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After recently releasing the newest version of the Asset Management app for Microsoft System Center (Features Press Release), this post goes a little more in depth to explain some of the amazing features included in this latest release. Always striving to make life easier and more productive for those who use and implement SCSM, they put a lot of thought into the features clients asked for and updates everyone was clamoring for. Highlighted below are a few of notable enhancements, including the Cireson full Asset Catalog, Location to IP Awareness, Contract Management and Reporting. The full Asset Catalog found within the Cireson Asset Management app allows users to define standard hardware types, as well as information such as model, manufacturer, and price. With access to a comprehensive yet simple and informative page view with all the relevant information in one place, users can better manage the standardization of asset types no matter what the scale of the organization. Location to IP Awareness is now also an incredibly exciting feature. This function tracks where hardware assets exist, and also allows for hardware to location awareness based on IP address – information which is provided by System Center 2012 Configuration Manager. This is a great example of how Cireson works to utilize all System Center components in order to provide the most insightful and rich experience possible. Expanding on the extensive Contract Management capabilities of the Asset Management app, the new version boasts the ability to perform full contract management with different types of contracts that relate to various software and hardware assets under management. Support and maintenance contracts, leases, and warranties represent the main areas of contract management. Highly unique to the Cireson app is the ability to manage contract status via a built-in SLA engine, with notifications upon near breach or expiration of a contract’s end date. In addition, the superior reporting functions of this new version allows for comprehensive reporting based on asset data from the data warehouse and cube reporting engine within Service Manager. These rich out-of-the-box reporting solutions cover contract, hardware asset, license, and software asset reports, amongst others. Other enhanced capabilities of the Cireson Asset Management app now include, app metering data tracking against software asset types to understand installation vs. utilization vs. purchased count, and over 250 brand new features that make the System Center Service Manager experience better than ever before. For more information, videos, and overviews relating to Cireson Asset Management for System Center, visit the app store at www.cireson.com. Disclaimer: The article is from a windows-noob recommends partner.

of course, why are you installing R2 though it's preview software, are you doing this in a lab only ? can you show me a screenshot of the error you are seeing

see my answers below: Importing my ref os wims from mdt to Configmgr ? - you can add those wims and use them no problem in Configuration Manager Importing task sequences? not possible, you'll have to rebuild them Importing apps and their configuration? you'll have to add the apps to Configuration Manager Importing drivers.? Although this is simple enough to do same as above it's worth noting that Configuration Manager 2012 is way more advanced and offers way more capability than what you had with MDT 2012. You can however integrate them as you can see here and gain the benefits that both offer, cheers niall

keep em coming

have a read of this, does it help.

as far as i'm aware you can't change the color of it via configuration manager, however as you say there might be some unsupported method such as a registry hack which could be deployed via CM.

you are welcome ! glad you found it and i've fixed the links along with some missing text in the guide (it must have got dropped during an edit)

try running it as a user with Administrator permissions on the box

see below

it should be no problem as they are not sharing the same database, however check with a SCOM expert first.

try restarting WDS again and verify it's starting ok, then verify that pxe is enabled for that DP, then try to pxe boot a computer and monitor the smspxe.log

is the Windows Deployment Services Service started, if you restart that service does the file update ?

it's not getting updated because you are looking at the wrong log file, after SP1 the SMSPXE.log file is located in Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\logs check there and see what that log file says.

and now it's fixed, thanks Peter, so please verify !

personally i'd recommend you move to Configuration Manager 2012 SP1 as soon as you can, and then do whatever you need after that migration. As regards license costs, you'll need to speak to your local Microsoft Rep as they may offer you a better deal than what is offered publicly

yes, but the logic is all there in the task sequence, you can remove the frontend and use variables (machine or collection based) to guide the actions even for zero touch

if you setup the task sequence like so you'll have the ability to capture user state from within windows and then restore it later http://www.windows-noob.com/forums/index.php?/topic/7638-how-can-i-deploy-windows-8-x64-to-the-microsoft-surface-pro-using-configuration-manager-2012-sp1/

that is not correct, it can be managed with this hotfix, you just cannot deploy Windows 8 using OSD via Configuration Manger 2007 in a supported way, for that you'll need Configuration Manager 2012 SP1

well if it's reinstalls then you can use hardlinking (so the data stays on the computer in question) for new computer scenarios you can store the state (the settings and data) on the state migration point (a configuration manager share...) or on a network share I've implented a HTA frontend which has all the above logic (and more) built in, take a look. http://www.windows-noob.com/forums/index.php?/topic/7294-the-cm12-bitlocker-frontend-hta

I've notified the site admins and we are looking into it

this depends on where you want to store the data, and whether it's inplace (reinstall) or new computer scenarios so what is it ?

copying a file is easy, just create a script to do so, here's an example of just that using Configuration Manager 2007 (you can use the same functionality in Configuration Manager 2012) How can I copy files from a package using a task sequence Not as straightforward as you think

