Many a times we have seen customers coming to us requesting us to create a custom report which will list the number of machines with a particular software.

For example suppose you are trying to find the number of machine with SQL server 2008 the best you can do is run the following report.

"Count inventoried products and version for a specific product"

Software\companies and products

The problem with the above report is

1. It will not give a total count of machine having SQL 2008 rather it will display each machine machines with the version of SQL installed.

2. The second but the bigger problem is it will not display the name as “SQL server 2008” rather it will give the output something like “10.0.1600.22”

The work around for the above issue is to run the below query in the database. The below query can be used to find the number of machines with the specific application. For this example I am selecting SQL. But you can replace SQL (highlighted in yellow”) with the product you want to query.

select  xyz.ProductName, count(*) as Number_of_Machines from

(Select distinct v_R_System_Valid.Netbios_Name0 AS "Computer Name",

 v_GS_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE_CATEGORIZED.NormalizedName AS "ProductName",

 "Publisher" = CASE  

  when (v_GS_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE_CATEGORIZED.NormalizedPublisher is NULL or   v_GS_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE_CATEGORIZED.NormalizedPublisher = '-1') then 'Unknown'

 Else v_GS_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE_CATEGORIZED.NormalizedPublisher

 End,

 "Version" = CASE when (v_GS_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE_CATEGORIZED.NormalizedVersion is NULL or   v_GS_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE_CATEGORIZED.NormalizedVersion  = '-1') then 'Unknown'

 Else v_GS_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE_CATEGORIZED.NormalizedVersion

 End,

 "Install Date" = CASE when (v_GS_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE_CATEGORIZED.InstallDate0 is NULL ) then 'Unknown'

 Else CAST(v_GS_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE_CATEGORIZED.InstallDate0 as varchar)

 End,

 "Registered User" = CASE when (v_GS_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE_CATEGORIZED.RegisteredUser0 is NULL or   v_GS_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE_CATEGORIZED.RegisteredUser0 = '-1') then 'Unknown'

 Else v_GS_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE_CATEGORIZED.RegisteredUser0

 End

FROM v_GS_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE_CATEGORIZED

INNER JOIN v_R_System_Valid on v_R_System_Valid.ResourceID = v_GS_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE_CATEGORIZED.ResourceID

JOIN v_GS_OPERATING_SYSTEM ON v_GS_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE_CATEGORIZED.ResourceID = v_GS_OPERATING_SYSTEM.ResourceID

Where v_GS_OPERATING_SYSTEM.Caption0 like '%server%' and

 v_GS_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE_CATEGORIZED.NormalizedName like '%SQL%' and

 v_GS_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE_CATEGORIZED.NormalizedName not like '%arcserve%' and

 v_GS_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE_CATEGORIZED.NormalizedName not like '%hotfix%' and

 v_GS_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE_CATEGORIZED.NormalizedName not like '%books%' and

 v_GS_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE_CATEGORIZED.NormalizedName not like '%setup support%'

--order by v_R_System_Valid.Netbios_Name0,v_GS_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE_CATEGORIZED.NormalizedName, Publisher, Version

)xyz

group by xyz.ProductName

• You are using a USB dongle to PXE boot a surface pro machine(surface pro 1/2/3)

• You have advertise a Task sequence to an unknown machine.

   

  Issue:

  The first surface pro device will PXE boot and complete the task sequence without any problem but when you use the same USB dongle to PXE boot other surface pro device it will not do a PXE.

   

  Cause:

  This happens because the first time when you PXE boot the device the MAC address of the USB dongle is recorded in the database. So when you use the same USB dongle on a different machine it finds that the machine is known and as we have advertise the task sequence only to unknown machine collection so the device doesn’t finds any advertisement targeted to it and will fails to PXE.

   

  Solution:

  Basically we can follow three approach based on our requirement.

   

1. Use a separate USB dongle each time we PXE boot a surface pro device. Which will not be economical as we will need 100 USB dongle if we have 100 surface pro device and moreover, the dongle is of no use once we have the OS installed.

