The Realm of the Verbal Processor

Task Sequence Not Downloading Updates

I have seen issues over time where during a Task Sequence…and many times specifically in the Build and Capture task sequence…where updates would fail to download. The symptom is that the Task Sequence appears to simply hang at the download updates step. The percent complete that it hangs at varies.  I looked through several logs and found a correlation that ended up pointing to a 401.2 HTTP Error Code. When I dug into the package that it was trying to download the content from…it ended up being an obsolete SW Updates Package that was no longer being used (ABC12345 in the logs below). I deleted that package, restarted the task sequence, and it installed updates without a problem. I honestly don’t know if it was a corruption in the package, or if there was some superseded/expired/etc updates that it wasn’t liking. Not sure exactly what the issue is…but deleting the package that I wasn’t using anyway appeared to resolve the issue.

The logs I looked at to find the correlation were:

smsts.log

Installing all updates targetted for this computer

Installation of updates started

Waiting for installation job to complete

Waiting for job status notification …

UpdatesHandler.log

Starting download on action (INSTALL) for Update (…)

Filebits.log

FileCopyJob {…} encountered error while retrieving file info (0×80070005).

DataTransferService.log

[CCMHTTP] HTTP ERROR: URL=<http_ConfigMgrServer:Port</SMS_DP_SMSPKGE$/ABC12345/54608fa1-5b28-4e05-ba25-e9e59cedff5a, Port=80, Protocol=http, SSLOptions=0, Code=0, Text=CCM_E_BAD_HTTP_STATUS_CODE

Raising event:instance of CCM_CcmHttp_Status … HRESULT = "0x8004027e" … StatusCode = 401 …
Error sending DAV request. HTTP code 401, status ‘Unauthorized’

GetDirectoryList_HTTP(<http_ConfigMgrServer:Port</SMS_DP_SMSPKGE$/ABC12345/54608fa1-5b28-4e05-ba25-e9e59cedff5a’) failed with code 0×80070005.

IIS logs on the Distribution Point

PROPFIND /SMS_DP_SMSPKGE$/ABC12345/54608fa1-5b28-4e05-ba25-e9e59cedff5a – 80 – ip_address SMS+CCM 401 2 5 15

December 10, 2010 Posted by Jarvis | ConfigMgr | Leave a Comment

XP Mass Storage Drivers – a Better Way

Anyone who has done Operating System Deployment with ConfigMgr will tell you that the toughest part of getting it working is mass storage drivers…simply getting XP to be able to talk to the hard disk after the image is laid down. The root of the issue is that the new hardware that we are deploying Windows XP onto didn’t exist when XP was released. In particular, the hard disk controllers are new, and XP doesn’t have drivers to be able to communicate with the newer hardware…it needs a driver. In particular, most corporate computers have an Intel chipset, but XP has no native support for the AHCI/RAID chipsets. XP needs the Intel Matrix Storage Manager driver for these chipsets.

This typically comes out during a deployment as a Blue Screen of Death with a Stop Code of 0x0000007b (0x7b). If you ever see that stop code…most likely it is a mass storage driver issue.

Now…I’ve battled these for a while. ConfigMgr includes the ability to dynamically inject the driver during the deployment which is great. It works well as long as you know specifically which driver goes with a given computer (see my previous post). However it is cumbersome. If you don’t know the driver, you can waste a good bit of time figuring out which driver to inject. There’s got to be a better way…and there is. At the last Minnesota System Center User Group, Joey Gleason mentioned a really helpful portion of a session from MMS related to that. In it Ben Rampe talks about this very problem and does a good job of outlining a better way of handling this. I reviewed the session and found it to be very helpful. The rest of this blog post is a combination of knowledge I had previously and info from that session. The outline of the rest of this post looks a lot like Ben’s slidedeck…which is to be expected in a technical post…there are only so many ways to outline the same process. :-)

Read more »

September 8, 2010 Posted by Jarvis | ConfigMgr | Leave a Comment

XP Mass Storage Drivers

Continuing the theme of clearing stuff from my inbox…here is one that has been there since late January. It is simply a list that correlates a few mass storage drivers to a few computer models. This is obviously not comprehensive…just what I had in that email. Thanks to Chris Muster for sending me this list.

