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Category: Microsoft News
Update Rollup 3 available for System Center 2012 R2
This week Microsoft has released Update Rollup 3 for System Center 2012 R2. This Update Rollup pack contains a lot of fixes for all the different products in the System Center 2012 R2 Suite! For alle the specific products, view the URL’s below.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2965090
Don’t forget to run the SQL script for System Center Virtual Machine Manager when you install Update Rollup 3.
How to: Directly install from a distribution point during OSD in ConfigMgr 2012 R2
During a OS deployment with ConfigMgr 2012 R2, the WIM file is downloaded locally and than installed on the C: drive of your system. The download proces for the install.wim file takes a while! This post will discribe how to configure the task sequence to directly apply the install.wim from the distribution point.
1.) Open the task sequence and select the step “Apply Operating System”. Navigate to the “Options” tab.
2.) Select “Access content directly from the distribution point” and select “Apply”
3.) Navigate to your Operating System Images and select the properties of the image
4.) Navigate to the “Data Access” tab
5.) Select “Copy the content in this package to a package share on distribution points”
6.) Select “Apply”
7.) The install.wim file will be copied to the SMSPKGE$ folder on your distribution point
8.) Right click on the image and select “Update Distribution Points”
9.) Wait until the content status is “Success”
10.) Start a deployment of a system
11.) The download step is gone now and the image will be installed directly from the distribution point
How to: Install ConfigMgr 2012 R2 hotfix KB2910552 during OSD
A few weeks ago Microsoft has released a update KB2910552 for ConfigMgr 2012 R2. This update fixes a lot of issues, but also speed up the OSD within ConfigMgr 2012 R2. I should highly recommend to install this hotfix in your environment. The hotfix is updating the site system automatically, but the client not. This blogpost will discribe how to install this hotfix during a OS deployment (OSD).
1.) First install the hotfix KKB2910552. The hotfix is vissible in the installation folder of ConfigMgr. In my example E:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\hotfix\KB2910552\Client
2.) Copy the content in this folder to your source directory.
In my example \\CM01\Sources\OSD\Hotfix\KB2910552\Client
3.) Add a new package and configure the source location to the right directory.
In my example \\CM01\Sources\OSD\Hotfix\KB2910552\Client
4.) Select “Do not create a program”
5.) Distribute the package to your distribution point(s)
6.) Open the task sequence and add a new step “Run Command Line”
7.) Select the right package and configure the command line
cmd.exe /c xcopy x64\*.* “C:\Hotfix” /E /H /C /I /Q /Y
This is for x64 systems only! Change x64 to x86 for deployment to x86 systems
8.) In the “Setup Windows and Configuration Manager” step, add the following installation properties
PATCH=”C:\Hotfix\configmgr2012ac-r2-kb2910552-x64.msp”
This is for x64 systems only! Change x64 to x86 for deployment to x86 systems
9.) Start the deployment of a x64 system
10.) After the deployment has finished, navigat to the control panel and Configuration Manager
11.) On the general tab you’ll see the new version number 5.00.7958.1104
Powershell Deployment Toolkit GUI available
Working with System Center products is one of my favorite things!! A great solution I’m using is the Powershell Deployment Toolkit (PDT). The PowerShell Deployment Toolkit (PDT) is a set of scripts and knowledge for automated deployment of System Center 2012 SP1/R2, including SQL all prerequisites, and all automatable post-setup integration. PDT is written by Rob Willis.
Download the Powershell Deployment Toolkit (PDT) here.
Because Powershell Deployment Toolkit contains some Powershell scripts and XML files, this is not a easy thing for everyone! To make this powershell scripts just more powerfull, the Powershell Deployment Toolkit GUI is created!! This is a graphical user interface for the Powershell Deployment Toolkit. The original PDT is created and maintained by Rob Willis from Microsoft Corporation. The PDT GUI is created and maintained by German Microsoft Partner ‘Elanity Network Partner GmbH’ and is not an official Microsoft Product. The PDT GUI helps to create fast PDT Configuration-Files (Variable.xml) for Zero Touch System Center Deployments. PDT GUI creates and validates the configuration files for PDT, it does not alter the existing PDT in any way. An installed PDT is neccessary for a succesful PDT Deployment.
Download the Powershell Deployment Toolkit GUI here.
Benedict Berger (Hyper-V MVP and Hybrid Cloud Geek) and Kamil Kosek (Powershell Geek and Automation IT Pro) teamed up end created this free tool. Special credits to this guys, great job!!
