SCCM

Running IaaS SQL Server in Azure? Back It Up with Azure Backup for SQL Server

By / February 12, 2021 / 2 Comments

With today’s hybrid and cloud-only infrastructure, it’s common to be running SQL Server in the cloud to support System Center and other applications. Of course, every database should be backed up. In this post, I will cover how to do this quickly and painlessly using Azure Backup without any additional infrastructure. In recent months, Microsoft …

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Easily Reuse Network Adapters in SCCM for PXE-based OS Deployment

By / February 12, 2021 / 2 Comments

PXE-booting has been around for a long time and is still used today for OS deployment in Configuration Manager and many other tools. A few years ago (ok, maybe a decade) when laptops/tablets started shipping without Ethernet ports, it threw a wrench in the PXE-booting process used for OS deployment. Not only was the port …

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Automating the Removal of Old Office Versions to Upgrade to 2016

By / February 12, 2021 / 8 Comments

The end-of-life for the click-to-run version of Office 2013 is quickly approaching (February 28th, 2017). This is a quick reference on how to automate the deployment of Office 2016 to your environment, while also fulfilling the prerequisite of removing any previous versions of Office (including 2013). Step 1 – Automate the uninstall of previous versions of Office Installing …

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SQL Query to Export All SCCM Maintenance Windows

By / February 12, 2021 / 2 Comments

Maintenance windows tend to be illusive in Configuration Manager, especially in large environments with multiple admins. A common request that I receive from my customers is to “retrieve all of maintenance windows.” There isn’t a great report for this or an easy way to do this with PowerShell (yet). The easiest method I’ve found to do …

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In-Console Updates Stuck Installing in ConfigMgr: How To Fix It

By / February 12, 2021 / 11 Comments

Disclosure: do not follow these steps if you do not know what you’re doing. They should only be used as a last resort. Use with caution. I’ve had a couple different SCCM environments get stuck during update installations that have come down through the new Updates and Servicing feature in the current branch builds. Typically, this …

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