• ICH7M
• HP TC4400
• ICH8R
• Dell Optiplex 745
• ICH8M
• Dell Latitude D820
• Dell Latitude D620
• Dell Latitude D420
• Dell Latitude D830
• Dell Latitude D630
• Dell Latitude D430
• Toshiba M700
• ICH9R
• Dell Optiplex 755
• Dell Precision T3400
• ICH9M
• Dell Latitude E6400
• Dell Latitude E6500
• Dell Latitude E4200
• HP Elitebook 2730P
• ICH10D
• Dell Optiplex 760
• Dell Optiplex 780
• 631xESB/632xESB
• Dell Precision 690

September 3, 2010 Posted by Jarvis | ConfigMgr | Leave a Comment

ConfigMgr PowerShell syntax

A few months ago I finally discovered the PowerShell Module that Michael Niehaus wrote. I love the flexibility it offers…not to mention the speed of performing repetitive tasks. Some of the syntax was a bit confusing to me on some of the commands…in particular the ones that require the “NALpath”. I was using the “new-sccmpackagedp” command which requires the NALpath as a parameter. Once I figured it out, I emailed the command to myself…where it has been sitting since the middle of June. This post will clear that email out of my inbox!

Syntax for the New-SCCMPackageDP command in PowerShell:

New-SCCMPackageDP -PackageID ABC00012 -NALpath ‘["Display=\\servername\"]MSWNET:["SMS_SITE=ABC"]\\servername\’ -sitecode ABC

From what I could see on Niehaus’s blog, he doesn’t have a direct link to the module that he wrote. The best I could find was that he included version 1.5 of the module in a zip file along with something else he wrote. Here is the blog post, and the direct link to the zip file that includes the module.

Big time thanks to Michael for writing and posting such an awesome resource!!!

September 3, 2010 Posted by Jarvis | ConfigMgr | Leave a Comment

WMIC ConfigMgr Actions

A while back I was looking for a command line method of triggering inventory. Most of the posts that I found were vbscripts that could trigger the action via the control panel applet…but you ran into an issue with this method if you were triggering it on a 64bit OS…because the ConfigMgr applet is a 32bit applet….which can’t be triggered from the 64bit cscript. It can still be done by switching to the 32bit cscript, but it’s a bit cumbersome.

I was bouncing this issue off of Brian Mason, and he reminded me of a blog post by Kim Oppalfens re: triggering ConfigMgr stuff with WMIC. Kim’s post is specifically around adding right click actions to the ConfigMgr console, but they can be used from the command line also.

He lists a lot of them in his post (which I strongly encourage you to check out), but the two that I was needing for inventory are:

Hardware Inventory: WMIC /node:Computername /namespace:\\root\ccm path sms_client CALL TriggerSchedule "{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001}"

Software Inventory: WMIC /node:Computername /namespace:\\root\ccm path sms_client CALL TriggerSchedule "{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000002}"

If copying and pasting, be careful to ensure that the quotes are normal straight quotes instead of “smart quotes”.

Side note: if you have access to view the sessions from MMS this year, be sure to download and watch Kim’s session. It was re-scheduled for the last day because he was unable to fly earlier in the week because of the volcano in Iceland. There were only approx 50 of us at his session…but it was one of the best of the event…definitely 400 level.

September 3, 2010 Posted by Jarvis | ConfigMgr | Leave a Comment

Advertising a Task Sequence to a User

I had a fun little task this week…do the impossible with ConfigMgr…make a Task Sequence advertisement applicable to a user. Now…Task Sequences were originally designed for Operating System Deployment, and as such they can only be advertised to a computer account…not a user account. But…there are certain applications that we need to install via a Custom Task Sequence. (For example…SQL 2005 Client Tools or Visual Studio 2008. In both cases, the service pack can’t be slipstreamed into the install, so it must be installed separately.)

