The Realm of the Verbal Processor

ConfigMgr 2012 Beta 2–OSD Findings

I was poking around in one of the ConfigMgr 2012 Hands on Labs at MMS today to see what is new/different. I came across some pretty interesting things when looking at task sequences.

[Thanks to Torsten for pointing out an oversight on my part…that one of the “new things” I mentioned is already in ConfigMgr 2007. I’ve done plenty of OSD…I’ve never noticed the “Apply Data Image” task sequence step. Heck…I even pointed it out to two other people yesterday and they had never noticed it either.]

First, there is a new option for “Apply Data Image”. Not apply an OS Image…take a WIM file that does not include an OS…and apply that to a disk/partition. Definitely some cool options with that.

Second, I was looking at the “Options” tab on a task sequence item and found some new (and VERY cool) options there. The new options with their key components that were available as criteria on the Options tab are:

• File Properties
  • Path
  • Version
  • timestamp

• Folder Properties
  • Path
  • timestamp

• Registry Setting
  • Exists
  • Not exists
  • Equals
  • Not equals
  • Greater than
  • Greater than or equals
  • Less than
  • Less than or equals

• Installed software
  • Choose filename which fills out
    • Name
    • Version
    • Product code
    • Upgrade code
  • Options for
    • Match specific product (Product code and upgrade code)
    • Match any version of this product (Upgrade code only)

Over time I have written vbscripts to pull file properties, registry settings and installed software to then set a TS variable…which I could then use later as criteria in a “TS variable equals xyz” condition on a task. It is very cool that this will be part of the core functionality in ConfigMgr 2012.

March 23, 2011 - Posted by Jarvis | ConfigMgr 2012, MMS 2011