Introduction If you’ve followed my previous guide here, you’ll have learned how to Deploy Windows 8 to the Microsoft Surface Pro using Configuration Manager 2012 SP1, however that guide didn’t show you how to set the DPI (dots per inch) setting for the Surface Pro high resolution display. The DPI setting is important because if it’s set too low the text will appear in very small fonts on that high resolution screen making it very hard to read any text, therefore we will set it to a value that is more comfortable on our eyes. Step 1. Copy Windows 8 source files locally On a computer that has the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit installed, extract a copy of Windows 8 source files locally. In this guide I’ve extracted the Windows 8 X64 Enterprise iso to D:\temp. Step 2. Use Windows System Image Manager to create an unattend.xml file As a user that has Local Administrative permissions, start up Windows System Image Manager (Windows SIM) to create our new unattend.xml file. To find Windows SIM in Windows 8 with the WADK installed, simply open the Windows 8 start screen and type Windows System Image Manager into the search field like so: Click on the app to start it and Windows System Image Manager will appear. If you have not used Windows SIM before it will appear empty like in the screenshot below. We now need to use our extracted Windows 8 source files to create a catalog (CLG) file so that Windows SIM knows what options are available to us when building answer files. Click on File, then Select Windows Image. Point it to the install.wim file located in the Sources folder in your extracted Windows 8 source files. and answer Yes when prompted to create a CLG file It will take some minutes to generate the Catalog File, time for a cup of coffee, or two. After a while the catalog file is created and Windows SIM will present you with your Windows 8 Enterprise image in the Windows Image pane, now we can create our Unattend.xml file. Right click on Create or open an answer file and choose New Answer File. The structure for your answer file will now appear in the answer file pane. In the Windows Image pane (bottom left) expand Components by clicking on the plus sign beside it and locate a component called amd64_Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup_6.2.9200.16384_neutral. Right click it and choose Add Setting to Pass 7 oobeSystem. Note: if the passes are greyed out make sure you created the new answer file above. In the Windows Image pane, click on Display and in the Display Properties, enter a value in the DPI field. You can use the table below to help decide what value to enter. Less than 116 – Scale Level=100% 116 to 138 – Scale Level=125% More than 138 – Scale Level=150% TIP: open Windows System Image Manager help and search for DPI to get in-depth information about what settings to use in different scenarios. In this guide I’ll enter a value of 138 DPI which will mean that we end up with a custom scale level of 144%. I arrived at this number by simply testing various numbers until I was happy with the results. Feel free to experiment with the values in this field and report your results. Click on Validate then save it as unattend.xml somewhere locally Step 3. Create an Unattend.xml Package on our Configuration Manager serverOn our Configuration Manager server, copy the unattend.xml file created above to a folder called Unattend.XML files, and copied the unattend.xml file into that folder, you can rename this file to DPI_settings.xml if you wish if that makes it easier to understand what it is. In the Configuration Manager console, browse to Software Library and choose Application Management, and then select Packages. Right click on Packages and choose Create Package Fill in some details about the package and browse to the UNC location of where your file is stored we are not creating a program so select the third option, Do not create a program and continue through the wizard until completion. Step 4. Distribute our package to the distribution pointsRight click our package and choose Distribute Content. click next, then when you get to the Content Destination screen, click on the Add button, select Distribution Points and select your chosen dp’s. continue that wizard through to completion. Step 5. Add the unattend.xml to a task sequenceIn this step we’ll add the unattend.xml file to our previously created Deploy Windows 8 X64 Enterprise – Surface Pro task sequence. Right click the task sequence choose Edit, select the Apply Operating System Step and in the Use an unattended or Sysprep Answer file for a custom installation option click on browse, select our Unattend XML files package, and enter the name of the file as per the screenshot below Step 6. Deploy a Surface Pro and review the DPI settingsDeploy a Surface Pro and once done login and right click on the desktop, choose Screen Resolution, then select Make Text and other items larger or smaller You should see that the settings we set in the unattend.xml file for DPI have been applied and a custom level of 144% is in use. Job done ! SummaryIn this post we’ve used a component of the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit called Windows System Image Manager to create a new answer file (unattend.xml) . This file contains a component (amd64_Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup_6.2.9200.16384_neutral) that is called upon to provide details during the 7th pass (Pass 7 oobeSystem) of the operating system deployment that sets the DPI setting . Setting the DPI for high resolution tablet devices like the Microsoft Surface Pro allows you to take advantage of its’ superior screen qualities. Additional reading How can I deploy Windows 8 X64 to the Microsoft Surface Pro using Configuration Manager 2012 SP1 Setting DPI in unattend.xml may not work if region settings are changed during OOBE Download Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit for Windows 8 until next time, adios, ciao, au revoir.

did you follow my guide exactly, if not it won't work

what os are you installing on ? if you click on view problem details what does it tell you