Now in most instances, I want the service desk to be able to deploy software, but I don’t want to give them access to the ConfigMgr console. One of the easiest ways to accomplish this is by allowing them to modify an AD group for SW deployment. That works well…except that for an app that is installed via a task sequence, they will have to remember to add a computer account (that they will have to hunt down) instead of the user account. I would much prefer that their process is the same for all software…just add the user account. So…here is my criteria:

• App is installed via a Custom Task Sequence
• A task sequence can only be advertised to a computer account
• All software is advertised to collections based on AD user groups
• Want to maintain the same process

How can I accomplish this? Well…let’s separate the two parts of the process and tackle it differently. The two parts are:

1. The service desk does (add a user to an AD group)
2. The software gets deployed to the computer that the user is logged into.

Let’s come back to #1 and look at #2 first. There isn’t a special setting/switch/etc to make it possible to advertise a task sequence to a user account. That advertisement still has to be targeted at a computer. Now…what are the ways that I can get a computer account into a ConfigMgr collection? There are several:

• Direct membership – with ConfigMgr console access, I can simply add the computer account to the collection.
• Query based – which can be based on any number of things. Common ways of doing this are:
• Subselect query – a query to determine all systems that don’t have the software – then install it.
• AD group/OU/etc membership.
• HW/SW inventory – something in inventory that can be used to trigger the installation.

Now…of those options, we can rule out the direct membership option because I don’t want the service desk to have console access. I can also rule out the subselect, because this is not software that all users should have…it is more specific. I’m also ruling out the AD group membership, because I still want the service desk to only be concerned with adding USER accounts to the AD group. That leaves me with inventory…which gives me options for how to get around my limitation.

What are things that inventory is already grabbing for me…or that I can modify it to grab? I could modify the HW inventory to grab custom registry keys. Or…depending on how I have SW inventory set, I can use it to tell me if certain files exist. By default, all EXEs are inventoried. That is my opening…

What I CAN do is advertise a vbscript to a user or user group. That vbscript does nothing more than create a text file…with an EXE extension that will be picked up by SW inventory. Now…I don’t want to wait for the next inventory cycle, so I can have the vbscript also kick that off for me. So…the script simply writes a file and kicks off inventory.

My task sequence is targeted at a collection that targets computers that have a certain EXE file. This solves my issue. I can now have the service desk add a user to a group. This triggers an advertisement (mandatory and silent) that runs a vbscript that creates an EXE file and triggers the SW inventory. Because the EXE file will then be part of the inventory for the computer account, I can now create another collection/advertisement to target the installation of the software to computers that have the EXE created by the vbscript.

Is it elegant…no. Does it scale…that may be questionable. Does it work…it actually works quite well. Is it fast…not really…but depending on how frequently user and machine policy refresh, I can still get it to the user in a reasonable time frame.

August 1, 2010 Posted by Jarvis | ConfigMgr | 6 Comments

Software Distribution Failure – BITS

Ran into an interesting SW Dist issue recently. Being that this is the second time in the last couple of months that I ran into this issue, I figured it was worth a blog post.

Scenario is this…I have an application packaged in ConfigMgr and parked on a BITS enabled Distribution Point. The app is advertised to a system. When the user kicks off the program (via Run Advertised Programs), the app starts to download, but appears to hang during the download. The download never completes, and as a result the program is never executed. After a bit of poking in the ConfigMgr logs on both the client (DataTransferService.log and ContentTranferManager.log) and the server, I came up empty…the logs show that it is still in process. I finally looked at the Windows Event logs and found the following (I think it was in the System log…but it might have been Application…can’t remember):

Event Type:    Information
Event Source:    BITS
Event ID:    16384
Description:
The administrator NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM canceled job “CCMDTS Job” on behalf of Domain\User.  The job ID was {longstringofnumbersanddashes}.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

CCMDTS = ConfigMgr Data Transfer Service. Now…why the heck is the System account cancelling the ConfigMgr BITS download? What is really problematic is that once ConfigMgr starts downloading the package, it turns over the download to BITS and waits for it to respond that the download is complete…which it never does…hence the appearance of the download just hanging.

