distribution point Archives

Today I had to move the library of the Distribution Point to another partition, because it was placed on the wrong partition during the install.

During the installation of ConfigMgr 2012 R2 (or ealier), you can place a file “no_sms_on_drive.sms” on the partitions that should be ignored for placing the library on.
In this environment there’s a C:, D: and E: drive. The C: partition is only used for the operating system. The D: drive is used for the installation of
ConfigMgr 2012 R2, SQL 2012 and the remote installation folder of WDS. The E: drive is used for the sources, images, ISO’s and the library of the Distribution Point.

So I want to move the library from the D: to the E: partition. First you’ve to download the “System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager Toolkit”. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36213

1.) Open REGEDIT and navigate to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SMS\DP and look for the registry key
“ContentLibraryPath” and “ContentLibUsableDrives”
2.) When you open Windows Explorer and browse to the D: drive, you’ll see the library folders
SCCMContentLib
SMSPKG
SMSPKGD$
SMSPKGSIG
SMSSIG$
These folders we want to move to the E: drive
3.) Open the command prompt and navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\ConfigMgr 2012 Toolkit R2\ServerTools\”
4.) Use the following command to move the Library content from D: to E:
ContentLibraryTransfer.exe -SourceDrive D -TargetDrive E > C:\TransferContentLibrary_log.txt
5.) Start CMTrace.exe and open the logfile “C:\TransferContentLibrary_log.txt” to watch the progress of the library move
6.) After a few hours, depending on the size of your library content, the move action is done
7.) pen REGEDIT and navigate to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SMS\DP and look for the registry key
“ContentLibraryPath” and “ContentLibUsableDrives”
Now you’ll see only the E: drive for the Library placement
8.) I’ve have created the file “no_sms_on_drive.sms” on the C: and D: drive

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