Free ebook: Microsoft System Center: Integrated Cloud Platform
Microsoft System Center: Integrated Cloud Platform
David Ziembicki and Mitch Tulloch, Series Editor
April 2014
80 pages
This book is organized by cloud type and begins with a short overview of the Cloud OS strategy from Microsoft and a high-level hybrid cloud architecture. It also covers the design and deployment of private cloud solutions using Windows and System Center to deliver the software-defined datacenter where storage, network, compute, and management are all virtualized and delivered by the Microsoft platform.
Download the PDF
Download the EPUB file
Download the Mobi for Kindle file
Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter 2.0
Microsoft® Virtual Machine Converter (MVMC) is a Microsoft-supported, stand-alone solution for the information technology (IT) pro or solution provider who wants to convert virtual machines and disks from VMware hosts to Hyper-V® hosts and Windows Azure™.
MVMC can be deployed with minimal dependencies. Because MVMC provides native support for Windows PowerShell®, it enables scripting and integration with data center automation workflows such as those authored and run within Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 R2. It can also be invoked through the Windows PowerShell® command-line interface. The solution is simple to download, install, and use. In addition to the Windows PowerShell capability, MVMC provides a wizard-driven GUI to facilitate virtual machine conversion.
New Features in MVMC 2.0
MVMC 2.0 release of MVMC includes the following new features:
◾Converts virtual disks that are attached to a VMware virtual machine to virtual hard disks (VHDs) that can be uploaded to Windows Azure.
◾Provides native Windows PowerShell capability that enables scripting and integration into IT automation workflows.
Note The command-line interface (CLI) in MVMC 1.0 has been replaced by Windows PowerShell in MVMC 2.0.
◾Supports conversion and provisioning of Linux-based guest operating systems from VMware hosts to Hyper-V hosts. ◾Supports conversion of offline virtual machines.
◾Supports the new virtual hard disk format (VHDX) when converting and provisioning in Hyper-V in Windows Server® 2012 R2 and Windows Server 2012.
◾Supports conversion of virtual machines from VMware vSphere 5.5, VMware vSphere 5.1, and VMware vSphere 4.1 hosts Hyper-V virtual machines.
◾Supports Windows Server® 2012 R2, Windows Server® 2012, and Windows® 8 as guest operating systems that you can select for conversion.
Standard MVMC Features
In addition to the new features previously identified, MVMC provides the following functionality:
◾Converts and deploys virtual machines from VMware hosts to Hyper-V hosts on any of the following operating systems: ◾Windows Server® 2012 R2
◾Windows Server® 2012
◾Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
◾Converts VMware virtual machines, virtual disks, and configurations for memory, virtual processor, and other virtual computing resources from the source to Hyper-V.
◾Adds virtual network interface cards (NICs) to the converted virtual machine on Hyper-V.
◾Supports conversion of virtual machines from VMware vSphere 5.5, VMware vSphere 5.0, and VMware vSphere 4.1 hosts to Hyper-V.
◾Has a wizard-driven GUI, which simplifies performing virtual machine conversions.
◾Uninstalls VMware Tools before online conversion (online only) to provide a clean way to migrate VMware-based virtual machines to Hyper-V.
Important MVMC takes a snapshot of the virtual machine that you are converting before you uninstall VMware Tools, and then shuts down the source machine to preserve state during conversion. The virtual machine is restored to its previous state after the source disks that are attached to the virtual machine are successfully copied to the machine where the conversion process is run. At that point, the source machine in VMware can be turned on, if required. Important MVMC does not uninstall VMware Tools in an offline conversion. Instead, it disables VMware services, drivers, and programs only for Windows Server guest operating systems. For file conversions with Linux guest operating systems, VMware Tools are not disabled or uninstalled. We highly recommend that you manually uninstall VMware Tools when you convert an offline virtual machine.
◾Supports Windows Server and Linux guest operating system conversion. For more details, see the section “Supported Configurations for Virtual Machine Conversion” in this guide.
◾Includes Windows PowerShell capability for offline conversions of VMware-based virtual hard disks (VMDK) to a Hyper-V–based virtual hard disk file format (.vhd file). Note The offline disk conversion does not include driver fixes.
You can download Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter 2.0 here
Update Rollup 1 for System Center 2012 R2 available
Microsoft released Update Rollup 1 for System Center 2012 R2 with updates and fixes for Virtual Machine Manager, Data Protection Manager and Operations Manager.
Components that are fixed in this update rollup
• Data Protection Manager (KB 2904687)
• Operations Manager (KB 2904678)
• Virtual Machine Manager (KB 2904712)