In researching what was going on I remembered running across this type of issue once before and finding the answer in the IIS logs…remember BITS operates over IIS. In looking at the IIS logs on the Distribution Point, I found this line several times (all of the below is one line…ignore any line wrapping):

ServerIP HEAD /SMS_DP_SMSPKGE$/ABC00123/blah/file.ldf – 80 – ClientIP Microsoft+BITS/6.7 404 7 0 156

Towards the end of that line you will note the HTTP error code of “404 7”. Refer to this page for full info on all HTTP error codes, but in summary a 404.7 equates to “File extension denied”. By default an IIS7 installation will block the delivery of certain extensions and directory names…regardless of file permissions. These settings are stored in the applicationhost.config file. In this instance, the app being deployed had several required files that ended with the “.ldf” extension. To resolve it, I simply had to stop the IIS service, edit the applicationhost.config to remove the line with that restriction, then restart IIS.

I originally ran into this issue with a program that had a “bin” folder…which produced a 404.8 (hidden namespace). This thread on the ConfigMgr TechNet forums was very valuable in pointing me in the right direction.

June 23, 2010 Posted by Jarvis | ConfigMgr | 2 Comments

SW Distribution Problem – Bug

I have been fighting with a ConfigMgr SW Distribution problem today. When attempting to add a new package to a Distribution Point, I kept getting the following  messages in the SMS_DISTRIBUTION_MANAGER status messages:

SMS Distribution Manager is beginning to process package "App Name" (package ID = ABC000AB).
SMS Distribution Manager is preparing to send the compressed image of package "ABC000AB" to child site "XYZ".
SMS Distribution Manager failed to compress package "ABC000AB" from "\\Domain.com\dfsroot\AppSource\AppNameFolder" to "e:\_S Mq4zc.TMP". The file that failed the compression is "".
SMS Distribution Manager failed to process package "App Name" (package ID = ABC000AB).

From the above you can tell that I am using a DFS root for the source of the package…something I’ve done often. I confirmed (multiple times) that permissions were correct. I could open a command prompt running as system and access the files on the share without a problem. I also confirmed length of the path was not too long. No matter what I did, it still failed. Changing it to a UNC path pointing back at the ConfigMgr server would work fine…but could not get it to work from the DFS root.

Here is other relevant data…the ConfigMgr server that I am distributing from is running Windows Server 2008 and ConfigMgr SP2 R2. The file server that holds the DFS root is running Windows Server 2008 R2.

After a long bit of searching I came across a TechNet thread where someone else who was having a similar issue. The last post in that thread has the answer…it’s a bug in Server 2008 when attempting to read a file from a share that isn’t running Server 2008. This doesn’t present itself via the GUI…it only happens when an application is using the BackupRead function to access the files. There is a downloadable fix available (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973278) that resolved the issue in my case.

June 16, 2010 Posted by Jarvis | ConfigMgr | Leave a Comment

Client Health Startup Script and OSD

For several years now I have been an advocate of not using AD System Discovery in ConfigMgr…mainly because AD always has dead machines accounts. I don’t want those dead machines cluttering up ConfigMgr. I prefer to use a GPO startup script to both install the client and to make sure the client stays healthy. I have used variations of the DudeWorks/1E/Shaun Cassells script.

I have run into one issue with this script during OSD. During my automated deployment using ConfigMgr, I am automatically joining the computer to the domain…into the OU that I want the workstation to be in long term…which is the same OU that I have the health script GPO applied to. The problem is that the startup script checks to ensure that the ConfigMgr client service is running. During OSD…it is not. This causes the script to kick off actions that will mess up OSD. I recently added some code to the script to keep this from happening. It was actually pretty easy…just try to connect to the Task Sequence Environment. If it is able to successfully connect…exit the script. If not…keep going. Here is the code I added:

‘=============== Load/Create Objects =====================================

‘    Don’t run if a Task Sequence is running.
Dim env:    Set env = CreateObject(“Microsoft.SMS.TSEnvironment”)
If Err = 0 Then WScript.quit

I would also like to completely update the script…will post it when/if I get the chance. Most of what I would do is standardize the variables (objShell, oShell, WSHShell are all used in the script if I remember correctly…and all are the same thing). I’d also like to set the tabs/indents to make it look cleaner and more organized. But first…I need to get time to do so which isn’t easy to do when I’m already working close to or above 50 hours a week.

