SCCMNAP

Phoenixtekk has pulled 4 new opportunities from the event this year and so far have partnered with 2 companies. We always new Phoenixtekk had potential with the business model we have decided to run with. Stay tuned for more information on a New initiative called The Phoenixtekk Cannel. Thank you all for participating and creating the myITforum community.

 

Richard Dixon CEO
Phoenixtekk, SCCM Architects

Trackback: http://blog.sharepointsite.co.uk/2010/11/could-not-load-webconfig-configuration.html

Problem: I can’t debug my SharePoint projects using Visual Studio 2010 (VS). I get the error "Could not load the Web.config configuration file. Check the file for any malformed XML elements, and try again. The following error occurred: Cannot connect to the SharePoint site. If you moved this project to a new computer or if the Url of the SharePoint site has changed since you created the project, update the Site Url property of the project." in VS when I try debug.

When Configuration Manager and WSUS use the same SQL Server, one should use a named instance and one should use the default instance of SQL Server.

When the Configuration Manager 2007 and WSUS databases use the same SQL Server and share the same instance of SQL, it is difficult to determine the resource usage between the two applications. Using a different SQL instance for Configuration Manager 2007 and WSUS provides the ability to better troubleshoot and diagnose resource usage issues that might occur for each application.

Follow these steps :

1. Go to  "Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\Template\DocumentTemplates" .
   
2. Open "wkpstd.aspx" file.
3. Search for tag "SharePoint:RecentChangesMenu".
4. Add visible="false"  at the end of this tag.
5. Save this file & refresh SharePoint site .

Trackback: http://sharepointgauravgoyal.blogspot.com/2011/04/hide-recently-modified-items.html

.NET Memory management is an impressive and comprehensive system, but it’s not flawless, and can be anti-intuitive. As a result, there are a few common misconceptions which need to be dispelled before you can really get the most out of the .NET framework.

.NET Memory management is an impressively complex process, and most of the time it works pretty well. However, it’s not flawless, and neither are we developers, so memory management problems are still something that a skilled developer should be prepared for. And while it’s possible to have useful information about .NET memory management and write better code without fully understanding the black box inside the framework, there are a few common misconceptions which need to be dispelled before you can really get started:

1. A garbage collector collects garbage
2. Doing lots of gen₀ collections is bad
3. Performance counters are great for understanding what is happening
4. .NET doesn’t leak memory
5. All objects are treated the same

Trackback:http://www.simple-talk.com/dotnet/performance/the-top-5-.net-memory-management-misconceptions/?utm_source=simpletalk&utm_medium=email-main&utm_content=rickyleeks-20110808&utm_campaign=.NET

MDOP 2011 R2 is generally available and can be downloaded from the Microsoft Volume Licensing website, MSDN and TechNet. This version of MDOP includes Microsoft BitLocker Administration and Monitoring (MBAM) which is brand new to MDOP, and updates to the Microsoft Diagnostic and Recovery Toolkit (DaRT) 7.0, and Microsoft Asset Inventory Service 2.0.

Microsoft BitLocker Administration and Monitoring (MBAM):

Building on BitLocker in Windows 7, MBAM will help simplify BitLocker provisioning and deployments, improve compliance and reporting, and reduce support costs. To simplify provisioning and deployment, MBAM integrates into your existing Windows 7 deployment process to help automate the encryption process. If you have already deployed Windows 7 but have not enabled BitLocker, you can now have your end users with standard user permissions can start the encryption process. You can also target BitLocker encryption by targeting hardware by make and model, making sure that only machines capable of meeting the encryption policy are encrypted.

 

Microsoft Diagnostic and Recovery Toolkit 7.0 (DaRT):

Building on our previous version to help drive the cost to support Windows based PCs even lower. DaRT 7.0 will speed up recovery and provide IT organizations with more flexible ways to deploy it. In this version we provide flexible deployment options like network boot (PXE), USB, or via the local recovery partition, on top of the CD and DVD method we already have. Just think, you can now walk an end user through the network boot process over the phone and help them troubleshoot their machine without leaving your desk. To make it even easier to not have to visit the user’s desk, DaRT also now includes software based remote control so can securely diagnose and recover PCs. DaRT also now gives you the ability to restrict end-user access to DaRT tools while making these same tools available to you. This is achieved using the remote control feature so end users cannot use the tools without the remote session being active.

