I am trying to find the best way to set up an environment where Task Sequences would be set to be run continiously.  The client wants to be able to quickly reiamge devices without moving the device to a collection.  Could I deploy a task sequence to all systems and make it available?  This is a 2012 R2 environment.

Yes you can make it available but do you really want it available on "all systems" ?

Why not at least do some filtering and have a workstations collections so servers are not included. Also set your task sequence instead of the ability to run on "All Operating systems" which is the default change it to the specific target systems "all windows 7", "all windows xp" etc.

Also, please use caution to make sure that no tech is going to change your active advertisement from "available" to "Required" which will in effect image your whole site. I try to be careful leaving active OS deployments out there against all systems.

• Edited by LB_3 14 hours 15 minutes ago edit

Great Suggestion(s) LB_3:

The client does not want to have to move specific machines to a deployment collection and wants to continuously reimage machines when necessary.  Any steps necessary to eliminate possible errors such as no advertisement is available for this device (e.g. known computers)?

i am planning on placing a password on the task sequences.

You could set the TS to be only be available to boot media / PXE.

The problem is that the clients may well be "known", ie have the same MAC address and SMBIOS GUID, but the customer could still want to reimage.

I think the password would suffice. Having the TS set to Available rather than Required would mean that the user would need to press F12 to get to the TS in the first place.

Dean

• Edited by DeanEllerby 13 hours 36 minutes ago

This is what I would suggest. Don't use the "all systems" collection cause that is Workstations, servers and whatever else. Create a collection that queries the "All systems" for "Workstation" and then make the advertisement to that collection.

So the following query would work for you, assuming you are using "All Systems" as your limiting collection. This is a "Query Rule" under the new device collection.

select SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceID,SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceType,SMS_R_SYSTEM.Name,SMS_R_SYSTEM.SMSUniqueIdentifier,SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceDomainORWorkgroup,SMS_R_SYSTEM.Client from SMS_R_System where SMS_R_System.OperatingSystemNameandVersion like "%Workstation%"

So Steps:

1. Create a new collection and name it Workstations, or something relevant
2. Change the Limiting Collection to be "All Systems"
3. Select "Add Rule" and choose "Query Rule"
4. Name the Rule
5. Edit Query Statement
6. Click the "Show Query Language" and copy/past the above into the editor box.
7. Click OK a couple times
8. Set your update for the collection, one of the 2 checkboxes on the Membership rules page, and the Full Update. Neither are required, but I have both checked on mine and a 15 minute update cycle.
9. Click next till the end of the wizard

After this all you need to do is advertise the task sequence, with whatever criteria you want along the lines of what it is available to. Just make sure you don't make it "required". This DOES NOT cover unknown systems, and keep in mind if the agent is not working, but discovered through AD, SCCM may treat it like an unknown system.

Now personally, I take it one step farther like this. Pretend the -----> is the "Limiting Collection" option.

All Systems ------> All Workstation -------> All Workstations with SCCM Agent.

I personally do not advertise anything but the Client Policies and EP policies to my "All Workstations with SCCM Agent" because I realistically do not want to make it a dumping ground for advertisements. All my collections after that are limited to "All Workstations with SCCM Agent" so I don't fill up collections with non-working agents. This is me personally. If you are looking for simplicity I would at least go with the above example so your advertisement is limited to WORKING clients. Everything else should be unknown unless SCCM knows it GUID.

Sorry this was long, it realistically take 5 minutes to setup. If you decide to go the 3 tiered setup above here is the Query for machines with the client installed.

select SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceID,SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceType,SMS_R_SYSTEM.Name,SMS_R_SYSTEM.SMSUniqueIdentifier,SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceDomainORWorkgroup,SMS_R_SYSTEM.Client from sms_r_system where Client = 1

Great suggestions.

Any easy way to minimize issues with known machines when trying to reimage machines without having to remove the machines from AD or SCCM before reimaging?

Removing the machines from AD doesn't help since SCCM doesn't purge itself. You would need to delete the object in SCCM, and depending on your AD Discovery settings, maybe AD but unlikely. I personally think deleting the object in SCCM is dirty and prefer not to, but that again is just me and I don't have any proof. There are others on this forum that are far better with SCCM then I am.

Now my setup I have SCCM checking AD often, like 5-10 minutes but I only have 15k objects between users, groups and computers. Maybe you would need longer.

Long story short, the answer to your question is delete the object from SCCM, since when you PXE SCCM does not check AD for what the computer is able to do. This does make the system an "Unknown System" to SCCM, and sometimes can take a bit to be seen as that.

Ultimately though, if you were to follow the above you would eliminate a lot of that extra work with deleting known systems. Just advertise to the collection and use a query to pull in all workstations.

• Edited by RCCMG 13 hours 7 minutes ago