Brian S. Tucker

To start off this post which I have a lot to say, I will use the 2 words "intelligence" and "negligence" in the same sentence. You don't often hear that, but I think it sums up several experiences I have seen so far with SCCM prerequisite checker. I have had the privilege of doing several live upgrades at different organizations and found that in each there are significant warnings and errors in the prereq checker.

Let's start off with the basics. You should always run the prereq checker before the installation of SCCM whether you have a fresh install or an upgrade. Fresh installs seem to be fairly straight forward and generally require a few hotfixes. Now, I will rant for a moment that Microsoft has made it ridiculous to lead you to an update that you have to give your email address to have an email with the download link and then a STUPID password to unlock the update. Really... why do you folks do that? The only plus that I can give is that the email comes generally within 5 minutes, but still.... can we please stop the madness? A password for a hotfix you requested and was sent by email to you???

Ok, this is a serious post, so read on....  Now the real fun begins for those of you who are doing upgrades from SMS to SCCM. I'm willing to bet that most of you run the checker and read what's in the wizard and get the hotfix and try and figure out why you have some of the other warnings and or errors. Warnings will allow you to upgrade / install fresh and errors will forbid you from upgrading. Sounds fair and this is where from the first sentence I use the word "intelligence". When you get a warning and or error, you just double click and it gives you general information on the error. There is one awesome warning that I can't remember for the life of me, but you double click on the warning and it gives such a description that the whole explanation is given and says to download at: and it ends.... where is the link?

Here is the good and the bad. You have to know that the ConfigMgrPrereq.log is located on the root of C:\. Open the log file (SMS Trace: newbies) and look for the warning such as the ones in the image below. There, for that specific warning (mentioned above) you will get the link. I think it's too funny, but maybe not... hmmm...

So, errors are critical, but not always accurate. I had a critical error the other day and a reboot fixed it. I had a warning that there was a backlog of files and (if you look in the log file) it was only 2 files that were 2 days old. I'm thinking of the times when discovery happens too fast for SMS or SCCM to process and you have an inbox with over 100,000 files... not the case. 2 FILES CAUSED THE WARNING! Those files were the only 2 files in the Despooler inbox.

There is another MAJOR concern with warnings. There is a warning that states something about your DP's may not be updated with the proper version. This should have been made a STOP error by Microsoft. I ignored this and it killed the install and we had to restore the server from backup. YES, always backup your server and SMS before an upgrade. Don't get stuck in a bind and get your client or boss's panties in a bunch because you skipped a critical step. On this particular issue, you get to the install point and the components are installing and half way through, you get a blue circle and a blue circle at the bottom of the page. This is NOT good. You need to make sure you have the proper version of the package on all the DP's. This error happens generally when (and I don't know why people do this... sorry) a package is made and it's never sent to a DP. Once it's sent to a DP, a HASH is made in the SQL table. If there is no hash, then you get the warning.

Another DP warning is when it tells you that you have a HASH MISMATCH. When I saw BOTH of these warnings in the same log, I thought that fixing one would fix the other. Nope.... They are both very different and have to be dealt with.

Bottom line, all errors and warnings should be fixed as much as possible except the ones where you know it makes no difference. One example of that is when you get the warning about an operating system not being at the proper version. Yes, some people still run operating systems under Windows 2000 SP4. There should be IT police for this sort of behavior, but that's another post.

Let's get dirty (no not that way... all you IT folks are the same.. LOL)! I spoke about the log file and that is the topic of the conversation. Whether you have errors or warnings, you MUST read the log. the log gives you MUCH more info than the wizard. Not only do you get what you see in the wizard, but gives some interesting solutions to fix the issue(s). Notice the image below. I have copied one of the queries below. You copy the query and run it in SQL 2005 to find the problem.

