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…
WARNING 9/30/2016: Installation of Dell Command | Configure version 9.1 will break Hyper-V on workstations that are running it. Basically, the Dell Command | Monitor overwrites some Hyper-V WMI entries and renders it inoperable. The simple fix is to run the following command after installing Command | Monitor on a system running Hyper-V: ‘mofcomp %systemroot%\system32\WindowsVirtualization.V2.mof’.…
I was getting ready for some of my upcoming presentations that I need to give on the BIOS options of the various hardware manufacturers and since some projectors do not always like to display the low level BIOS screens, I thought it would be a good idea to do some screen captures as backup. The following…
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…
HP has a utility that is similar to the Dell’s Command | Configure utility (see How to create a Dell Command-Configure Package in ConfigMgr) called the HP BIOS Configuration Utility that allows for reading and setting BIOS/UEFI values on HP systems. The latest release (version 4.0.13.1 at the time of this blog post) can be found…
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.…
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…
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…
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