Endpoint Management Community Blog

robertser | 06 Aug 2007 | 1 comment

When new computers are placed into Altiris it may take up to 24 hours for the system to get all of its patches and inventories completed. This is usally due to collection update times and long configuration update times (6+ hours).

There is an easy way to speed this whole process up and not effect the overall performance of your NS.

Create a collection called "Computers Discovered 48 hours". Using the SQL code below it will contain PCs that are discovered in the last 48 hours.

SQL Code:

SELECT vr.guid    
FROM vresource vr     
join vComputer vc on vr.guid=vc.guid   
join item i on vr.guid=i.guid    
WHERE DATEDIFF(day, i.CreatedDate, getdate()) <= 2

Create a duplicate of the collection "All Windows Desktop Computers Collection (excluding Package...

Team Resources for a Successful Intel vPro Project

Terry Cutler | 03 Aug 2007 | 0 comments

The following is a summary list of key project team roles for successful Intel vPro projects. This is a summary from experiences based on real-world engagements with real-world customers.

Some items may seem obvious - yet sometimes oversight on the "obvious" is what leads to unfortunate realities.

Open to input from community.

Project Sponsor and Champion - The executive sponsor with the vision which may have produced or confirmed by the roles listed blow. This individual helps to obtain "buy-in" from other business units, has the insight and foresight to navigate through calm or troubled waters, and understands the potential risks and associated mitigations. Although not a day-to-day project player - this role is still critical.
Project Management - Coordination of resources, schedules, expectations, and so forth. A key role for any successful project, which often has representation both inside and outside a...

Inventory Solution Tasks Not Running Correctly

BRING | 03 Aug 2007 | 0 comments

What a frustration. You click on your Inventory task and all of the sudden you see the following error: "Error when node clicked: An unexpected exception has occured during CreateInstance."

Read on for the remedy.

Click to view.

Well, the solution to this issue is not a simple as you might think. KB Article 36366, found at https://kb.altiris.com/article.asp?article=36366&p=1 gives the best solution to making sure that you database is ready to handle to load that inventory solution can apply.

The bulk of the resolution to this issue comes from...

Lock Workstation During Installation and Deployment

riva11 | 30 Jul 2007 | 1 comment

During remote installation or will running a command script on a remote computer, I prefer to hide as much as possible from the remote computer's display. I've found that even if software installation can be done in a silent mode, there are some things, like OS scripts, that are not hidden. Here are a few tips to make sure you aren't exposing too much to prying eyes.

To hide some time jobs running on the user desktop, I found an easy way and is send a lock workstation command. Using the following method during an installation the only screen displayed is the logon screen. Nothing else is shown.

After this command the user does have to log in again. But it does enable you to run short scripts or use off-hours periods to run your scripts without them appearing on the screen.

Here is the script:

...

Out of Band Manager Scalability Q&A for SCS 1.2

Joel Smith | 03 Aug 2007 | 0 comments

Recent erroneous reports regarding scalability of Altiris Out of Band Manager have occurred. The following Q&A was developed with Intel input and approval and corrects this misinformation. This document is intended to be used reactively if you encounter this misinformation.

Problem statement:

Altiris® Out of Band Management Solution 6.1 (OOBM) only supports up to 100 clients, is not scalable, and therefore not an enterprise solution.

Correct Statement

Altiris™ Out of Band Management Solution 6.1 (OOBM) is fully scalable and provides critical enterprise solutions support including out of band desktop provisioning, alert response and resolution and secure power management. Altiris OOBM should be used with Intel® AMT Setup and Configuration Service (SCS) 1.3 revision to avoid scalability limitations inherent in earlier firmware versions.

Background:

We encountered scalability issues when using Altiris™ Out of Band...

itgetseasier.com - Check it out!

Terry Cutler | 24 Jul 2007 | 3 comments

On a less serious note - some music video enjoyment for Intel vPro and Centrino Pro.

http://itgetseasier.com/

If curious about the "inside jokes and stories" see see this blog post.

Enjoy

The opinions expressed on this site are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or strategies of Intel Corporation or its worldwide subsidiaries.

Waking up the Intel Management Engine

Terry Cutler | 24 Jul 2007 | 0 comments

The Intel® AMT management engine (ME) can be placed in a sleep state depending on the host systems power state. A common default setting is that the ME is on regardless of the host systems power state (unless of course the power has been totally removed from the system).

The screen shot below provides an example of manually changing the power state of an Intel® Centrino® Pro system.

Click to view.

When enterprise provisioning - the power policy of the Intel® AMT profile can also set. See image below

...

Hardware Inventory for Intel® AMT systems

Terry Cutler | 24 Jul 2007 | 0 comments

Each time an Intel® AMT capable device boots, data (listed below) is recorded into the NVRAM (non-volatile RAM).

Thus if a variance occurs between system boots, an alert is noted within the Intel® AMT logs and event manager. In addition, should a replacement part be needed, the exact data can be obtained.

Motherboard:

Manufacturer
Product
Version
Serial Number
Asset Tag

CPU:

Manufacturer
Type
Family
Speed

Memory:

Manufacturer
Speed
Size
Serial Number
Asset Tag

Hard Drive:

Model
Serial Number
Size

The opinions expressed on this site are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or strategies of Intel Corporation or its worldwide subsidiaries.

Script for Shortcut Icon Deletion from the Desktop

riva11 | 10 May 2009 | 2 comments

During Windows client preparation, most of the corporate programs I work with create a shortcut icon on the user's desktop.

I prefer to maintain a computer clean of programs used infrequently. For example, Adobe Reader and other viewers normally are executed from a folder or e-mail attachement, not by launching the program from a shortcut on the desktop.

For this reason in my installation process I have a list of shortcut icons to remove from the desktop.

The traditional way to remove a shortcut icon is to drag it to the Recycle Bin or press the Delete key.

But I've found using a process is the best way to automatically remove these pesky icons for you.

In this example I decided to remove the PDFCreator shortcut. It is normally created during installation in the All User Profile folder....

Creating NS Collections to Divide Your Computers into Equal Groups

dmorrison | 09 Jul 2007 | 1 comment

Sometimes it's desirable to create 4 collections for inventory tasks so software audits only occur on a particular day for 1/4 of the computers in the environment without dealing with the random execution of AexRunControl. Or your CIO wants to evenly distribute a software delivery over 10 days to reduce risk and you would like to avoid creating 10 dynamic collections.

One of the challenges we often face in Notification Server is creating collections that evenly divide computers into several groups to distribute inventory processing or software delivery.

The SQL script below provides a simple way to create a dynamic collection which will be roughly 1/4 of the computers in your Notification Server. It contains 2 variables: @Groups and @GroupNumber. To create another collection for the different 1/4's of your...