SCCM 2012: change client cache size

Today another SCCM blog!
This time it's about how to change the default cache size on the client. Normally it is 5120 MB, but in some cases, you deploy (multiple) packages which require more space.

There are several ways to change the cache size. First, you can give a parameter when installing the agent. The parameter is SMSCACHESIZE=xxxx, where xxxx is the number of MB's the new cache size will become.

Here is a detailed description from TechNet:

Specifies the size of the client cache folder in megabyte (MB) or as a percentage when used with the PERCENTDISKSPACE or PERCENTFREEDISKSPACE property. If this property is not set, the folder defaults to a maximum size of 5120 MB. The lowest value that you can specify is 1 MB.
If a new package that must be downloaded would cause the folder to exceed the maximum size, and if the folder cannot be purged to make sufficient space available, the package download fails, and the program or application will not run.
This setting is ignored when you upgrade an existing client and when the client downloads software updates.
Example: CCMSetup.exe SMSCACHESIZE=100
If you reinstall a client, you cannot use the SMSCACHESIZE or SMSCACHEFLAGS installation properties to set the cache size to be smaller than it was previously. If you try to do this, your value is ignored and the cache size is automatically set to the last size it was previously. 
For example, if you install the client with the default cache size of 5120 MB, and then reinstall the client with a cache size of 100 MB, the cache folder size on the reinstalled client is set to 5120 MB. 


However, sometimes the SMSCACHESIZE parameter doesn't work. Another way to achieve the cachesize change, is by running a VB script. You can use it in a task sequence, or deploy it as an application.

The script should look something like this:

++++changecachesize.vbs++++
On Error Resume Next
 Set oUIResource = CreateObject("UIResource.UIResourceMgr")
Set objCacheInfo = oUIResource.GetCacheInfo
 nValueToSet = wscript.arguments(0)

 objCacheInfo.TotalSize = nValueToSet


The commandline how it should be used (should be run as administrator):

EXAMPLE: changecachesize.vbs 15360

The number at the end is the size in MB the cache size will be changed to.

Ofcourse it is also possible to change the cache size in the Configuration Manager node in the Control Panel. Open the Cache tab, and change the slider to the value you like.

Hopefully this will help to prevent any problems in your Configuration Manager 2012 environment!

CIDR IP calculator

CIDR Calculator

CIDR

This tool lets you calculate CIDR(Classless Inter-Domain Routing ) to an IP range.
Very handy for system administrators :)

Howto: Create an Automatic Approval Rule in Windows Intune

This post describes how to create an Automatic Approval Rule(AAR) in Windows Intune to approve Windows security updates automatically.

First, logon to your Windows Intune tenant by browsing to: http://admin.manage.microsoft.com

Then, go to 'Updates', in de left pane, and click on 'Configure Automatic Approval Settings' on the right.

Following the steps above, you should be able to create an Automatic Approval Rule, it's pretty straight forward. You give the rule a name, choose the Product Categories, choose the Update Classifications, target a device collection, and you're done!



Free e-Books on several Microsoft products

Interested in a great variety of free Microsoft e-books?
You can find a list here: link

A list of the e-books:

• Microsoft System Center: Building a Virtualized Network Solution
• Introducing Windows Server 2012 R2
• Introducing Windows Azure for IT Professionals
• Rethinking Enterprise Storage: A Hybrid Cloud Model
• Introducing Windows 8.1 for IT Professionals
• Programming Windows Store Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, Second Edition (Second Preview)
• .NET Technology Guide for Business Applications
• Microsoft System Center: Building a Virtualized Network Solution
• Introducing Microsoft System Center 2012 R2
• Microsoft System Center: Designing Orchestrator Runbooks
• Microsoft System Center: Configuration Manager Field Experience
• Microsoft System Center: Cloud Management with App Controller
• Microsoft System Center: Troubleshooting Configuration Manager
• Microsoft System Center: Optimizing Service Manager

Good luck with reading :)

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.

Applying SEO to your SharePoint Online website

In this document we will describe how to provide better SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for your Office 365 SharePoint Online website.

