ConfigMgr Child Labor Bloopers
By request of multiple people, here is the bloopers video from the ConfigMgr Child Labor video. Enjoy.
Interview with Sherry Kissinger
Last year I had the idea to start a series of interviews with various people in the Microsoft management space. The concept was to have a personal interview with people that we all know because of their contributions to the online management community. The interviews are designed to allow others in the management space to get to know the personal side of the technology person. The first one that I interviewed last year was Wally Mead. Had a fun time sitting down with him while he was taking a break from TechEd.
While at MMS in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to sit down with the MOF Master herself, the one and only Sherry Kissinger. Sherry is a ConfigMgr MVP who works for Wells Fargo and is widely known as a expert in getting the most out of the ConfigMgr inventory by making modifications to the sms_def.mof file. Continuing the interview series, here is the conversation I had with Sherry.
Note: the player below requires Adobe Flash. If you don’t have Flash, you won’t see the player.
Camtasia Studio
While preparing for MMS and TechEd, I needed to record the demo that I would use in my session. This was a requirement for TechEd, and I ended up using the recorded demo instead of doing a live demo…partially because it is very difficult to perform a live demo of Operating System Deployment in the 75 minute time frame of the sessions at MMS/TechEd. It also allows me to show the entire OS Build and Capture process (about a three and a half hour process in my virtual demo environment)…I am able to speed up the video of that process to show it all in about 3 minutes. Overall a much better process.
Knowing that I needed to be able to record my screen for the demo I knew that there were a few options. One is LiveMeeting and/or WebEx. I don’t have access to either one, so I looked elsewhere. I learned about Camtasia Studio by TechSmith. They offer a fully functional 30 day trial of the software. Using that I was able to not only capture the screen while the demo was running, but was able to speed up sections, slow down other sections to allow me time to talk to it, and splice together two portions of the demo (server side and client side) into one video to use during the demo. Very nice piece of software. I was also able to use it to produce the ConfigMgr Child Labor video. It allowed me to pull in my raw video segments, have a separate narration track, add in opening and closing title tracks, as well as add the video from MMS 2008 in as a Picture-in-Picture.
Overall I was VERY impressed with the software. However…it’s not cheap. With as often as I would use it, there was no way that I could justify the $299 price tag. If I did more demos…it would pay for itself quickly. For the once a year or so that I would use it…not so much.
Well…tonight at TechEd there was an opening night reception in the Expo hall. Lots of companies. As I was wandering around, I saw that TechSmith had a booth, so I walked over to see if they were going to have a drawing for a copy of Camtasia…which they are. As I was talking to the lady at the booth I was telling her about what I had done with the software and that I loved it but couldn’t justify the expense. Heck I’ve been telling a lot of people over the course of the last month about the software. She then proceeded to pull over another lady named Betsy whose title is “Chief Evangelist” for TechSmith. After telling her what I had done, she pulls out a business card to give to me. On the back of the card was a sticker with license keys for Camtasia Studio and Snagit. SWEET!!! My 30 day trial expired yesterday…I get to keep using it!
Thanks Betsy and thanks TechSmith!
Night Canoe
Last Friday night I took my daughters on a little adventure. The park service in Minneapolis sponsors nighttime canoe trips once a month during the full moon. Friday night was the scheduled “Moonlight Canoe” trip. Only trick is that it was overcast and had a light rain. We went anyway. Bundled all of us up and wore raincoats. It was a fun trip that we will definitely do again…hopefully with a visible moon next time.
Rod Trent’s MMS v. TechEd Poll
Rod Trent put up a post this week about the possibility of MMS being merged into TechEd. In my opinion this would be disastrous. Merging what is hands down the best event Microsoft sponsors into an already too big and too broad event would simply destroy all that is good about MMS. As part of Rod’s post he includes a poll so that we can let our voices be heard about this possibility. Please, visit Rod’s post and continue on to the poll.
Windows 7 – Problem Steps Recorder
Today I have been downloading and listening to various MMS sessions that I missed while at the event. Normally I have my schedule double booked (or even some time slots triple or quad booked). Combine that with the fatigue that sets in after the second day…there are a lot of really valuable sessions that I’m simply unable to make it to during the week.
