Hi all,

Let’s have a show of hands, how many of you like/love the new Configmgr 2007 aka SCCM 2007 admin console? You can lower your hands again now. But I can only assume that a lot of you waved enthusiastically, because the new console is a wonderful thing. 

Let’s have a quick overview of the new things I really like about the new console:

• Search folders; Search folders are a great way to organize different objects (Packages, Advertisements, Update repository, boot Images, Computer associations, Os images, Os install packages, Task sequences, drivers, driver packages, Software Metering, Reports, Configuration Baselines, Configuration Items, Queries, Mobile Device mgmt\Configuration packages). This is going to make life a lot easier for people that try and keep their admin console organized.
• Search bar; if your one of those people that does not really believe in keeping things organized but rather search through a pile of objects than you can do that to.
• Sort actually works reliably; You can now sort on any field in the console, and will really sort it
• Drag & Drop; To help you in keeping things organized you can now drag & drop your items in the relevant folder, which beats the old Move folder items wizard, that I never found to be very intuitive.
• Folders replicate down; Folders are replicated down the hierarchy, so if you do organize your items, they will still be in the same folders.
• Homepages; Homepages give you a quick overview of the status of a certain feature if you select the root hive of that feature.
• The direct membership wizard in collections finally defaults to system resources.

Now, one thing I don’t like about the new console is that most of the wizards now come with a welcome page, and there is no button to disable this. I am all in favor of some decent hospitality, but I don’t need to be welcomed over and over again. One of the most important features of the Sccm 2007 admin console though is the fact that is fully customizable and extendable. The Configmgr 2007 SDK that is currently in beta, has some great info on howto extend the Admin console with new functionality.

The console is also customizable because it stores a lot of its configuration in xml files. What I did was I took advantage of this fact, and edited all xml files that had the word wizard in their filename, and subsequently searched through those to find the wizards that had a Welcome page. I then opened them up one by one and deleted the Welcome page from the wizards XML-File. The files that I adjusted are:

clientpushinstallationwizard.xml
copybootimagepackageswizard.xml
copydevicepackageswizard.xml
copydriverpackageswizard.xml
copyosimagepackageswizard.xml
copypackageswizard.xml
copysoftwareupdatespackageswizard.xml
databaseconnectionwizard.xml
deletecollectionwizard.xml
deleteprogramwizard.xml
delsecsitewizard.xml
devicedistributesoftwarewizard.xml
directrulewizard.xml
distributesoftwarewizard.xml
distributionpointswizard.xml
exportobjectswizard.xml
importobjectswizard.xml
osd_bootimagemanagedistributionpointswizard.xml
osd_managedistributionpointswizard.xml
osd_newdistributionpointswizard.xml
osd_osinstallpackagescopywizard.xml
repairsitewizard.xml

The files were then copied in the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\XmlStorage\Forms folder. Make sure you close the SCCM 2007 console before you copy these files.

Warning – MAKE SURE YOU TAKE A BACKUP OF THE ORIGINAL XML FILES. The AUTHOR will not be held responsible for any issues that may occur as a result of using these steps to modify the Configmgr admin console!!!

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Enjoy, and as usual you can find me in the Microsoft.public.sms.* newsgroups!

Everyone is an expert at something”

Kim Oppalfens – Sms Expert for lack of any other expertise
Windows Server System MVP – SMS

Hi All,

Just last month I posted about our Unique Opsmanager 2007 training event that starts on Monday, (and which is fully booked).

And in about 2 weeks Belgium is hosting another Special training event with Andy Malone about Windows Server 2008. Andy Malone is a Windows Server MVP and has 13 years of training experience. Other things worth mentioning about Andy is that he delivered a session at Windows IT pro connections in Amsterdam about Windows Server 2008 Terminial Services, and last but not least Andy won the Speaker’s Idol at Teched It Forum in Barcelona, which means he is qualified to deliver a full Teched It forum this year where he will deliver a session about a security deep dive into Windows Server 2008.

So yet again, we have a Belgian event where you get to spend a full day, with one of those exceptional folks that deliver sessions for a couple of hundreds of people. So without further ado get over to the following pages to learn more about this event.

Overview Page: http://www.globalknowledge.be/whats_new/new_courses/windows_server_2008.aspx

Booking Page + Additional Details: http://www.globalknowledge.be/Default.aspx?page=461&coursecode=GKWS08

Summary: The event will take place in Mechelen on the 26th of September, and will cost 395€.

Please note that I only found out about this event recently, so this is pretty short notice. Number of seats is limited so act now.

PS: Our very own Bart de Smet won that some competition on the devside of things. Bart is on his way to start working for Microsoft in Redmond, so he’ll have to fly back over to claim his speaker slot. Have a nice trip Bart.

This week someone in the newsgroups asked a question about how to create a collection excluding members from another collection. The answer to that question is based on the knowledge that every collection you make in Sms or Configmgr 2007 aka Sccm creates its own wmi class. The class will be named sms_cm_res_coll_collectionid.

So the answer to the question becomes something like

1) Create your collection

2) Add a query based membership rule to your collection

3) Edit the query statement of the collection

4) On the criteria tab add a criteria

5) For the attribute class select System Resource, and use Resource Id for the attribute

6) For the criteria type use subselect

7) For the operator select “Not In”

8) In the query box type select resourceid from sms_cm_res_coll_collectionid.

EDIT: Janne Mansnerus  kindly pointed out that this didn’t work, the original post specified the query as sms_cm_ress_coll_collectionid. In reality the class is called sms_cm_res_coll_collectionid. So res with single s instead or ress.

This all works fine, with one difficulty to overcome, you need to figure out the collection id, and that is not as easy as it could be, especially if you need the collectionid of a linked collection. That’s why I have created a prompted query to easily find the collectionid based on the collection name. Here is how you create the query.

1) Go to queries

2) Right-click and select new query

3) Make sure you specify <unspecified> in the Object type dialog.

4) Press the Edit Query button

5) Paste the following query in the Query statement box that opens up:

select collectionid, name from sms_collection where name like ##PRM:SMS_collection.Name##

Note: You can use the _ and % wildcard signs when you input the collection name.

Note2: This query is no longer necessary once you migrate to SCCM 2007, the new admin UI in Configmgr 2007 has the collectionid written down on the properties page of every collection. The flexible approach by using the sms_cm_ress_coll_collectionid for building collections is still very valid though. This approach is usually used whenever someone is looking for the reverse option of “collection limiting” collections.

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Enjoy, and as usual you can find me in the Microsoft.public.sms.* newsgroups!

Everyone is an expert at something”

Kim Oppalfens – Sms Expert for lack of any other expertise
Windows Server System MVP – SMS