May 10, 2026 Back in 2018, I wrote a blog called Optimizing Win10 OS Upgrade WIM Sizes. The goal was to keep OS upgrade times as low as possible by using a patched WIM that contained the latest updates. Back then, admins had to do this themselves. Fast forward, and Microsoft now provides updated media…
April 16, 2026 If you have done any kind Windows operating system deployment using Configuration Manager, or Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, you have probably noticed that when the system boots the WinPE boot image, it gives the computer name MININT-xxxxxxx. This is a randomly generated computer name to prevent naming conflicts. Back in my Configuration Manager…
October 31, 2025 If you are doing operating system deployments or upgrades using Configuration Manager along with BranchCache, with your Distribution Points running on Windows Server 2022 or Windows Server 2025, then you might be experiencing download issues. First off, this is not a ConfigMgr issue, but a Server 2022/2025, BITS/BranchCache issue that happens when…
March 27, 2024 Update: Add {0000111F-0000-1000-8000-00805F9B34FB} for certain Polycom Bluetooth devices. After figuring out how to Disable Bluetooth File Transfer with ConfigMgr, I figured it would be worth while to do this for all of the Intune admins out there. This is easy since all the hard work was already done (figuring out what services…
If you are familiar with the work that Gary Blok and I have done on BIOS and Drivers, you will already know that we like to use extra fields on the Package properties to store meta date that we use for reporting and automation. Four of the fields that we like to use are on…
If you have worked with Microsoft Endpoint Manager Configuration Manager (MEMCM, CM for short and previously known as SCCM) for more than a day, you are probably aware of its immense power that it can yield on any and all of the clients it manages. It has an extremely mature Role Based Administration model that…
The Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset (aka DaRT) is a powerful toolset that is available to Software Assurance customers. Johan Arwidmark recently wrote a post called Back to Basics – Reset the Windows 10 Admin Password using DaRT that covers the steps for creating the recovery media. The DaRT Recovery Image Wizard will generate a…
If you have been involved with any kind of Windows deployments or Windows Update deployments in the last five or so years, you probably heard of the concept of deployment rings. Microsoft has been pushing this concept ever since they have moved to an ‘as a Service’ model for Windows 10 and other Microsoft products…
4/26/2020 [Download exported Configuration Baseline and Configuration Items here. This includes the CIs from Part 2 and Part 3.] In Configuring WoL with Configuration Manager – Part 1, I covered the settings that are required to enable Wake-On-LAN that are not hardware manufacturer specific. In Part 2 I cover the BIOS (UEFI) specific settings for current…
4/12/2020 [Download exported Configuration Baseline and Configuration Items here. This includes the CIs from Part 2 and Part 3.] In Configuring WoL with Configuration Manager – Part 1, I covered the settings that are required to enable Wake-On-LAN that are not hardware manufacturer specific. In Part 2, I am going to go over the BIOS…
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