One of the sessions I missed at MMS but listened to this morning was “SC15 – Windows Client: Roadmap and Introduction to Windows 7 for Enterprise Customers” by Jeremy Chapman. During his session he performed a demo of a Windows 7 feature called the “Problem Steps Recorder”. What this program allows you (or one of your users) to do is record what happened in the event of a “problem” on their system. You start the PSR, then recreate the problem that you were experiencing. It essentially takes screenshots as you are going through the process and spits out a zip file that has an MHTML file in it complete with screenshots and detailed steps of what the user was doing at each step along the way.
This will prove to be very useful. Back when I worked the help desk I can’t tell you the number of times (and honestly don’t want to remember the number of times) that I tried to get a user to accurately describe what they were doing when a problem came up. Sometimes it was a legit problem…sometimes it was a PEBKAC issue. This feature would have saved me huge amounts of time in figuring out what was actually happening.
The presenter mentioned that this app can be launched either manually by the user or…and I like this…you can build it into the application so that it launches automatically when the app fails and ask the user to recreate the problem.
System Center Roadmap
Last week at MMS in Las Vegas, Microsoft announced the general timeline for next versions of products in the System Center suite. For those who were not able to come to MMS, here is the slide from the second keynote laying out that roadmap.
ConfigMgr Front End HTA
During my session at MMS (and upcoming at TechEd) I used a Front End HTA and a back end VBS during my deployment demo. I mentioned that I would make them available for download (and have gotten multiple requests for this). Hope these help someone else out there!
More Interviews Coming Soon
One of the aspects that I have seen in the Systems Management community is that it really is a close knit group that is spread all over the globe. I have also seen a bit of a hunger from people that I have interacted with to know what some of the “big names” are really like. The way I have been phrasing it lately is that people would love to get to know “the personal side behind the technology face.”
Last year when TechEd was in Orlando (and I was living in Orlando) I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon with Wally Mead. At the end of that afternoon Wally allowed me to interview him…not a technology interview…we barely touched on anything related to ConfigMgr. I got lots of comments both on the blog and personally from people who enjoyed getting to know a bit more about Wally. My plan at the time was to do several more interviews, but for various reasons I haven’t been able to pull it off…until last week.
Last week at MMS I sat down and interviewed two ConfigMgr MVPs that I have gotten to know over the last few years. Soon I will be posting my interviews with Sherry Kissinger and Rod Trent. I have a bit of editing to do on the original audio…killing dead air between questions as well as extraneous noise that popped up at different times. I don’t know if I will be able to get it done before heading to TechEd, but I will be posting them soon…check back. I should be able to get the first one going in the next week or so…maybe the flight to LA for TechEd.
Blooper Video
In a conversation with Garth Jones last week at MMS I mentioned that if I had time I was going to put together a blooper video from the various snippets that I shot for the ConfigMgr Child Labor video. I think I had somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 “takes” during the filming. Garth mentioned that conversation on his blog yesterday, so I guess I need to follow through on that idea! I’ll try to throw something together this week before heading to TechEd next week.
Links from my MMS Session
Just finished my MMS session a while ago. Had a really fun time with it and felt like it went really well. Had a good time interacting with some of the attendees both before and after the session. In the session I promised a list of links that I referred to during the time. Some are on my blog, some are elsewhere.
By request, I will be posting the task sequence demo videos later…I want to do a voice over of the videos to make them more valuable. I will also be posting my Front End HTA and Back End VBS script later. I will update my post after doing so.
I think all of the links that I referred to that are on my blog are also on the My Favorite Ramblings page, so I will just link to that one. This includes the “Run a CMD Prompt as System” post that I referred to. Just scroll down past the personal section to the “ConfigMgr” section.
The “ConfigMgr Child Labor” video:
https://verbalprocessor.com/2009/04/29/configmgr-child-labor-video/
Johan’s blog and specific posts:
Johan’s post on Device Driver management
Michael Niehaus’s blog.
Deployment Guys blog.
TechNet forum.
myITforum.com ConfigMgr forum.