SELECT GSYS.Domain0, GSYS.Name0, site.SMS_Installed_Sites0, GHSYS.Domain0 AS 'Previous Domain', GHSYS.Name0 AS 'Previous Name',  GSYS.SMSID0 AS SMS_Unique_Identifier0 FROM System_DATA GSYS JOIN System_HIST GHSYS ON GSYS.MachineID = GHSYS.MachineID JOIN System_SMS_Instal_ARR site ON GSYS.MachineID=site.ItemKey WHERE GSYS.Name0!=GHSYS.Name0 UNION SELECT RSYS.Resource_Domain_OR_Workgr0 as Domain0, RSYS.Name0, site.SMS_Installed_Sites0, GSYS.Domain0 AS 'Previous Domain', GSYS.Name0 AS 'Previous Name', RSYS.SMS_Unique_Identifier0 FROM System_DISC RSYS JOIN System_DATA GSYS ON RSYS.ItemKey = GSYS.MachineID JOIN System_SMS_Instal_ARR site ON RSYS.ItemKey=site.ItemKey WHERE RSYS.Name0!=GSYS.Name0  UNION SELECT RSYS.Resource_Domain_OR_Workgr0 as Domain0, RSYS.Name0, site.SMS_Installed_Sites0, GHSYS.Domain0 AS 'Previous Domain', GHSYS.Name0 AS 'Previous Name', RSYS.SMS_Unique_Identifier0 FROM System_DISC RSYS JOIN System_HIST GHSYS ON RSYS.ItemKey = GHSYS.MachineID JOIN System_SMS_Instal_ARR site ON RSYS.ItemKey=site.ItemKey WHERE RSYS.Name0!=GHSYS.Name0

Above is a warning I had and I ran it against the SQL DB for SMS_XXX and found some interesting things. First, some queries work ok and some don't. Always check the query before executing it. This is the part of the first sentence where I use the word "negligence". Some of the queries work and some do not. If you run the check and get an error, sometimes Microsoft has quotes "XXXXX" and the proper query should be 'XXXXX' with a single quote. Check the results when you get the proper query string and determine at that point what needs to be fixed. Sometimes it's just a hash issue and you delete the package because it was never sent to a DP.... sometimes it's a bit more. Either way, ALWAYS read and use the log to see what the underlying problem is. I have seen some basic stuff and for a while, thought that I had seen it all, but in the last month I have seen some serious stuff that has taken some quality time to fix.

Finally, just when you feel like your life is all warm and fuzzy, you get SCCM upgraded and all green in the status components and then..... SP1 prereq check.... LOL... here it comes AGAIN. Read the logs and clear out as much as possible. If you lose your SMS data and your hierarchy dies... it's YOUR fault for not backing it up. Hands down..... be smart and remember that you are working with the most complex application Microsoft makes.

I hope this helps you to think about this important, but very misunderstood / respected aspect of the process.

Share this post:                                       

While I'm big on having WSUS 3.0 SP1 on a separate server when it comes to SCCM, I have to do what the budget calls for sometimes. In large sites where you will have thousands of clients getting updates, you may need one or more SUP servers. In a smaller site, one will be enough. A WSUS 3.0 server (stand alone) will support 20,000 systems. When you need to put WSUS and the SUP role on the same server, you have to be a little careful about port issues. Both your MP and WSUS will default to port 80. In the installation of WSUS, you are given the option to use the default website or create a new website. If WSUS will be on a SCCM server, always make sure to select the option to create a new website. If you have both on port 80, clients will become confused and not function properly.

The video shows the proper way to setup WSUS 3.0 SP1 on a SCCM server and validate it's working and how to validate that the client is responding to the proper server and port.

Share this post:                                       

We want to get some fresh ideas from bloggers on The Blogcast Repository. I would like to make a challenge that we have 50 new bloggers by the end of July. Sharing your experience is a great vent and a place to call home where you can interact with people with similar interests. I know that 14,000 people read my blog a day on average and that it takes time to draw that many people. I'm the only one who can add a blog for you on the site, so no matter what Microsoft related topic(s) you want to share your experience with, send me an email at btucker AT blogcastrepository.com and I can help you get setup and running!

Come on in and be a part of The Blogcast Repository!

Since this is a challenge, there must be some rules or something... so, if you request a blog and set it up and out of the 50 new blogs on any Microsoft technology, I will give you 1 YEAR free access to my SCCM Level 5 Giude if you post more than any of the other 49 new blogs!

If we don't get 50 new blogs, the games off... but those of you who do make a blog will see how good it can be to share your experience.