How to do this?

First, it's good to create a Bing webmaster account, aswell as a Google Webmaster account.

For Google, follow this link.
For Bing, follow this link.

With these tools you can enable Google and Bing to crawl your Office 365 website. You'll need to change certain metatags so that Google and Bing know that you are the owner of the specific website.

1. To do this, logon to your Office 365 tenant with administrative credentials.
Then, go to Site Settings --> Site Collection Administration --> Search Engine Optimization Settings.

2. Now, you can fill out the tags you have gotten from Google / Bing (you get these when you create the webmaster accounts).


3. Verify on your Google and Bing webmaster account that the adding of the tags has succeeded.

It's also possible to give the sitemap.xml to Google or Bing. This will be created automatically by SharePoint (for mobile sites this is a different one). You can find it in the root of the site. The sitemap.xml gives each URL of your site to Google or Bing.

Additionally, it's possible to change the SEO settings per page (metadata / keywords).

1. Again, logon with administrative credentials to your Office 365 tenant.
2. Now, follow the steps as stated in the screenshot:

3. You will go to the SEO properties screen, where you can fill out all the information about your page.

 

Hopefully this information has been useful for you!

 

 

 

Monitoring Deployments in SCCM 2012 R2

 

Monitoring Deployments in SCCM 2012 R2

If you are running in to problems with your Task Sequence deployments in SCCM, it is nice to have a central view of the errors, rather than looking in the local log files of the client.

This can be achieved by using Status Message Queries.

At first you will need to get the Deployment ID of the task sequence:

Then navigate to the status message queries section in your SCCM console:

Monitoring -> Overview -> System Status -> Status Message Queries, and click Create Status Message Query.

Give your query a name (include your Task Sequence name if you like), and click 'Edit Query Statement'.


Then click on 'Show Query Language'

Copy the following Query into the Query Statement, and click OK.

Replace the site code (P01) and the Deployment ID (P012002A), in the query with your own data.
select stat.*, ins.*, att1.*, att1.AttributeTime from SMS_StatusMessage as stat left join SMS_StatMsgInsStrings as ins on stat.RecordID = ins.RecordID left join SMS_StatMsgAttributes as att1 on stat.RecordID = att1.RecordID inner join SMS_StatMsgAttributes as att2 on stat.RecordID = att2.RecordID where att2.AttributeID = 401 and att2.AttributeValue = "P01200ED" and stat.SiteCode = "P01" and att2.AttributeTime >= ##PRM:SMS_StatMsgAttributes.AttributeTime## order by att1.AttributeTime desc

 

Click OK and finish the wizard.
Now we can try and run the query.

Rightclick the query, and click on Show Messages.
You'll get a question to fill in a time span:

 

Click OK.
You should see something like this:

 

Now you can doubleclick any message to see its details.

Happy troubleshooting!



 

 



Howto: Deploy Wifi profiles with SCCM

In this post we are going to discuss the possibility of deploying Wifi profiles using SCCM. We are not going to cover the built-in possibility of the distribution of Wifi Profiles in SCCM 2012 R2, because this is limited. We will cover this in a future post.

To start, we have to download a little application called WirelessKeyView.
We will use this little tool to export and import the Wireless profile(s).

Once downloaded, run this tool on a reference machine. Open a command prompt, and key in: wirelesskeyview.exe /export C:\temp\wifi.txt

This will export the profiles to a text file in C:\Temp.

Now copy the text file and the files for WirelessKeyView to your SCCM server (preferrably to the location where the rest of your applications/packages reside).

Now create a batch file with the following commands:

 copy wifi.txt %ProgramData%

WirelessKeyView.exe /import "%ProgramData%\wifi_.txt"

exit /b 0

What this script will do is that it will copy the wifiprofile to your ProgramData directory. The second line will make sure the profile is imported.

Now you can create an application in SCCM which will deploy the above. You can point the detection method to the Programdata\wifi.txt file. Make sure you run the application in the 'user context'.