In my organization a project has begun to install SCCM on every computer. My job is to filter out computers which do not have SCCM installed on them (that part is done), find out why and try to install.
Unfortunately, I’m inexperienced with SCCM logs and find it hard to locate the problems (if there are any) and there is a huge number of devices I have to check all by myself and accessing each computer’s C$ will take years.
The OS of the problematic computers are Windows 10/7/XP/Server 2016.
Can anyone help me with these issues please?
Thanks in advance
The client install logs on the local machine are here C:\Windows\ccmsetup\Logs. You could script something to pull the logs and dump on a network share.
You can pull the CMTrace.exe from the server install directory to read the logs.
They are most likely failing for the same reason, I would start with looking at the firewall and make sure WinRM is enabled.
There are 3 methods to installing the agent GPO, Login Script, or from the console.
I have a problem that i have a difficult time explaining, which makes any online search very hard. Here is my dilema.
I'm migrating a VM. The purpose of this machine is to compile send out daily/weekly/monthly reports. I know there are other ways (like Power BI) but this is the situation we are in right now. The older machine has win10 pro and office 365 installed while the new has win10 enterprise version and office 2016 installed. This machine runs 24/7 in the background running specific tasks (via system scheduler app) at given times, that is it's a Virtual machine and has done so without issues since it was created. The reason for the migration is because we need to domain change and bring the machine under a new corporate policy and we don't want to do this on a live server.
We've set it the VM's the same way, same programs and same settings. Everything seams to be running smooth expect for this one thing, and here is the problem i have a hard time to explain or figure out:
MS Access will update the tables and the computer will run the tasks as set but it will not export the data to pdf unless i have a remote desktop connection open. Will not export the pdf's otherwise. MS Access uses a autoexec macro where the pdf export is set with ExportWithFormatting. This works without issues on the old server.
We thought this to be a permission or user specific issue at first but even re-creating the tasks did not work and changing paths. Otherwise also i expect we would have problems with tables updating, specially since it works when you have an active remote desktop conn running.
I'm lost and therefore hoping this community will be able to help or guide me to a solution.
I believe that we found the reason for this. It was caused by windows easy print and the printer drivers of the machine. It worked for some reason differently between the servers. after reinstalling the printer drivers and a few restarts it started working. It exports now from access again.
This is at least solved.
I have two virtual machines running in google cloud. They both run MS Server 2012.
It appears that the person who created them used a clone as the machine SID's are the same. This is now causing a problem for things such as WebRoot AV which identify the machines using the SID.
In AWS this is resolved by using the AWS sysprep tool, how can I get solve this s the Google environment?
Thanks all.
Sysprep tool is a built-in tool that comes with windows itself. So i would suggest you run sysprep by following this guide. Note that this wipe out anything installed on your VM.
I have created a windows executable with some custom actions and some UI stuffs.
I am facing a strange behavior with the installable.
I tried probing through the code and kracking the installer as much as I can, but I did not find any idea why the strange behavior is available.
So, I wanted to debug the installer at every point of code execution in the Custom Action for which I tried writing those values I require to a logger. But unfortunately my logger will get created after the installation at which point I will not be in a position to run it again.
So, can anyone suggest how to debug it while the installable is under execution?
I've tried but couldn't get a debugger working with Installshield universal.
My workaround was to add a lot of debugging messages and to use VMware. Install VMware and create the test machine as a virtual server. I configured the virtual server with all the prerequisites, rebooted it and then ran a snapshot.
After the snap shot I'd run the install script, wait for the errors and the log files. Then I'd use the VMware 'revert to snapshot' function to go back to a clean instance of the test server and start investigating the error messages from the logs.
I'm currently working on a server-side product which is a bit complex to deploy on a new server, which makes it an ideal candidate for testing out in a VM. We are already using Hudson as our CI system, and I would really like to be able to deploy a virtual machine image with the latest and greatest software as a build artifact.
So, how does one go about doing this exactly? What VM software is recommended for this purpose? How much scripting needs to be done to accomplish this? Are there any issues in particular when using Windows 2003 Server as the OS here?
Sorry to deny anyone an accepted answer here, but based on further research (thanks to your answers!), I've found a better solution and wanted to summarize what I've found.
First, both VirtualBox and VMWare Server are great products, and since both are free, each is worth evaluating. We've decided to go with VMWare Server, since it is a more established product and we can get support for it should we need. This is especially important since we are also considering distributing our software to clients as a VM instead of a special server installation, assuming that the overhead from the VMWare Player is not too high. Also, there is a VMWare scripting interface called VIX which one can use to directly install files to the VM without needing to install SSH or SFTP, which is a big advantage.
So our solution is basically as follows... first we create a "vanilla" VM image with OS, nothing else, and check it into the repository. Then, we write a script which acts as our installer, putting the artifacts created by Hudson on the VM. This script should have interfaces to copy files directly, over SFTP, and through VIX. This will allow us to continue distributing software directly on the target machine, or through a VM of our choice. This resulting image is then compressed and distributed as an artifact of the CI server.
Regardless of the VM software (I can recommend VirtualBox, too) I think you are looking at the following scenario:
Build is done
CI launches virtual machine (or it is always running)
CI uses scp/sftp to upload build into VM over the network
CI uses the ssh (if available on target OS running in VM) or other remote command execution facility to trigger installation in the VM environment
VMWare Server is free and a very stable product. It also gives you the ability to create snapshots of the VM slice and rollback to previous version of your virtual machine when needed. It will run fine on Win 2003.
In terms of provisioning new VM slices for your builds, you can simply copy and past the folder that contains the VMWare files, change the SID and IP of the new VM and you have a new machine. Takes 15 minutes depending on the size of your VM slice. No scripting required.
If you use VirtualBox, you'll want to look into running it headless, since it'll be on your server. Normally, VirtualBox runs as a desktop app, but it's possible to start VMs from the commandline and access the virtual machine over RDP.
VBoxManage startvm "Windows 2003 Server" -type vrdp
We are using Jenkins + Vagrant + Chef for this scenario.
So you can do the following process:
Version control your VM environment using vagrant provisioning scripts (Chef or Puppet)
Build your system using Jenkins/Hudson
Run your Vagrant script to fetch the last stable release from CI output
Save the VM state to reuse in future.
Reference:
vagrantup.com
I'd recommend VirtualBox. It is free and has a well-defined programming interface, although I haven't personally used it in automated build situations.
Choosing VMWare is currently NOT a bad choice.
However,
Just like VMWare gives support for VMWare server, SUN gives support for VirtualBOX.
You can also accomplish this task using VMWare Studio, which is also free.
The basic workflow is this:
1. Create an XML file that describes your virtual machine
2. Use studio to create the shell.
3. Use VMWare server to provision the virtual machine.