Share this post:                                       

As many of you already know, we added the Level 5 section of the website 2 months ago. As of today, we have 75 custom videos available for you to learn from. Each topic is unique and has content unlike many you will find on the Internet and much better than taking a MOC course. Since all of the people who made the videos have learned by real life experience, you get a better sense of why something should be done rather than just how it shoudl be done. Below are the topics we currently have availavle to you:

• Windows Server 2008
• WSUS 3.0 with SP1
• SQL 2008
• System Center Operations Manager
• Microsoft Word 2007
• System Center Configuration Manager 2007

I strongly encourage you to watch the free video in each guide to get an idea of who the presenter is and what his or her plans are for the guide.

Share this post:                                       

While it's a simple process to install the console, you DO know that for every version of SMS / SCCM that provides a SP, you need to update not only the client's. but the console too. This has always been a pain point for me, but I wanted to share an issue I ran across last week after upgrading to SCCM SP1 to install the console.

Despite the proper configuration of SCCM connecting to the SQL Providor, we could not connect on some machines. The solution was as follows:

1. Open Computer Management and open WMI at the bottom.

2. Click on WMI and expand the WMI Control. Right click and choose properties. Select the Security Tab.

3. Scroll down to the SMS WMI conrrol and grant the "Local SMS Admin" group for the server and give it full control.

4. Under the SMS control will be the site control. You will need to add the same permission to the local site code.

Once you have completed this, your admins or users of the control panel should have the access needed to connect to the SQL providor.

Hope this helps someone out there....

Share this post:                                       

As we all know (or should), SQL 2008 has tremendous advantages over SQL 2005, We were very lucky to recruit Edwin Sarminto who has made several Level 5 IT Guide videos on SQL 2008 which are incredible to say the least. Like Andy Dominey, Edwin focus's on the hard topics and will continue to do so each month as new information is available for release. I strongly encourage you to subscribe to his guide to learn all the new tips and tricks related to SQL 2008 you won't find anywhere else!

Share this post:                                       

I'm pleased to announce that Andy Dominey (MOM / SCOM MVP) has gone live with his Level 5 IT Guide on SCOM 2007. Andy has been working hard to come up with the more advanced issues related to SCOM. I encourage you to view his guide and see the new videos he will be posting each month to teach you the complicated things you won't find anywhere else. Thank you Andy for your contributions!

Share this post:                                       

So I have been up here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin area for the last 4 weeks and as I go outside to smoke I see this white pickup truck with the logo for http://www.vtracegirl.com/. I went to the website and found that Valerie has a very impressive career in motorcycle racing and is a 2X world land speed record holder! Being a Harley owner with my 2006 VROD VRSCSE2, I was more than interested. I saw her last week and just tonight I was outside and she comes up to the door. I asked if she was Valerie and of course she said yes. I told her I visited the site and was impressed with the stats and her bike. She said she loved to talk about bikes and I mentioned that I have a VROD. Valerie said that she started out with a VROD! Holy crap! who STARTS OUT with a VROD. A VROD is the drag racing motorcycle Harley makes under the VROD Destroyer! I was VERY humbled by the short conversation and just put my head down in disbelief that a person half my size had a bike with such power as a starter bike. Best wishes Valerie on your 2008 races!

Share this post:                                       

I'm pleased to introduce 2 new Level 5 Guides which will be going live on the site in the next few weeks. We have 2 MVP's who have spent a great deal of time to bring you custom videos on SCOM and SQL 2008. I'm very excited watching these videos as they have been uploaded by both of them! This is the information you don't get from other sites. It's all custom and done very professionally and by MVP's who have proved themselves in the community over the years. If you are a SQL 2008 admin or a SCOM admin, I would like to introduce you to both Andy Dominey (MOM / SCOM MVP) and Edwin Sarmiento (SQL 2005 / 2008 MVP). Just a side note, Edwin has more credentials than just about anyone I have ever known... GOOD LORD! (MCP MCDBA MCAD MCSD MCT MCTS MCITP:DBA MCSA). My spell checker did not know 5 of the credentials....

Both of these gentlemen are 100% top notch in their field and I encourage you to check back in the next few weeks for the introduction of their Level 5 Guides! As a consultant who uses both products for my clients, I have learned a lot by watching the guides as they have both been uploading them for us to watch. Just when you think you know something, you see another experts opinion and it gives you a new perspective to the product. I humbly thank Edwin and Andy for being a huge part of the site and continued videos that will be introduced.