April 19, 2010 Posted by Jarvis | ConfigMgr | 2 Comments

ConfigMgr Evaluation Product Key

I am currently on a project delivering a Microsoft Desktop Deployment Planning Service (DDPS) at a client. I am using an unattended script to build a proof of concept lab environment for the client. Part of the POC script is that it requires that the Product Key from the ConfigMgr install files be entered. That product key is embedded in the install files, so this seems a bit redundant, but I’m working with what I’ve been given.

Now…at this client, we are using the ConfigMgr w/ SP2 Evaluation Edition that can be downloaded from Microsoft. In order to get the product key from those install files, you have to start the installation and copy the key out. However…in order to start the ConfigMgr install, it requires that the system be a domain joined server. Because the script sets up the POC server as a new AD Domain Controller, the server is currently in a workgroup. In order to get the PID, I had to boot up my demo environment, revert to a snapshot that I had taken (pre-ConfigMgr install), start the installation and copy down the key.

In order to save myself (and hopefully others) time in the future, here is the product key for the ConfigMgr Evaluation Edition. There shouldn’t be any issues with me posting this key because #1 it is an eval edition that is freely downloadable and #2 the key is embedded in the install files…not like you can use it elsewhere without the eval edition install files. Granted, there may only be three people in the world other than myself that care about this post.

BBH2G-D2VK9-QD4M9-F63XB-43C33

February 9, 2010 Posted by Jarvis | ConfigMgr | Leave a Comment

Better Subselect Queries

Earlier this week was the January meeting of the Minnesota System Center User Group. Our content this month was centered around writing queries and troubleshooting tips. During the discussion, I was demonstrating how to create a subselect query using the ConfigMgr GUI. This was something that I blogged about almost two years ago…mainly as a thank you to Rod Trent for a fantastic post that he had done way back in 2001. Rod’s post put the creation of subselect queries on the bottom shelf for those of us who aren’t strong in SQL. Note: a subselect query is a “not” query…i.e. return all systems that do not have xyz.

One of the really cool things about our user group is that we have two guys who are Microsoft MVPs for ConfigMgr…Brian Mason and John Nelson from Wells Fargo. If you know anything about John Nelson…it’s that he is a freak of nature when it comes to creating insane queries in ConfigMgr. And yes…in this instance the term “freak of nature” is a high compliment!

So…frequently as we would talk about a particular query or way of searching for something…after we had a workable query, we would ask for input from John on how to improve the query. He had lots of very useful input…including on subselect queries. After the meeting while talking with Brian and John, we discussed creating an updated post on subselect queries…so here goes…

Read more »

January 30, 2010 Posted by Jarvis | ConfigMgr | 26 Comments

Installing an Application as a Non Admin

Recently I was working with a client who had the following business requirements:

1. Users are not administrators on their XP workstations
2. Traveling users need the ability to install “whatever software they wish” while on the road

That’s a tricky combination of requirements. At face value this isn’t possible. As I was thinking through the problem, I came up with an idea for how to get around this issue. I could create an HTA/VBscript wrapper that I would advertise with ConfigMgr…that the user could run via Run Advertised Programs. Through this HTA they would be able to browse to locate the EXE/MSI that they wanted to install. Because it is running via ConfigMgr, it will have permissions…running as Local System.

The script could also have other data gathering capabilities for inventory purposes. Obviously from an enterprise perspective, someone would need to periodically review this inventory to ensure that all software was properly licensed…and that the user wasn’t installing garbage software.

Now…from a “best practices” perspective, this is not something you want to do. Way too big of a whole for garbage to enter your environment. But…if this is a requirement for whatever reason…at least theoretically, this would work. I have not written the script yet. We are still talking with the client about whether this is a true requirement or not. That is yet to be determined.

