Month: June 2009
Automatically Documenting Your Task Sequence
The Deployment Guys created of a handy utility (v2) that will automatically format your Task Sequences so that they are readable. It uses a stylesheet to format the .xml with nifty columns and colors. Check it out…No more looking through confusing XML code!
Systems with Inventories < 14 Days
This is a little SQL web report I created that identifies systems which have not reported hardware or software inventories within the last 14 days.
SELECT DISTINCT
SYS.Netbios_Name0,
HWSCAN.LastHWScan,
SWSCAN.LastScanDate
FROM v_R_System SYS
LEFT join v_FullCollectionMembership fcm on fcm.ResourceID=sys.ResourceID
LEFT JOIN v_GS_LastSoftwareScan SWSCAN on SYS.ResourceID = SWSCAN.ResourceID
LEFT JOIN v_GS_WORKSTATION_STATUS HWSCAN on SYS.ResourceID = HWSCAN.ResourceID
WHERE fcm.CollectionID='YourCollectionID' and (
DATEDIFF(DAY, HWSCAN.LastHWScan, GETDATE()) > 14 or
DATEDIFF(DAY, SWSCAN.LastScanDate, GETDATE()) > 14 or
HWSCAN.LastHWScan is null or
SWSCAN.LastScanDate is null )
ORDER BY SYS.Netbios_Name0
Note: you’ll want to change the collection ID to be the one you need. Or modify the code to prompt for a collection would probably be even better still!
RDP impacts the “Run Advertised Programs” applet
I have been struggling with a problem all day that, when I was inches from giving up, I found the cause and the workaround. Thought I’d share it too.
Sometimes it is necessary to not force a mandatory start time for an SMS/SCCM advertisement, but intead to allow the end-user to manually trigger the advertisement/program from the control panel applet “Run Advertised Programs”. The situation was that, for all servers within the targeted collection (only 4 servers total), the Run Advertised Programs applet was blank. And there was no “New Program Available” system tray icon. I tried everything from different Program settings, different Advertisement settings, reviewed the Advertised Programs Client Agent, collection settings, etc etc etc.
After taking a short break to play company softball, I came back to the office to practiced my Google-foo skills. I stumbled upon a forum posting about RDP interfering with the applet. With my fingers crossed, I launched RDP in admin mode (e.g. mstsc /admin), logged into the server, launched the Run Advertised Program applet, and voila …there was my advertisement.
Hopefully one day I’ll find the solution and update this post…or maybe someone will read it who already knows the solution!
Script to Disable HP Fingerprint Device
This VBScript is for disabling the Fingerprint device in BIOS. It has only been tested on a few newer HP models.
'==========================================================================
' AUTHOR: Nick Moseley , https://t3chn1ck.wordpress.com
' DATE : 5/29/2009
' COMMENT: This script is for disabling the Fingerprint Device in BIOS
' It has been tested on HP models - 6515b, 6535b, 2510p - but may
' function for other models
'==========================================================================
Option Explicit
Const ForAppending = 8
Const wbemFlagReturnImmediately = 16
Const wbemFlagForwardOnly = 32
Dim oFSO, oFile, oWMI_BIOSSettingInterface, oItem, colItems, lFlags, iReturnValue
' Open Log File
Set oFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.fileSystemObject")
Set oFile = oFSO.OpenTextFile ("C:\DisableFingerprintDevice.txt", ForAppending, True)
' Query WMI
lFlags = wbemFlagReturnImmediately + wbemFlagForwardOnly
Set oWMI_BIOSSettingInterface = GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationlevel=impersonate}//./root/HP/InstrumentedBIOS")
Set colItems = oWMI_BIOSSettingInterface.ExecQuery("select * from HP_BIOSSettingInterface",,lFlags)
' Configure Fingerprint Device to be disabled
For Each oItem In colItems
oItem.SetBIOSSetting iReturnValue, "Fingerprint Device", "Disable"
Next
' If change was successful (exit code 0) then log
If iReturnValue = 0 Then
WScript.Echo "Completed with: " & iReturnValue
oFile.WriteLine "Disabled Fingerprint Device in BIOS (" & Date & " " & Time & ")"
Else
oFile.WriteLine("FAILURE: Could not disable Fingerprint Device, option not found in BIOS (" & Date & " " & Time & ")")
End If
oFile.Close
WScript.Quit ()
t3chn1ck 