 

Trackback: http://blogs.technet.com/b/mdop/archive/2011/08/01/mdop-2011-r2-generally-available-get-mbam-and-dart-7-0-today.aspx

Today was a significant day in the development of IPv6. Today is IPv6′s Bar Mitzvah, Baha’i, Shinbyu ceremony, Genpuku ceremony and Quinceañera all rolled into one. It was a day where IPv6 could prove to the world that it was ready for duty as the Internet Protocol successor to IPv4. Those are pretty big shoes to fill and IPv6 has had some stumbles in the past decade. This article covers what was learned by this big Internet experiment.

IPv6 has been stuck in this "Chicken and the Egg" problem for years where the ISPs and content providers are pointing fingers at each other. The ISPs didn’t want to deploy IPv6 if their customers weren’t asking for it because there wasn’t any content on the Internet reachable over IPv6. Content providers couldn’t connect their content to the Internet with IPv6 because they lacked IPv6 connectivity options. Additional complications have been added with the discovery of some "IPv6 Brokenness" that exists on the Internet. This has caused many content providers to separate their IPv4-only and their IPv6-only web presence with two URLs. World IPv6 Day was a single 24-hour period where content providers would bravely have their primary web site handle both IPv4 and IPv6 connections. The web site operators published an authoritative A record and AAAA record for their primary FQDN hostname and learn about what problems they encounter.

Read the full story: http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/world-ipv6-day-results

Back in July 2007, Amith Krishnan, senior product manager for NAP at Microsoft, appeared on my podcast (StillSecure After All These Years podcast) to talk about Microsoft’s announced support for the Trusted Computing Group’s TNC standard, Trusted Network Connect.

As part of that announcement, Microsoft claimed they would open up the NAP agent to other platforms. But rather than develop Linux and Mac NAP clients, Microsoft would make the technology available for third parties who could create NAP agents for non-Microsoft operating systems. True to Amith’s word, UNETsystem announced NAP compatible versions of their AnyClick product for Linux and Macintosh OS X operating systems. Microsoft NAP and network access control (NAC) are technologies I’m very familiar with, having created a product in this space with my former company, StillSecure.

Read the full story: http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/21928

Good Points are collection articles that has helped me out in one way or another. I consider these articles or blogs as having a real answer or a solution that really works in a given situation. I decided to aggregate articles and blogs that I have either used or assisted me in some solution or project. If you run across a Good Point, know that it has a solution or answer to it if the issue matches your current problem.

I decided to aggregate and group these types of articles together due to the fact that I build solutions many times over and as we all know we can now remember everything in IT even though memory is a BIG part this type of career. Not all of us leaves a comment when we find a solution or answer that helps us. So I decided to start grouping any solution or answer that has helped me under the Good Point Category which is another way of spreading the posters answer in the community.

Help Spread the word of good solutions or answers by labeling articles that has help you as a Good Point.

Phoenixtekk Good Point

I decided to do some research and see if I can learn the market and currency exchange. So I opened up what they call a practice account with $10,000 dollars. This is a way to play with the market and get use to the trader program without really using your money first. Now learning the trader application was easy to catch on to. Making the right sell and buys is the important part along with understanding the charts and how news and events affects the market. Well I put together a strategy, using Expert Advisors, expert advisors are little custom scripts that run against the numbers and help tell you when to buy or not, or auto buy or sell. Learning the code for the MQ4 language will take some time, but I got the basic working. I also used an Indicator a friend from Russia gave me, It showed a downward trend with a bit upwards trend near the end of the period I planned to use. So I trusted my learning and the education I gave myself over the weekend and left the program running overnight. With the market closing at 5PM in New York, the $10,000.00 i started with was $12,057.65 by morning. I think I got the hang of this so I’m trying the real thing next week giving myself sometime to read up on this currency exchange a bit more just to ensure I did what I think did. .

Richard Dixon

The computing industry is embracing cloud computing with astounding speed. For any company to remain relevant, they must develop tools that work in and with the cloud computing eco-system. We (Microsoft) are no different. If you have not seen the following System Center products that are in development, I encourage you…..no…..I implore you to check them out and provide us feedback.

System Center 2012 beta products available

 

SQL Azure is a tool from the Windows Azure platform which provides you with the database services you need. It gives you the time to focus on developing applications without having to worry about building, administering or maintaining databases.
Purchase a SQL Azure Core Subscription before June 30th to take advantage of this great offer:

Read Full Story Here.

 

Track Back / Credits

Summary

The following information are general detailed instructions on how to setup the Windows Server Update Service Client Deployment and Client Remediation life cycle management. 

Requirements

Windows Server Update Service (WSUS)

WSUS must be setup and configured on the primary site server client will connect to for scanning for updates.

Configuration Manager Site with Software Update enabled

A SUP role must be setup and configured on the primary site server client will connect to for scanning for updates.

Organizational Unit or Security Group

An OU and Security Group must be setup that will hold the machine accounts of computers that will be managed by this solution.

2 Configuration Manager ADM Templates

There are 2 ADM templates that are required for this solution. You can obtain these ADM template from the Configuration Manager installation CD/DVD.

Active Directory Group Policy Object

An Active Directory group policy (GPO) is required for this solution. Ensure you have permissions to created AD group policies.

Setup and Configuration

Follow the step by step instructions below to setup and configure WSUS Client Deployment. These instructions assume you already have System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R3 installed. The following solution will help you obtain 99% client reach, discovery, remediation and deployment of the Configuration Manager client. This solution will automatically install and provision machine with the Configuration Manager client when the computer joins the domain and is a member of a specified OU or Security Group.

If for any reason the client is uninstalled or removed, this solution will automatically reinstall the client on the very next time the client machine scans for updates against the WSUS server on the primary site where this solution is configured.

WSUS

Windows Server Update Service (WSUS)

Install the WSUS service on a Windows Server 200 R2 server.

Do not configure the WSUS service with the WSUS console at the completion of the WSUS installation.

SUP

Enable Software Update

Install / Enable the Software Update Point Role on the Primary site server where WSUS is installed.

Ensure this will be Active Software Update Point. This means this will be the SUP point clients actually connect to.

Groups

Organizational Unit (OU) or Security Group (SG)

Identify an Active Directory OU or Security Group that will contain all systems expected to be managed by your System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R3 site.

Note: There can only be one OU or Security Group designated for a Configuration Manager site. Meaning 1 site code per managed group. You cannot have an AD group provision clients for multiple site codes.

ADM Templates & GPO

2 Configuration Manager ADM Templates are required

Obtain the ADM Templates that comes on the Configuration Manager 2007 CD, located: on the CD\TOOLS\ConfigMgrADMTemplates.

ADM template names:

• “ConfigMgr2007Assignment.adm"
• "ConfigMgr2007Installation.adm"

The "ConfigMgr2007Assignment.adm" is used to place the Configuration Manager site assignment settings in the clients registry

The "ConfigMgr2007Assignment.adm" template sets the following settings in the registry under: Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SMS\Mobile Client

• GPRequestedSiteAssignmentCode = <your site code>
• GPSiteAssignmentRetryDuration(Hour) = <Retry Duration (hours)>
• GPSiteAssignmentRetryInterval(Min) = <Retry Interval>

The image below shows the settings for the ConfigMgr2007Assignment.adm template after it’s imported into the GPO.

Definitions

The "GPRequestedSiteAssignmentCode" is the site code your client should and will be assigned to. When the client is reassigned by any other method to a site code other than the site code specified in the GPO, these GPO policy settings will automatically reassign the client back to the site code you defined in the GPO policy.

The "GPSiteAssignmentRetryDuration(Hour)" is the amount of hours the client will keep attempting to reassign the client until successful or till reassigned to the site code specified in the GPO.

The "GPSiteAssignmentRetryInterval(Min)" is the interval the GPO policy will wake up and check to see if the client is assigned to the site code specified in the GPO.

The "ConfigMgr2007Assignment.adm" template sets the following settings in the registry under:

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\ccmsetup in a Value Name: SetupParameters.

The below settings is the CCMSETUP parameters that will to be set in the above location, which are the parameters the client will use when the installation starts.

/MP:msserver SMSSLP=smsslp.domain.com SMSSITECODE=XR2 FSP=smsfsp.domain.com CCMLOGMAXSIZE=100000 CCMENABLELOGGING=TRUE CCMLOGLEVEL=0 DISABLESITEOPT=TRUE DISABLECACHEOPT=TRUE CCMLOGMAXHISTORY=5 SMSCACHESIZE=9000

NOTE: When a client installation starts, ccmsetup.exe will first look to the command-line first for the ccmsetup parameters. If it does not find ccmsetup command-line parameters, the ccmsetup.exe will look to the registry for the ccmsetup.exe parameters, if the parameters are not found in the registry, the ccmsetup.exe will use Active Directory and assign the client based on Configuration Manager site boundaries. 

The image below shows the settings for the ConfigMgr2007Installation.adm template after it’s imported into the GPO.

This type of client assignment forces clients to remain assigned to the site of choice.

Import these ADM templates, into a Group Policy Object targeting the OU or SG of clients to be managed.

An additional setting must added to this GPO the will set the Windows Update URL the clients will use to connect and scan for required offered updates.

This setting location can be found with the local GPO Mgr or GPO Management Console. You can find the location for these settings in the path below.

Local Computer Policy\Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Update

The image below shows the setting in a GPO object that allows you to set the WSUS/SUP server for clients to use to scan for updates.

A Got Cha: Watch Out! The policies settings these ADM templates places in the clients registry cannot be un-done by removing or disabling the GPO applied.

If you ever want to reassign clients that has been assigned and provisioned by the "Client Management GPO’s" (I call this solution client management GPOs) You must either manually remove the settings by hand or script. Or you can drop the computer object in another OU or SG having different "Client Management GPOs applying these settings for another Configuration Manager site.

Note: The reason why these settings don’t go away when a GPO is removed is because these ADM templates are not set in the Policies Hive of the registry. Settings set in the registry outside of the Policies Hive can’t be removed with a GPO, they only can be changed or modified with a GPO.

Active Directory Group Policy Object (GPO)

Apply a Group Policy Object targeting the OU or SG with membership of the systems you want assigned to a specific site.

Remember: One Client Management GPO per site.

Once the above settings and configurations are set, publish the Configuration Manager client into WSUS.

To publish the Configuration Manager client to WSUS, from within the Configuration Manager console Navigate to the Site Management node > Then to the Site Settings Node > Then the Client Installation Methods node, Right click on Software Update Point Client Installation and click Properties.

At this point just simply enable the option "Enable Software Update Point Client Installation" shown below.

Warning: Also, ensure that no other AD policies are configuring the WSUS URL via any other policies in your environment. If clients receive policies from other GPO’s to also configure the WSUS URL, that client will generate AD Group Policy Conflict and fail the WSUS scan. The Configuration Manager client will seem like its broken and not communicate with the Site/MP.

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Well I’m sitting here in Reno now because i missed my flight back in Seattle. Haven’t been to Reno in a while since my grandfather was alive. So I think i should plan a trip to Reno just to get out. With me now working from home. I need to force myself to get out sometimes on a normal basis. First day on the job at this new company I spent the first 13 days in the house. Now I force my self to take sunday’s off no matter how much work I have. Well let me pack my toys up and get on this flight and get to MMS 2011.

- Posted using BlogPress from iPad2

Location:Reno