After fleshing out the idea, I called Brian Mason to run the idea by him to see if I was in the ballpark of reality. He confirmed that this would work. I think his statement was something like, “Oh yeah, people have been doing that for years.” So…while it may have been a great idea…it’s not an original idea. :-)

January 18, 2010 Posted by Jarvis | ConfigMgr | 2 Comments

Setup cannot upgrade the ConfigMgr database

Was recently working on upgrading SMS 2003 to ConfigMgr SP2 and ran into a problem upgrading the database. All pertinent prereqs passed, but when it started the actual installation, it errored out with the following popup:

When I checked the ConfigMgrSetup.log file, I saw the following messages:

Upgrade database…
The database compatibility level for SMS_CC1 is 90
***SqlError: [08S01][11][Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][Shared Memory]General network error. Check your network documentation.
READ_COMMITTED_SNAPSHOT enabled.
***SqlError: [42000][5808][Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Ad hoc update to system catalogs is not supported.
SqlExecute <if NOT EXISTS(select * from sys.configurations where name=’clr enabled’ and value_in_use=1) begin    exec sp_configure ‘clr enabled’, 1   RECONFIGURE end >
FinalSqlOperations::Could not enable SQL CLR.
Setup cannot upgrade the ConfigMgr database.  Contact your SQL administrator.

So…I searched on everything in those log entries and came up blank. Ad-hoc updates are enabled. Setup was successfully enabling SQL CLR. Something was still failing.

I finally came across this forum thread where a user stated that the problem in their environment was the SQL authentication mode. Now…I’ve always seen that message during the prereq check, but since it is a warning instead of an error, I have always ignored it…and have never had a problem until now. After changing the SQL authentication mode to be only “Windows Authentication”, the setup went through without a problem.

December 2, 2009 Posted by Jarvis | ConfigMgr | 1 Comment

Out of Memory Error – Boot.ini 3GB Switch

Recently while working at a client I was installing the BITS 2.5 update for Server 2003 (as part of the prereqs for ConfigMgr), but when the server rebooted at the end of the update it essentially died. No more Remote Desktop connection…the server wasn’t even pingable. I didn’t have access to the client’s datacenter, so I was pretty much hamstrung until they could get me access to the console to look at the log files. Once I finally got to the server (booted into Safe Mode), the log files were chugging full of red. Some of the log entries were:

The Application log had the following (key messages in red):

Event ID:    4613
Description:
The COM+ Event System detected an unexpected error from a Win32 API call at line 917 of d:\nt\com\complus\src\events\tier2\notify.cpp.  A call to PostThreadMessage failed with error code : "The operation completed successfully. " 

Event ID:    4613
Description:
The COM+ Event System detected an unexpected error from a Win32 API call at line 558 of d:\nt\com\complus\src\events\tier2\notify.cpp.  A call to MsgWaitForMultipleObjects failed with error code 8: "Not enough storage is available to process this command. " 

Event ID:    8193
Computer:    SERVERNAME
Description:
Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Unexpected error calling routine IEventSystem::Store.  hr = 0×80040206.

Event ID:    1508
Description:
Windows was unable to load the registry. This is often caused by insufficient memory or insufficient security rights.

DETAIL – The system has attempted to load or restore a file into the registry, but the specified file is not in a registry file format.  for C:\Documents and Settings\accountname\ntuser.dat

Event ID:    1502
Description:
Windows cannot load the locally stored profile. Possible causes of this error include insufficient security rights or a corrupt local profile. If this problem persists, contact your network administrator.

DETAIL – The system has attempted to load or restore a file into the registry, but the specified file is not in a registry file format.

In the System Log was the following string of events:

Event Source:    NtServicePack
Event ID:    4377
Description:
Windows Server 2003 Hotfix KB923845 was installed.

Event ID:    1074
Description:
The process svchost.exe has initiated the restart of computer SERVERNAME on behalf of user NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM for the following reason: No title for this reason could be found
Reason Code: 0×80070020
Shutdown Type: restart
Event ID:    3113
Description:
Initialization failed because the requested service redirector could not be started.

Event ID:    2508
Description:
The server service was unable to load the server driver.

Event Type:    Information
Event Source:    Application Popup
Event ID:    26
Description:
Application popup: wscript.exe – Application Error : The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000142).