Share this post:                                       

Although we may read up on service packs and other releases, we may not always see everything and Microsoft may not always tell you all the things they improved on. I found this gem just a few minutes ago and thought it was interesting. When you are not running SP1 and you import a OSD Task Sequence, you notice a few things.

1. You get a message that the boot image will not be imported. When you go to advertise the TS, the advertise check box is grey and you cannot advertise. You have to go into the properties of the TS and add in the boot image from your server. Once that task is complete, you can then advertise the TS.

Once you apply SP1, the current boot image is applied without any configuration! What other fixes and such are in SP1? Only time will tell....

While the CD key is still not imported for the OS, I can understand the security issues with that. I could post my TS and then anyone who uses it would have my OS key.

Share this post:                                       

When you have the SCCM console open and you then open help, you may find information that is not correct. The reason for this is because the same help file was used during the beta release and before SP1 went RTM, Microsoft attempted to remove all the outdated information, but missed some things. I ran into this yesterday and we had confirmation from Microsoft that indeed there were some items missed. For example, the help file stated in one section that the PXE role should not be install on a computer in a secondary site. Due to the fact that I wanted to do this, I was concerned because I was reading this, but it's an allowed option for a secondary site.

It was recommended by Microsoft to use the online library for help as that is kept up to date better than the help file. Just a FYI for those of you who find misleading information in the SP1 help file.

Share this post:                                       

While Microsoft has a list of error codes that are associated with SCCM, the code 0x80040104 in your log file means that "Could not find reference program policy", "Make sure the reference program policy is downloaded locally. Check policy agent log for details.". I found this error in an OSD image log file for drivers associated with the image we were deploying. After looking over the error code and validating that the package was in the proper location and the permissions were proper on the DP, I still had the error.

After looking over the packages (and there were several driver packages with this problem), I looked at each driver package and verified that the DP has the same version as the source directory in the properties of the package. A simple update to the DP seemed to fix the issue. So, for example, we had source code 1 on the DP, even though it was there, we still got the error. Refreshing the DP seemed to help making the package source version to 2. Validating that the DP source version matched the package version was the key. In short, this was a hash mismatch and the OSD image did not recognize the issue. I noticed on the OSD client log file in the beginning that the policy was not being applied. When it came time to install the package, since the policy was not in the beginning of the log, it errored with the HEX error in the title of this post. Lets show an example of the log file:

    Processing Policy Assignment DEP-AHC20001-AHC00008-DBBBC9D6. TSMBootstrap 5/22/2008 2:48:59 PM 1360 (0x0550)
    Processing Policy Assignment DEP-AHC20001-AHC0000A-7D1B5B9B. TSMBootstrap 5/22/2008 2:48:59 PM 1360 (0x0550)
    Processing Policy Assignment DEP-AHC20001-AHC0000B-DBBBC9D6. TSMBootstrap 5/22/2008 2:48:59 PM 1360 (0x0550)
    Processing Policy Assignment DEP-AHC20001-AHC0000C-DBBBC9D6. TSMBootstrap 5/22/2008 2:48:59 PM 1360 (0x0550)
    Processing Policy Assignment DEP-AHC20001-AHC0000E-DBBBC9D6. TSMBootstrap 5/22/2008 2:48:59 PM 1360 (0x0550)
    Processing Policy Assignment DEP-AHC20001-AHC0000F-DBBBC9D6. TSMBootstrap 5/22/2008 2:48:59 PM 1360 (0x0550)
    Processing Policy Assignment DEP-AHC20001-AHC00010-DBBBC9D6. TSMBootstrap 5/22/2008 2:48:59 PM 1360 (0x0550)
    Processing Policy Assignment DEP-AHC20001-AHC00011-DBBBC9D6. TSMBootstrap 5/22/2008 2:48:59 PM 1360 (0x0550)
    Processing Policy Assignment DEP-AHC20001-AHC00012-DBBBC9D6. TSMBootstrap 5/22/2008 2:48:59 PM 1360 (0x0550)
    Processing Policy Assignment DEP-AHC20001-AHC00014-DBBBC9D6. TSMBootstrap 5/22/2008 2:48:59 PM 1360 (0x0550)
    Processing Policy Assignment DEP-AHC20001-AHC00016-DBBBC9D6. TSMBootstrap 5/22/2008 2:48:59 PM 1360 (0x0550)
    Processing Policy Assignment DEP-AHC20001-AHC00017-DBBBC9D6. TSMBootstrap 5/22/2008 2:48:59 PM 1360 (0x0550)
    Processing Policy Assignment DEP-AHC20001-AHC0001A-DBBBC9D6. TSMBootstrap 5/22/2008 2:48:59 PM 1360 (0x0550)
    Processing Policy Assignment DEP-AHC20001-AHC0001B-DBBBC9D6. TSMBootstrap 5/22/2008 2:48:59 PM 1360 (0x0550)
    Processing Policy Assignment DEP-AHC20001-AHC0001C-DBBBC9D6. TSMBootstrap 5/22/2008 2:48:59 PM 1360 (0x0550)
    Processing Policy Assignment DEP-AHC20001-AHC00020-DBBBC9D6. TSMBootstrap 5/22/2008 2:48:59 PM 1360 (0x0550)
    Processing Policy Assignment DEP-AHC20001-AHC00001-DBBBC9D6. TSMBootstrap 5/22/2008 2:48:59 PM 1360 (0x0550)

