What state has the contractor left our SCCM in?
Hi, We had a consultant install a fresh build of SCCM 2007 SP1 onto a Windows 2008 R2 Server. For arguments sake, lets call the SCCM server "SCCMServer". The SCCM DB was created on a remote SQL 2005 SP2 box. I believe the site was called something like XXX, and the SCCM client was only installed to a few test machines. The idea being that we had a project to deploy Windows 7, with App-V, and Appsense to our 100+ desktops, however due to consultancy costs and lack of knowledge / experience with ALL three products (we wanted this managed), we decided to go with a contractor with experience. Knowing hardly anything technical about SCCM, and only having experience with Altiris DS and NS, our technical questioning was limited, so we had to go on credentials and references. (The usual background checks etc). From day 1 it was decided that the previous SCCM set-up would be flattened. So the contractor decommisioned the old SCCM server, removed the SCCM DB. Next we built up the SCCM Server OS again (the luxury of virtualisation), and did a fresh install of SCCM 2007 R2. The contractor set-up a new site name / code (YYY) and updated the schema, got the configs ready, and deployed the SCCM clients. Then the fun began... In the past few weeks, there have been issues with: 1. Installing a secondary site in a remote location 2. Disconvering and deploying clients 3. Getting clients to report their status to the server 4. Various AD errors. 5. etc So far the contractor has said that it's either this product, or that product, or this one, or that product which is clashing with SCCM. Bearing in mind that nothing else has been installed on the "dedicated SCCM Server". So to eliminate client agents clashing I created a manual build of Windows 7 and joined the domain and gave this client to the contractor to use for testing. Now apparently Active Directory is at fault, or this is at fault... In the meantime the contractor is sending me error messages from SCCM as if to ask me to help! Trying to get a handle on the project, that evening I looked online at various SCCM sources, but to be honest there is so much information on SCCM, I didn't know where to start. I thought Altiris CMS was huge!! However I did see a post somewhere saying that BITS was a requirement of the client, and that its not a good idea to have all the discovery methods turned on. (I'm only interested in managing Windows desktop in AD) The following morning I looked at the set-up. Like I'm an expert!? What I did discover was that that the agent had been installed to servers (even though I clearly said to the contactor we are only interested in desktops). I also noticed that both AD and network discovery was enabled. We then told the contractor to remove the clients from the servers. From what I can now see the "CCM setup" service dissapeared but there are still "SMS ***" services on the servers! Thinking that this would be handled we moved onto looking at the Windows 7 image. Now from past experience when it comes to imaging and desktop deployments, one needs to work from the ground up. Hardware requirements, BIOS versions, boot order etc, updated drivers and then start to look at the OS. When it comes to the OS, don't leave any unnecessary accounts active, make your tweaks, clean-up and disk, etc etc. Now this person thought that it was a good idea to leave the Windows 7 admin account created during the CD install active (called "bob", join the domain, not bother with a disk clean-up, and just image that machine as it was!!!) So with this being the end of the tale (or thereabouts) I have a few questions for the SCCM community... 1. If a SCCM set-up was decommisioned, the DB removed, and SCCM freshly installed on a newly built server with the same name, and the same site code was used, what problems would be seen if any? 2. What methods can be used to push the SCCM clients? 3. Can the SCCM client be included in an image or is it best to deploy it as a task after the image has been deployed? 4. In SCCM is it best to take a snap of the gold build with the machine in a workgroup or as a member of the domain already? 5. When removing the SCCM client should all the services be removed and will the client automatically reboot? 6. Is the SCCM client a requirement if WSUS is integrated with the SCCM and we wish to deploy patches? 7. Does SCCM have a systray client icon like Altiris. - Whats the quickest way from the client to see successful connectivity to the server? 8. Is there a BPA for SCCM, if not is there one planned? 9. Do Microsoft office a Healthcheck for SCCM, if so is it availabe in the UK, and to what cost, and what does the report provide us? 10. If I'm mad enough to have another stab at hiring a SCCM contractor, what technical questions should I ask and what answers would you expect from them? - In a nutshell they need to know how to perform a bare metal deployment of Windows 7. 11. Slightly off topic question; but if I wanted to run a task that picked up the model of a machine and run a script based on that model is this possible using information from SCCM? (We used to do this in Altiris. i.e. IF "%#!computer@model_num%" =="0674KSG" GOTO 0674KSG Please restore my faith in SCCM and the SCCM professional community. Many thanks!
September 15th, 2010 4:30pm

I bet Torsten would come over to the UK and fix everything for ya. Heck I would do it. John Marcum | http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/jmarcum |
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September 15th, 2010 5:58pm

You are in the UK? For a contractor, you might want to check out http://www.faqshop.com/index.htm, that site is hosted in the UK. There's also the usergroup in the UK: http://wmug.co.uk/default.aspx You'll likely find a really good contractor there. Or like John Marcum said, he'll travel. :-)Standardize. Simplify. Automate.
September 15th, 2010 6:17pm

Thanks guys. However I don't think I could afford you! LOL! I'll check out faqshop.com Thanks again :)
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September 15th, 2010 7:40pm

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