Collection Membership Questions

[ramadori]

This is actually pertaining to SCCM 2012 R2 but I'm sure this would apply to SCCM 2012 as well. I'm trying to determine how SCCM handles scenarios where you have two or more software update deployments, and each deployment is configured to deploy to a different collection, and one or more clients are members of each of those collections. Is this a valid scenario or can you only have multiple software deployments going to collections with unique memberships i.e. a client is a member of only one of those targeted collections. The reason I ask this is because it seems that only one software update deployment is going to the first collection that this client is a member of and any other deployments are being ignored or not being processed for this client. To further clarify, this is a Win81 client which is a member of a Win8x Managed Systems collection. I configured a "Deploy Win8x Updates" deployment to the "Win8x Managed Systems" collection and the associated Win81 updates will show up in Software Center on the client system. Now, I also configured a "Deploy Office 2013 Updates" deployment to the "All Managed Client Systems" collection which this Win81 client system is also a member of. This collection contains all the managed systems in our infrastructure and the client OSes are Win7, Win8, and Win81. The Office 2013 deployment deploys to this larger collection (25 systems right now) because the client OS is not a concern but the version of MS Office running on these clients is. I configured the available time for both of these deployments to be "as soon as possible" but I staggered the deadlines by six hours since I wanted both deployments to do a forced install after the deadline which was over the past weekend. The goal here is to have all these updates apply themselves automatically to unattended systems. The problem is that only the applicable Windows 8.1 updates show up in Software Center but the Office 2013 updates do not and I know these Office updates are needed on this Win81 client system.

 

Also, do Software Update Groups with superceded (black X icon ) or invalid (red X icon) updates in them affect the software deployment? Will the deployment not work when the update groups are in this state? Thank you in advance for your help on this!

 

RA

 

[wilbywilson]

1. It's very common for a machine to be part of multiple collections in SCCM. So, as far as I understand, if 2 different deployments target the same machine, whichever deployment has the first deadline (assuming maintenance windows are met) will take effect. Whenever the second deployment deadline comes around, the machine should already meet compliance, and ignore those specific updates.

 

2. Software Update Groups with expired or invalid updates should not affect the other updates within that group. Those particular expired/invalid updates will stop trying to deploy themselves, but the other updates are still active/valid. A lot of people highlight expired/invalid updates, and "Edit Membership" to remove them from the Software Group. I think that's probably a good practice, but if you don't do that, the other updates in that group will still deploy themselves normally.

 

Per your problematic Office updates, I can't explain what's happening with that. What if you look at another machine in that collection? Are the Office updates showing up the Software Center (or did they already install)?

[ramadori]

WilbyWilson,

 

Thanks for your reply. In answer to your question regarding the Office Updates deployment, they have not installed yet. I checked another system which is also a member of the two different collections and the Office Updates do not show up in Software Center on that system either. If you configure the software update deployments with an "as soon as possible" available time, the updates should show up in Software Center regardless of when the deadline is, correct? Or does one software update deployment need to complete on that system before the other deployment becomes available?

 

RA

[wilbywilson]

No, separate deployments should show up simultaneously, even if the deadlines are different.

 

Sounds like something might be wrong with the deployment itself. Are you positive that you're targeting the appropriate collection (with the specific machines in it)?

[ramadori]

WilbyWilson,

 

I am targeting the appropriate collection. I think it's just taking a long time before the client gets the available deployments. Is there a command or option somewhere that "forces" the client to check the server for available deployments? Or a setting that configures the interval / amount of time that the client receives notifications of new deployments? I've been doing some Google searches and going over a lot of the menu options in SCCM but not finding anything.

 

RA

[Peter van der Woude]

When you are targetting devices the machine policy retrieval will trigger the client to look for new policies (that can be anything from deployments to settings).

[behemyth]

Have you tried going into control panel > system and then config manager client and forcing the comptuer to update its policy on its own? I would definltey force it to renew its machine policy and app/software updates. I do this from time to time because I'm inpatient and SCCM requires patience lol. This should force it to see anything deployed to it.