Useful Information from TechEd 2010 Berlin

Last week I was at TechEd 2010 in Berlin. With 6,000 delegates the event was sold out! It was a nice week with lots of useful information about Management and Windows Client (my favourite tracks). There were many companies with further additions for ConfigMgr (software catalog, mobile devices, self service portal, etc.). The sessions I've done are about the following products:

• Deployment (best practices, issues, etc.)
• ConfigMgr 2007 and v.Next (2012)
• MDOP (Advanced Group Policy Management 4.0)
• Migrate Windows XP to Windows 7
• Windows Embedded (WES2009 and WES7)
• MS Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2010
• Forefront Endpoint Protection (FEP) 2010
• Group Policy Objects (and Preferences) 
• MS Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (Med-V) v2

 

Useful information about Configuration Manager:

• The name for the next release of ConfigMgr, will be System Center Configuration Manager 2012. The 2012 release will be User Centric instead of Device Centric. The product is currently in Beta 1; Beta 2 is expected to be released around H1 2011.
• New for the user in ConfigMgr 2012 is, the Software Catalog portal on the workplace. With the Software Catalog portal you can easily search for new software and install (or request) the software on your computer.
• There will be more support for mobile devices in ConfigMgr 2012. Not only support for Windows Mobile 6.x, but also for Android 2.2.2, iOS 4.0, Symbian 3.3.3 and Windows Phone 7. Maybe more to come!?
• You can deploy WES2009 and WES7 in WDS, MDT 2010 and ConfigMgr 2007 on Embedded devices. With ConfigMgr 2007 there is also support for using Task Sequences.
• Forefront Endpoint Protection (FEP) 2010 will be fully integrated with ConfigMgr 2012. You only need one console to manage your clients!
• Choose which installation you want on different kind of devices in ConfigMgr 2012 (e.g. MSI-based on fat clients and App-V packages on Tablet devices. (works great!)
• In ConfigMgr 2012 there is Delegation of control by default. No need for selecting functionalities by yourself! Also the ConfigMgr console shows only the information which you may see, so it's custom by default!
• There is an Hotfix available for solving duplicate drivers issues in ConfigMgr 2007: (no more troubleshooting on driver packages)! http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2213600 
• There is an Exchange Server connector build in ConfigMgr 2012 for managing Windows Phone 7 devices! Maybe more to come!?
• With Collection membership rules, you can put subcollections in other collections for managing deployments and distributions.
• You can set overall ConfigMgr client settings, for pushing new settings to all clients at once! (handle with care)
• With Med-V v2 there will be ConfigMgr integration! It will be fully manageable with ConfigMgr, which will simplify overhead and management for IT professionals.

Useful information about Group Policy (Preferences):

• With Advanced Group Policy Management 4.0 you can compare settings between GPO's. Also Delegation of control is possible (decide which GPO's you may see or change). And there is an History function in it, so you can go back to older versions of a GPO.
• Another nice thing in Advanced Group Policy Management 4.0 is the Recycle bin, where all deleted GPO's will be saved for some time. Because everything will be tracked in the program, it's easy to see which administrator has done some changes in it.
• New in version 4.0 is the search option (for searching GPO's, not in GPO's) and multiforest support. There is also support for Preferences and AppLocker!
• When troubleshooting Group Policies, search for the userenv.log (for errors) on Windows XP or the GPO log (Event Viewer) on Windows 7.
• There is a nice tool for troubleshooting Windows Vista & 7, called Group Policy Log View. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=BCFB1955-CA1D-4F00-9CFF-6F541BAD4563&amp%3Bdisplaylang=en 
• Look on Jeremy Moskowitz site for more info:
• http://www.gpanswer.com/ (Group Policy Community)
• http://www.policypak.com/ (PolicyPak Software)

Useful information about other deployment tools:

• You can use the install.wim for Windows 7 deployment (with Vista that didn't work, it will be installed on the D: drive)
• Use Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK) 2.0 for deploying Windows 7 with ConfigMgr: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?familyid=696DD665-9F76-4177-A811-39C26D3B3B34&displaylang=en
• When using WDS make sure you use the Server 2008 version (multicast support, Server Message Block (SMB) 2.x for faster deployments, driver management)
• With MDT 2010 you have light touch deployment functionality, but ConfigMgr stays needed for zero touch deployment!
• In ConfigMgr you can press F8 for command support (e.g. troubleshooting). In MDT 2010 you can press SHIFT + F10 for the same functionality!
• WES2009 and WES7 can be deployed with either CD/USB media, PXE boot, boot from VHD, WDS/MDT 2010 and ConfigMgr 2007 (with some kind of customization) <- I will blog on that later
• Use the MS Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 5.0 for inventory, assessment and reporting for assess IT environments: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/solutionaccelerators/dd537566.aspx
• Use the MS Application Compability Toolkit (ACT) 5.6 for Windows 7 application support: (very handy!) http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyId=24DA89E9-B581-47B0-B45E-492DD6DA2971&displaylang=en
• When searching for all kind of drivers, use the Microsoft Update Catalog! (choose for search on name or also GUID from driver) http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/Home.aspx 
• With Med-V v2 you can access Windows XP apps within Windows 7 (Windows XP mode). There will be seamless integration for both Windows XP and Windows 7 in the same start menu. (very nice!)

Handy URL's for best practice in deployments are:

• www.deploymentcd.com (Johan Arwidmark & Mikael Nystrom)
• www.deployvista.com (Johan Arwidmark)
• www.deploymentdr.com (Rhonda Layfield)

Next year on TechEd 2011 and MMS 2011/2012 there will be more information about ConfigMgr 2012, and all new functionality in it!