Several of the driver packages were missing in the policy download. This tells me that the policy is bad as explained by MSFT in the error explanations. Here is the actual error:

Getting policy for CCM_SoftwareDistribution[AdvertID="AHC20001", PackageID="AHC0003F", ProgramID="*"] TSMBootstrap 5/22/2008 2:49:03 PM 1504 (0x05E0)
FALSE, HRESULT=80040104 (e:\nts_sms_fre\sms\framework\tscore\tspolicy.cpp,1790) TSMBootstrap 5/22/2008 2:49:03 PM 1504 (0x05E0)
Failed to find CCM_SoftwareDistribution object for AdvertID="AHC20001", PackageID="AHC0003F", ProgramID="*" TSMBootstrap 5/22/2008 2:49:03 PM 1504 (0x05E0)
(*iTSReference)->Resolve( pTSPolicyManager, dwResolveFlags ), HRESULT=80040104 (e:\nts_sms_fre\sms\framework\tscore\tspolicy.cpp,2287) TSMBootstrap 5/22/2008 2:49:03 PM 1504 (0x05E0)
m_pSelectedTaskSequence->Resolve( m_pPolicyManager, TS::Policy::TaskSequence::ResolvePolicy | TS::Policy::TaskSequence::ResolveSource, fpCallbackProc, pv, hCancelEvent), HRESULT=80040104 (e:\nts_sms_fre\sms\client\tasksequence\tsmbootstrap\tsmediawizardcontrol.cpp,1186) TSMBootstrap 5/22/2008 2:49:03 PM 1504 (0x05E0)
Failed to resolve selected task sequence dependencies. Code(0x80040104) TSMBootstrap 5/22/2008 2:49:03 PM 1504 (0x05E0)
hrReturn, HRESULT=80040104 (e:\nts_sms_fre\sms\client\tasksequence\tsmbootstrap\tsmediaresolveprogresspage.cpp,408) TSMBootstrap 5/22/2008 2:49:03 PM 1504 (0x05E0)
ThreadToResolveAndExecuteTaskSequence failed. Code(0x80040104) TSMBootstrap 5/22/2008 2:49:03 PM 1504 (0x05E0)
ThreadToResolveAndExecuteTaskSequence returned code 0x80040104 TSMBootstrap 5/22/2008 2:49:03 PM 1292 (0x050C)

Everything in bold was the error in the SMSTS.LOG file. Simply going through each package and making sure that the source version was 100% correct was the issue. Once you have your packages updated properly on the DP, you can then create the .ISO image for the Task Sequence and all will work fine. I had several packages that did not have proper DP policies and that was the issue. Take your time to make sure that what you want is properly deployed and available to your clients.

While I had this error in a Task Sequence, I assume this would be a valid error for a regular package. Hope this helps someone in the same situation.

Share this post: