When starting any operating system deployment project, it is a good idea to know what systems are in your environment so that you can determine which of these systems need to support the new OS. Some systems may need to be replaced, where as others might only need a BIOS UEFI update. It is also…
I wanted a great way to present some Operating System data combined with Secure Boot States and BIOS break downs but was drawing a blank with Report Builder. Then I discovered a really powerful tool called Power BI. It not only lets you create great looking reports, but it also allows them to be interactive.…
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for my blog. Here’s an excerpt: The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 26,000 times in 2015. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 10 sold-out performances for that many people…
UPDATE 7/28/2017: Microsoft released Configuration Manager CB 1706 which now collects both UEFI and Secure Boot inventory by default when clients are running CB 1706 or later. UEFI only inventory was first included in CB 1702. Now that Windows 10 has been released, you are probably starting to take a closer look at the new…
1 Overview Microsoft Office 365 introduces a new way to deploy and update Office 365 using Click-to-Run technology. Office 365 is typically installed using the Office 365 portal. However, this presents several challenges in a managed environment. The first challenge is that users must be local administrators on their computers in order to install Office…
If you are starting to deploy Windows 10 (or are currently deploying Windows 8/8.1), then now is the time to make the switch to UEFI. A system needs to be configured for UEFI (without Compatibility Support Module being enabled) in order to take advantage of Secure Boot (and other Windows 10 security features like Device…
Dell recently released the Dell Command | Configure utility (previously known as the Dell Client Configuration Toolkit – CCTK) that allows IT Pros to configure and manage Dell Enterprise client systems. The latest release (version 3.1 at the time of this blog) includes support for Windows 10 and WinPE 10. The Command | Configure utility…
If you have ever had the need to test the PXE booting capabilities using System Center 2012 Configuration Manager using a Required Deployment, but did not want the OS Deployment part, then this blog is for you. With Available Deployments, the user has to press an additional key to get the system to PXE boot. …
In System Center Configuration Manager Operating System Deployment, content can be obtained in one of two ways for network deployments. The first way is to configure the Task Sequence Deployment to “Download all content locally before starting task sequence”. There are a few downsides to this option – it is only available to ConfigMgr clients…
I am really honored to have been a speaker at the first ever Midwest Management Summit (aka the new MMS), that took place November 10th – 12th in Minnesota. This event was the who’s who of systems management and did not disappoint. There were over 100 sessions delivered in three days by 50+ experts (which included 32 Microsoft…
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