ConfigMgr Child Labor Video
This is the follow up to the video that was shown at MMS 2008 showing my five year old daughter deploying systems using ConfigMgr. I used this during the intro to my “Operating System Deployment in the Real World” session at MMS 2009.
Video at MMS 2009
Last year at MMS I had a touch with fame when Bill Anderson used a video (during the “State of the Nation” address) of me and my five year old daughter doing Operating System Deployment with ConfigMgr. It was shocking to me how much face recognition that video gave me last year.
Well…I am presenting at MMS this year on “Operating System Deployment in the Real World." If you are at MMS, that session is Wednesday at 2:15 in Bellini 2001B. During that session I will be debuting a follow up video to the one shown last year. If you want to see it, don’t be late. I will also be posting the video here after the session.
MMS Bible Study – Last Call
Wanted to put out a final reminder…if you are interested in coming to the 2nd Annual MMS Bible Study, let me know ASAP. We will be meeting in Rod Trent’s room again this year. I will be sending location info via an email to anyone interested, but I will not be posting that to my blog…to protect Rod. Either email me directly or use my contact form. The Bible study will be Tuesday through Friday mornings before breakfast…probably 7:00-7:30am.
See you in Vegas…very soon!
Update on KB955955 Error
A few weeks ago I posted about a problem I was having with the KB955955 update for ConfigMgr. I was having an issue with the update failing to apply, and I posted another way of applying the update that was supposed to work. (I was clear to point out that I had not tested it…I was relying on another post.)
Well…two problems. First…I read the documentation wrong…which is why I was getting the error. Second…if you use the method that I mentioned in the original post…your SUP won’t patch the system during the Build and Capture task sequence. So…ignore my original post.
The mistake I made in reading the documentation was regarding the installation properties…specifically which Package ID to replace in the following string:
PATCH="C:\_SMSTaskSequence\OSD\<Package_ID>\i386\hotfix\KB955955\SCCM2007AC-SP1-KB955955-x86.msp"
I goofed and put the Package ID of the ConfigMgr package that the KB955955 patch creates in the console. That should have been the Package ID of the ConfigMgr client installation package…which is clearly stated in the documentation.
Once I put the correct Package ID in the string and retested…not only does the patch apply…the SUP doesn’t break!
Time for Reflection
April 19, 1984…25 years ago. A date that has been one of the primary mileposts in my life. That is the day that my Dad died of cancer. I was twelve. To say that it had an impact on my life would be a massive understatement. To no small extent my identity to that point in my life had been very much tied to being “Sam Davis’s son”. He had been one of my few friends. We hunted and fished together. I worked for him during the summer (he was a plumber, electrician, AC, refrigeration, etc). My relationship with him was very much the foundation of my life.
Then he died. It was early in the morning. It was almost time to wake up to get ready for school. My Mom came to get me saying she needed help…my Dad wasn’t feeling well. We tried to call the local doctor…no answer. It was a small town, so she called the doctor’s dad who lived near the doctor. I don’t remember exact details, but the doctor’s dad showed up at our house to try to help us get my Dad to the doctor. He was already dead by then. The rare cancer (Zollinger-Ellison Syndrome) had finally won. We later heard that the doctor was addicted to something and there was suspicion that he was high at the time. Was there anything he could have done had he been able to get there sooner? Probably not but, we will never know.
When the doctor did show up to pay his respects a few hours later I was sitting outside. I still remember that he drove a Jeep with no top. I remember walking over and seeing a Hall & Oates cassette in the front seat. From that point on, I refused to listen to anything by Hall & Oates.
That morning I remember wanting to get away. To be at the farm…in the woods hunting…for that matter I wanted to be living in the woods. To run away from all that was going on that day. My Mom had the guy who had been working for my Dad, Ellis Nasif, take my brother and I out for a drive so that we wouldn’t be there when the hearse showed up. We went to what seemed like the most natural place in town to go to on that day…the local sporting goods store owned by a friend of my Dad where we had spent a good bit of time. We bought pellets for my pellet gun.
