For this post, I’ve built a little scenario to explain how to use SCCM Collection variables in Task Sequence. I get often asked how to reduce the number of SCCM task sequences and how to make them dynamic. I’m always surprised when I hear from an SCCM administrator that they don’t use variables in their task sequence. Let’s say you are working in an international company and use SCCM to deploy operating systems. Each office has its own configuration and specific software to install. You decide to create 1 task sequence per office. Wrong! You’ll end up in a management nightmare. One task sequence is often enough and this is where you need variables to the rescue. The magic that you need to understand is collection variables. You have 2 choices, let the user enter the variable value at the beginning of the deployment (explain later) or pre-load these values using collection … Read More
How to Configure SCCM Delivery Optimization Task Sequence
Windows 10 brings a new feature to optimize network performance when it comes to Windows Update. This feature is called Delivery Optimization. Delivery Optimization is a cloud-based service that allows computers on the same network to share updates files to prevent reaching out to Windows Update directly or to a remote WSUS. Windows 10 clients must have access to the internet to be able to leverage Delivery Optimization to establish a peer-to-peer connection to another Windows 10 computer. This blog post will describe how to configure SCCM Delivery Optimization Task sequence. With that said, Delivery Optimization as the potential of doing the opposite of what it was designed for. By default, the Download mode is configured in LAN Mode. This means that every computer going on the internet through a single IP address like many businesses do will be considered in the same LAN network. This means a remote office could be considered local, then … Read More
Deploy Windows 2016 using SCCM Task Sequence
In this post, we will deploy the newly released Windows 2016 with SCCM 1606. We will describe how to create a SCCM Windows 2016 deployment task sequence and deploy it to your servers. If you’re new to operating system deployment, read the preparation of your environment post before reading this one. This task sequence will help you deploy a “vanilla” Windows 2016 using the default Install.wim from the Windows 2016 media. This means that you’ll end up with a basic Windows 2016 with the SCCM client and nothing else. You will be able to edit this task sequence later to customize it to your environment. [su_box title=”Important” style=”glass” box_color=”#000000″ title_color=”#F0F0F0″]For this post, we used SCCM 1606 with ADK 1607 on an HyperV platform[/su_box] Prepare your Operating Systems We will now import the Windows 2016 WIM file before deployment. [su_box title=”Important” style=”glass” box_color=”#000000″ title_color=”#F0F0F0″]You’ll see both Operating System Images and Operating System Upgrade Packages. One is to import .WIM files and the … Read More
Windows 10 | Inject Language Pack with DISM
Injecting language pack into Windows 10 WIM images can be achieved in many different ways. MDT has a module to easily import image. SCCM can do it within a task sequence while the image is offline/online. You will also be able to do it by using DISM from the Windows ADK. In this post, we will detail the process of injecting language packs into a Windows 10 WIM images using DISM. Injecting a language pack with DISM provides a modified Install.wim that can later be used as a standalone solution to deploy Windows 10 from a media (DVD, USB) or as a Windows OS source for MDT or SCCM. This solution can also be used with our previous post as we explained how to create and capture a custom Windows 10 image. Pre-Requisites for SCCM Inject Language Pack Windows 10 You must install few tools and plugins, before you get there. Windows ADK for Windows 10 (Download) Windows 10 1511 Enterprise ISO file Language … Read More
Which Windows 10 Deployment Methods Suits You?
Windows 10 Deployment Methods If your company runs Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM), and you’re trying to figure out the best way to deploy Windows 10, you have choices. Specifically, there four key options you might want to choose between: Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) standalone MDT and SCCM SCCM Standalone MDT integrated with SCCM Making the right selection to meet the needs of your organizations is not always clear so in this blog post, we’ll briefly explain each option, and outline some of the trade-offs between them. Microsoft Deployment Toolkit Standalone The MDT is a free toolkit for automating deployment of Windows 10 to computers. It works with other versions too, but Windows 10 is the big deployment topic these days. Basically, MDT configures unattended setup files for Windows, and it packages other needed content and files. This gives you an image file you can distribute and use to … Read More
Inject Software Updates in your WIM using SCCM Offline Servicing
Offline Servicing in SCCM is the process through which you can inject software updates in your operating system WIM files. This process can alleviate your build and capture yearly/bi-yearly WIM updates that you most likely run in your enterprise. However, as much as this process is great to shorten your gold image updates, it’s still not perfect. Why? The answer is quite simple. Even if your gold image contains products such as Microsoft Office, offline servicing will not apply Office patches even though these are downloaded to your Software Update Point. Only core Windows applications can get patched through this process. What are the type of core applications that you can apply patches to? Obviously, Windows, Internet Explorer, .Net Framework and so on and so forth. (also called CBS, for Component Based Servicing) SCCM Offline Servicing Overview Here’s what happens in the background when you start the SCCM Offline servicing process : SMS_Executive … Read More
Operating System Deployment SCCM 2012 0x80070570 Error
During an operating system deployment using SCCM 2012, you received the error code 0x80070570 at the beginning of the Task Sequence. Numerous errors and warnings are showing in SMSTS.log : ThreadToResolveAndExecuteTaskSequence failed. Code(0x80070570) Failed to create C:\_SMSTaskSequence (1392) The TSM directories could not be created at this time (80070570) uRet == ERROR_ALREADY_EXISTS, HRESULT=80070570 (e:\nts_sccm_release\sms\framework\tscore\utils.cpp,1903) Cause The SCCM 2012 0x80070570 error is translated to : The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable. This issue is completely external to SCCM 2012. If you try to launch the Windows installation from the CDROM, you will get the same error. It’s probable that your computer has been incorrectly shutdown and Windows wants to do a check disk at the next reboot. How to fix SCCM 2012 0x80070570 Error You have 2 options to fix this error Option #1 | Chkdsk Boot the machine and let Windows complete the checkdisk process Reboot the computer and restart the Task … Read More
3 Reasons to use Adaptiva OneSite for Windows 10 Deployment
Adaptiva OneSite is a software solution that can improve SCCM delivery of software, updates, and Windows (OSD) between your SCCM site and other locations, even ones without distribution points. Adaptiva OneSite doesn’t require a huge infrastructure. It can run a thousand locations with just a single SCCM server and no distribution points. PXE servers, or SMPs. The content delivery is fast and, more important, it does not impact other traffic on the WAN. The peer-to-peer storage of content doesn’t affect free space on clients because it operates in unused clusters so the users retain all their disk space. With these capabilities, Adaptiva OneSite can upgrade thousands of systems to Windows 10 in a fraction of the time. Companies that wants to upgrade their unsupported Windows XP to Windows 7 or 8, or upgrade from any of those versions to Windows 10 soon, you can use Adaptiva OneSite to facilitate the process. In this post, we will … Read More
Failed to resolve selected task sequence dependencies 0x80040104
I had to troubleshoot a problem where a Task Sequence return the error Failed to Run Task Sequence. SMSTS.log shows : Failed to resolve selected task sequence dependencies 0x80040104 Not big of a deal, this error oftently occurs. It just means that some package referenced by a task sequence is not distributed to the distribution point. This should be an easy fix… well not in this case. Troubleshooting When reading SMSTS.log we can find the problematic package ID. In this case KR100048 was the bad guy. So I did the basic troubleshooting in those cases : Open the SCCM Console Navigate to Software Library\Operating Systems\Task Sequences Click Reference tab at the bottom Locate the problematic ID (KR100048) Note the package Name (Windows x64 – HP ProBook 650 G1) First problem : the Size column is 0.00MB ?!? I immediately thought that I’ve probably forgot to distribute this package on my distribution point. … Read More