Event Type:    Information
Event Source:    Application Popup
Event ID:    26
Description:
Application popup:  : \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\srv.sys failed to load

Event Type:    Error
Event Source:    Application Popup
Event ID:    333
Description:
An I/O operation initiated by the Registry failed unrecoverably. The Registry could not read in, or write out, or flush, one of the files that contain the system’s image of the Registry.

The key messages above are the ones related to insufficient memory or “not enough storage”. Now this server has 12GB of RAM. That should not be a problem. Then I remembered an email from the client’s server team where they told me that they had set the /3GB switch in the boot.ini file. I did a little digging on that switch and came across articles here, here, here, here here and here.

Essentially it boils down to some common misunderstanding about what the 3GB switch does. The client has a requirement to use Server 2003 32-bit for this installation. Normally, 32-bit Windows operating systems have a 4GB RAM limit. Often people mistakenly believe that the /3GB switch expands the use of RAM above the 4GB limit. In actuality, the /PAE switch is used for this. Utilizing that switch Server 2003 Enterprise SP2 will then support 32GB of RAM. So…what does the /3GB switch do?

Paraphrasing one of the articles linked above, 32-bit Windows OSes implement a virtual memory space that is limited to 4GB. Normally this is split into two sections…2GB for Kernel and 2GB for User-mode processes. The /3GB switch makes 3GB available for user-mode processes, but leaves only 1GB available for Kernel.

This appears to be exactly what happened. Because the 3GB switch was set and only 1GB was available for kernel operations, the system essentially ran out of memory for completing the installation of BITS. Once I removed the 3GB switch (and left the PAE switch intact) and rebooted the system, it came back up.

December 2, 2009 Posted by Jarvis | ConfigMgr | 2 Comments

Office 2007 Install Issue

Erik sent the following question re: a special issue with installing Office 2007.

We are in the process of trying to push out office 2007 w/SP2 w/o Access and Publisher and for it to uninstall Outlook 2003, but leave everything else and for it to do it unattended and silent. Now I did create the .MSP file which does this and it works great, but before our company decided to do this in an organized way, they were giving Excel 2007 out for people to try or people don’t have SP2 for Office 2007. Now I have tried everything to create an SMS package (SMS 2003) that will work, but if I just send out the package with the .MSP file it prompts people to interact with it if they already have anything part of Office 2007 on their computer. Now we created a package in sms that will uninstall office 2007, and it’s linked to another package in sms to reinstall office 2007, but it wants a restart on the computer before it will reinstall office 2007. Now if you guys know a way that will work without uninstalling office 2007 first that great too. I’ll take an ideals at this moment.

You do have an interesting problem. Because your company chose to give out part of Office 2007 before the full deployment was packaged and prepared, you will likely have some careful steps to take for those computers.

One way to handle that would be to create a collection to locate the users that have Excel 2007 already installed. From your description, it sounds like those are the only ones that won’t install silently at this point. You may need to communicate with those users to prepare them that a reboot will be required as part of this install. If you send this as a non-mandatory advertisement, they can choose when to do the installation at a time when a reboot won’t affect them as much. I would tell them to just plan to run it when they leave for lunch.

Without building out a similar scenario in my demo environment to test it, I don’t know offhand of a way to do this without uninstalling Excel first. I’m actually a bit surprised that the installation that you made silent still asked for user input. Did you follow my instructions in this post?

October 28, 2009 Posted by Jarvis | ConfigMgr | 12 Comments

SQL Server Version Numbers

This morning I have been building out a new ConfigMgr demo environment on my laptop based on Server 2008 R2. I had already installed SQL 2008, but couldn’t remember if I had installed SP1 for SQL 2008 or not. I looked at the version number, but then had to go to Microsoft to find out what the version number equated to in terms of SP level. For future reference to myself and others, here is a concise list of SQL Server version numbers and the corresponding friendly name. This will be useful if you already know the version number. If you need to know how to get the version number from you SQL server, refer to this page (which is where this list of numbers came from). That page lists the SQL queries for each version to perform to obtain the version number.

October 28, 2009 Posted by Jarvis | ConfigMgr | Leave a Comment