The next few days were all a blur. The funeral, the burial. His pallbearers were the men he had gone elk hunting in Colorado with. One thing that I remember is taking my Dad’s 35mm camera and taking pictures that day. I barely knew how to operate it, but the pictures turned out perfect. I’m still amazed at how those turned out…I never took pictures with that camera again that turned out worth a flip. I wrote a couple of times (here and here) before about the effect that the burial had on me…it was one of the most difficult moments of my life. Perhaps more so than the death had been at that point. Seeing my uncles shovel the dirt into the grave was simply gut wrenching.
Little did I know the effects that this would have on me. I mentioned that my relationship with my Dad had been the foundation of my life. With that foundation gone, there were some significant aspects of my life that crumbled. I retreated into a shell. I spent a lot of time during lunch and recess sitting in a corner on the top row of bleachers in the gym. As far away from people as I could possibly get. I was empty and lonely.
Another result of this was that I started stuttering. It was frustrating and humiliating, and I had no control over it. I hated being asked to read in class…I knew that I couldn’t do it.
People who know me now are likely unaware that I ever stuttered. I haven’t since I was sixteen. I had another life changing experience then. I had been going to church for a couple of years, and had learned bits and pieces of what Christianity was about, and I had recently put it all together…realizing that I had made choices that were contrary to God…choices that caused me to be separated from God. The only solution to that separation was the sacrificial death of Jesus that was the only way to bridge that separation. God freely offered it to me…I just had to accept it.
The church that I was going to had an event called “Youth Week” where all of the activities at the church were run by the teenagers. That Sunday night a guy that I knew in passing at church named Chris Kennedy had the job of preaching the sermon. I don’t remember much of what he said, but what nailed me to my seat was when he talked about how God offers us the opportunity to have a relationship with him that can never be broken. A relationship that nothing can break. I remember him reading a section of the Bible from Romans chapter 8.
I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39 NIV)
Did you catch that? Even death can’t break this bond? The finality of separation that death causes had been unbelievably real to me…I was never going to see my Dad again. The hope that there is a relationship that even death has no power over was a very bright light in the midst of a very dark cave. That night was the first time I let people know that I had made the decision to accept Christ as my Savior. That night I also prayed for God to take away the stuttering problem. Two weeks later I volunteered to speak at a school assembly. I had not stopped stuttering yet. Just before getting up to speak I prayed again…”God, if you don’t come through in a very big way, I’m about to make a fool out of myself.” Moments later I got up and spoke without stuttering, and haven’t had a problem stuttering since. God answered that prayer in a very very big way, and to this day I remind myself before I am speaking publicly that my ability to speak clearly is a gift from God.
One regret I have is how for years I was privately critical of my Dad for one of his failings and didn’t fully appreciate the very good things that he did do. My Dad was not a spiritual leader in our family. My Mom has told me that in the months before he died that he had talked about making that more of a priority, but he didn’t live to see it through. For many years, that failure overshadowed everything else in my memory. I still loved and missed my Dad, but I had lost some respect for him because he didn’t have a positive spiritual influence on our family.
In the last five to ten years I have come to have a better appreciation for what he did do well. Much of who I am today can be traced back to the influence he had on me. The time I spent working for him instilled in me an ability to tackle nearly any problem…there is very little that I will not try to fix myself. He gave me a strong work ethic. He gave me a love for the outdoors that continues to beat strongly. He had started to pass the torch of “manhood” to me before he passed away. I remember hunting with him and field dressing the last deer that he killed (part of the antler is viewable in the picture above). At one point during that, I looked up from my work on the deer and saw 
him standing there holding the flashlight for me. He was looking with a sense of pride. I look back on that moment as him inviting me into a path towards manhood.
Five months ago, my wife gave birth to our son. We named him Sam in honor of my Dad. I hope to have as positive an impact on the lives of my children as my Dad had on mine.
The pain has lessened over the last 25 years. For a long time, I dreaded April 19th every year. This is the first year in a while that I have done any serious reflecting on that day. I still love and miss my Dad. I wish he could have met my wife and kids. I wish they could have known him.
Samsung SSD RAID
I had a friend in Australia send me the link to this video below. It is of a guy who took 24 Samsung Solid State Drives (SSD), and put them into a RAID array. SSD is fast. 24 SSDs in a 6 terabyte RAID array is stupid fast.
He claims to have gotten 2GB/second throughput. Mind you…that is a capital “B”…not 2 gigabit…2 gigabyte. (In layman’s terms…you could copy as much data as an entire DVD from one spot on the array to another in approximately two seconds.) He loaded all of office in half a second. He opened everything on the start menu (53 programs) in 18 seconds. Wow.
Baptizing My Daughter
Tonight I had the honor of baptizing my six year old daughter. She has been asking spiritual questions for a few years now, and my wife has been doing a great job of answering them at my daughter’s level of understanding. About two years ago (when she was four) is when she first clearly understood the meaning of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection…that is when she chose to accept His payment for her sins. We have been amazed at her level of understanding of spiritual things and the way she is able to articulate spiritual truths.
The video below is from her baptism tonight. It took place at the church we have been attending in Minnesota, The Church of the Open Door. It was a really neat experience for both of us. Most of our words that we spoke are pretty clear, but I have transcribed them below so that all of the words can be understood.
Marybeth’s initial statement:
At Florida, my teachers at Sunday School told me Jesus died on the cross to get rid of our sins. And then I started thinking about him, worshipping him, then we got together.
My statement before baptizing her:
In case you can’t tell, she’s a little bit excited about this.
Marybeth, it has been a joy for me to watch you grow both physically and spiritually. I am so glad that when you learned about what Jesus did for you that you chose to accept his payment for your sins. You are not just my daughter…you are also my sister in Christ.
And now, because you have acknowledged Jesus as your Savior and want to obey His command to be baptized, it is my honor and pleasure to baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
It was the pastor who made the statement at the end, "Is she for rent."
Domain Join Account – Minimum Rights
This falls under another one of those items that I have had in my private notes for a while, but can’t remember where I found it. When setting up the account in a ConfigMgr Task Sequence to join the new computer account to the domain, you must give that account rights in order for it to work. It is essentially a service account, so it should only be given the bare minimum rights. What are those rights? You can “Delegate Control” on the OU to the account and only give it “Allow” for the following:
| Permission | Apply To |
| Reset Password | Computer Objects |
| Validated write to DNS host name | Computer Objects |
| Validated write to service principal name | Computer Objects |
| Read/Write Account Restrictions | Computer Objects |
| Create/Delete Computer Objects | This object and all descendant objects |
Hopefully this will help others…and it will make it easier for me to quickly locate the next time I need to set it!
KB955955 Error
Update: I discovered that I made a mistake in the post below. Refer to this post instead. In particular, the possible solution I mention at the bottom of this post broke the ability of my Software Update Point to apply patches during the Build and Capture task sequence.
In my ConfigMgr virtual environment on my laptop I was implementing the KB955955 update today (this fixes an issue where there is a 90 second delay between installation of software packages in a task sequence). I used the instructions from the ReadMe.docx file that was part of the patch to modify the “Setup Windows and ConfigMgr” task in my task sequence. Essentially it says to put the following in the Installation Properties box of that step:
PATCH="C:\_SMSTaskSequence\OSD\<Package_ID>\i386\hotfix\KB955955\SCCM2007AC-SP1-KB955955-x86.msp"
Once I did that, I ran a task sequence to test something else, but the task sequence bombed out before finishing. Once I checked the advertisement log, I could see that it failed on the “Setup Windows and ConfigMgr” task. I logged into the client machine that failed the Task Sequence, and looked for the log file for that failure. That log file is located at: “C:\Windows\System32\ccmsetup\LastError\client.msi.log”. Here is what that log file said (it’s a little long, but perhaps it will help someone else who is searching on this…
=== Verbose logging started: Build type: SHIP UNICODE 4.00.6001.00 Calling process: C:\_SMSTaskSequence\OSD\SMS00006\ccmsetup.exe ===
Resetting cached policy values
Machine policy value ‘Debug’ is 0
******* RunEngine:
******* Product: C:\Windows\system32\ccmsetup\{35BE0386-E1B9-4F59-8DBD-E5B390AA8A09}\client.msi
******* Action:
******* CommandLine: **********
Client-side and UI is none or basic: Running entire install on the server.
Grabbed execution mutex.
Cloaking enabled.
Attempting to enable all disabled privileges before calling Install on Server
Incrementing counter to disable shutdown. Counter after increment: 0
Grabbed execution mutex.
Resetting cached policy values
Machine policy value ‘Debug’ is 0
******* RunEngine:
******* Product: C:\Windows\system32\ccmsetup\{35BE0386-E1B9-4F59-8DBD-E5B390AA8A09}\client.msi
******* Action:
******* CommandLine: **********
Machine policy value ‘DisableUserInstalls’ is 0
Setting cached product context: machine assigned for product: B3CBA12721F52334C9C01C4142FE66C6
Using cached product context: machine assigned for product: B3CBA12721F52334C9C01C4142FE66C6
SRSetRestorePoint skipped for this transaction.
Note: 1: 1402 2: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer 3: 2
File will have security applied from OpCode.
SOFTWARE RESTRICTION POLICY: Verifying package –> ‘C:\Windows\system32\ccmsetup\{35BE0386-E1B9-4F59-8DBD-E5B390AA8A09}\client.msi’ against software restriction policy
SOFTWARE RESTRICTION POLICY: C:\Windows\system32\ccmsetup\{35BE0386-E1B9-4F59-8DBD-E5B390AA8A09}\client.msi has a digital signature
SOFTWARE RESTRICTION POLICY: C:\Windows\system32\ccmsetup\{35BE0386-E1B9-4F59-8DBD-E5B390AA8A09}\client.msi is permitted to run because the user token authorizes execution (system or service token).
End dialog not enabled
Original package ==> C:\Windows\system32\ccmsetup\{35BE0386-E1B9-4F59-8DBD-E5B390AA8A09}\client.msi
Package we’re running from ==> C:\Windows\Installer\7bac5.msi
APPCOMPAT: looking for appcompat database entry with ProductCode ‘{CE6A85D8-D6B9-479A-9FE9-A06E56881E61}’.
APPCOMPAT: no matching ProductCode found in database.
Machine policy value ‘TransformsSecure’ is 0
User policy value ‘TransformsAtSource’ is 0
Note: 1: 2262 2: MsiFileHash 3: -2147287038
Unable to create a temp copy of patch ‘C:\_SMSTaskSequence\OSD\SMS00013\i386\hotfix\KB955955\SCCM2007AC-SP1-KB955955-x86.msp’.
Note: 1: 1708
Product: Configuration Manager Client — Installation failed.Windows Installer installed the product. Product Name: Configuration Manager Client. Product Version: 4.00.6221.1000. Product Language: 1033. Installation success or error status: 1635.
MainEngineThread is returning 1635
No System Restore sequence number for this installation.
This update package could not be opened. Verify that the update package exists and that you can access it, or contact the application vendor to verify that this is a valid Windows Installer update package.
C:\Windows\system32\ccmsetup\{35BE0386-E1B9-4F59-8DBD-E5B390AA8A09}\client.msi
Decrementing counter to disable shutdown. If counter >= 0, shutdown will be denied. Counter after decrement: -1
MainEngineThread is returning 1635
=== Verbose logging stopped:
Okay…there’s a problem installing the patch. I came across multiple references to a blog post that no longer exists (http://blogs.technet.com/smsandmom/archive/2008/09/24/configmgr-2007-how-to-automatically-apply-a-client-hotfix-as-part-of-a-client-push-or-client-installation.aspx). I finally located the information elsewhere that states that to apply a patch like this during a task sequence, you need to follow a different process. Here are the basic steps condensed from the original post. (Thanks to Rod for the copy of the post.)
- Create a folder called “ClientPatch” under the Client folder in the ConfigMgr install directory. (e.g. d:\configmgr\client\ClientPatch)
- Copy the MSP file from the patch to that location. In this instance, the patch is located at d:\configmgr\Client\i386\hotfix\KB955955. (assuming that d:\configmgr is the installation directory)
- Update the DP for the ConfigMgr client package.
All installations should now use that patch as part of the installation. I haven’t actually tested this fully on my VM yet, but I will update this post if it does not work as indicated.
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The Realm of the Verbal Processor 