL Management studio.
Open a query on the sccm database
Run this query: exec spRebuildContentDistribution 1

Your status will be nice and green.

If you are still on 1702 you should apply a hotfix first.

SCCM Applications hang during OSD

Case:

Installing applications during OSD task sequence. This applies to static applications as well as dynamic applied applications using variables.

Error:

Application started to hang and randomly installed on some clients and not others.
You see lots of errors in different logs.

CAS.log

SMSTS.log

DataTransferService.log

So the client running OSD are trying to access the peers to access the content which will not be allowed during this stage. When it finally tries to access the correct distribution point stated in the boundary group it is already exhausted.

Solution:

Disable peer cache in client settings.

It should be enough, but it isn't. Clients will not change this setting back to normal. So I used Umair Khan's guide to help the client's understand that they should react normal and not as peers.

This is still not enough. Found out that if there exist information in the sccm database in the following 2 tables:

SuperPeers
SuperPeersContentMap

The client running OSD will still try to access content on peers. Therefore we need to delete all content of these tables: (make sure to backup you system first. If it is virtual then shutdown the server and make a snapshot)

Go to SQL Management studio and run query on the sccm database:

Delete from SuperPeers
Delete from SuperPeersContentMap

Then your OSD will work as expected, and your application will install like before this setting was applied.

SoftwareCentral - Manage Tools

Case:

SoftwareCentral is a product located on top of Configuration Manager. In this blogpost i will cover how you can use a certain part of the tool to do exactly what you like it to do!


First of all I have coded a powershell script with a GUI. That powershell script are specifically created to help ServiceDesk to be more productive.

unable to find a partition on the system disk that can be set as active

Case:

Trying to run unknown computer support in sccm and prestage the device to make it automatically prestage a boot image and start deployment.
In this case we use a HTA, it could be powershell or other script languages as prestart command.

Error:

When unknown computer become known, and start to prestage the winpe file to continue the OSD journey, it fails. Computer will boot into windows or in a system failure.


If we look into the logs x:\windows\temp\smsts\smsts.log it says:


unable to find a partition on the system disk that can be set as active




So the currently loaded configuration are not able to save binaries to the current harddrive state. This could be because of booting to winpe legacy and the harddrive formatet as GPT or vice versa.
simply does not harmonize.

Solution:

First we need a solution to determine which state the winpe will be bootet into. It can be 2 states, either UEFI or legacy. We need to know this because we need to format the disk.




Create a vbscript and insert this code:


set env = CreateObject("Microsoft.SMS.TSEnvironment")
set wshell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")


UEFI = env("_SMSTSBootUEFI")


If UEFI = "false" then
 wshell.run "DISKPART /s Diskpart.txt", 1, True
else
 wshell.run "DISKPART /s Diskpartuefi.txt", 1, True
End if


wshell.run "X:\sms\pkg\sms10000\HTA_Dynamic.hta", 1, true


As you see there is 2 txt files in the code. We need to create those as well. Use notepad and paste the code into them.


diskpart.txt:
select disk 0
clean
create partition primary
select partition 1
format fs=ntfs quick
assign letter=C
active


diskpartuefi.txt:
select disk 0
clean
convert gpt
create partition primary size=2048
format quick fs=ntfs label="Windows RE tools"
assign letter="T"
create partition efi size=512
format quick fs=fat32 label="System"
assign letter="S"
create partition msr size=128
create partition primary
format quick fs=ntfs label="Windows"
assign letter="C"

Save all 3 files on a unc path where you can reach them.

ex.

\\share\pkgsource$\OSD\x64\Windows PE\Media\Deploy

go to sccm console

\Software Library\Overview\Operating Systems\Boot Images

And choose properties on the boot image used for unknown computer support.

Choose Customization

Insert commandline

wscript.exe X:\sms\pkg\sms10000\RunHTA.vbs

tick include files and point to the unc path where you put the 3 files created earlier.

Save and update distribution point, and your unknown computer support will always be in sync no matter if you change from UEFI to Legacy or vice versa.


Happy deployment.

SYSPRP Failed to remove apps for the current user: 0x80073cf2.

Case:

Trying to create new image of inplace upgraded Windows 10 can result in sysprep error due to windows store apps.

Error:

Error found in syp
In this case it was the miracast app that failed.

SYSPRP Package Windows.MiracastView_6.3.0.0_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewy was installed for a user, but not provisioned for all users. This package will not function properly in the sysprep image.

SYSPRP Failed to remove apps for the current user: 0x80073cf2.

Generally this would be easy to deal with because we have powershell.

Remove-AppxPackage -Package YourApp

But in this case this will only result in errors and more errors. It simply does not work.

Solution:

 On a working windows 10 1703 copy folder C:\Windows\MiracastView

1. Copy MiracastView folder to your upgraded virtual image machine to the same location.
2. Open Powershell with administrativ permissions.
3. Get-AppxPackage -name "*mira*" (screenshot 1)
4. Copy PackageFullName
5. Remove-AppxPackage -Package Windows.MiracastView_6.3.0.0_........ (screenshot 2)

Screenshot1

Screenshot 2

Miracast app will be removed, and you can start sysprep again.