2. Once the device is PXE booted and the OS is installed we can run the following query to find the device in the database.

   Select

         v_R_System.Netbios_Name0, SYS.User_Name0,

         v_RA_System_MACAddresses.MAC_Addresses0

   from

       v_R_System, v_R_System SYS, v_RA_System_MACaddresses,

       v_fullcollectionmembership

   where

       v_ra_system_macaddresses.resourceid=v_r_system.resourceid

       and v_fullcollectionmembership.resourceid=v_ra_system_macaddresses.resourceid

       and SYS.resourceid=v_r_system.resourceid AND MAC_Addresses0 = '00:15:5D:5B:9A:44'

    

   (Replace the MAC address with the MAC address of your device)

    

   Once you find the device in the database delete the entry from the database. It will be a tedious task to find the tables associated with that particular MAC address.

    

3. We can also try to delete the machine from the console which should also work in most of the case.

    

4. We can create a “Test collect” and import the USB dongle using the MAC address into the Test collection. Then deploy the Task Sequence to this test collection. This is the most simple of all the above and also easy to implement.

Happy PXE booting!!

1.The very first step is to find the UDI config file which we need to modify. I have seen many engineers struggling to find this file at first. Even I had the same problem. The very easy way is to find the MDT package, right click on it and navigate to properties. Copy  the source location.

2.Open the UDI design wizard from the start windows and click on open and paste the location that you copied in step 1.

1. Search for folder call “Scripts” under Script you have to open “UDIWizard_Config.xml”

    

Open the file and now you are ready to modify it according to your requirement. I will go through few of the options that are widely used.

1. The very first step widely used is "Install program" step. Select “Install Programs” and select “Configure”. Then Click on Configuration Manager”.

Once you select Configuration Manger you need to select  specify "site server name" and "collection" to which the application is deployed.

Note: If you are adding a package in that case you do not need to deploy it to any collection but if it’s an application it has to be deployed to the specific collection and that Collection has to be specified in the options below.

Select" general software", then Add and then select Add software group.

Select Application or package according to your requirement. Then in the next screen select your choice if it’s a 64 or 32 bit package/application.(I have selected 32 bit application).

Select search and choose the application you want.

Select Finish and you are done with application or package selection.

 5.We then move to “new computer” details and select Configure.

The very first drop down gives the user to select a "Computer name" during OS deployment.

Then comes Network settings where you can specify if the machine needs to join the Domain or workgroup.

Then specify the Domain names and the OU available. The user will get the chance to choose a specific Domain and also the OU .

Specify the domain name and the friendly name

Then select “ Add OU manually” or “search automatically.”

And finally “The domain join credentials” option enables the user to put in their credentials during OS deployment and if the credential have appropriate  permissions in the AD then the machine will be joined to the OU specified by the sure. Make sure “Active directory credential check” is checked so that the credentials specified by the user can be verified for permission in the AD.

 Similarly once all the options are configured in UDI designer we need to save the UDI config file.

Make sure to update the MDT package in the DP for the changes to take effect.

6.Then comes creating a  UDI task sequence. I am using a Configuration manager 2012 R2 lab ,

 Right click on task sequence and select “Create a MDT task sequence”

Create “Client task sequence”

Follow the Task sequence steps and under “Deployment method” select “perform a user driven installation”

Go through rest of the task in the task sequence and there you are. A MDI with UDI task sequence is ready to be deployed.

Once Deployed it will look something like this.

We have seen many scenarios where after machine does a PXE or boots from a boot media it reboots immediately and it won’t show the task sequence. The first thing that we do is open command prompt and run ipconfig and as expected we see no IP address. Now when we check in the boot image we see that it had the Ethernet adapter injected already.

In this cases the very first step is to check if the drivers injected to the boot image are indeed the correct network drivers. On the command prompt window we need to go to the following location

X:\windows\inf\setupact.dev.log

If you filter this by ‘Ethernet’ you will be able to see the vendor ID and the device ID of the Ethernet card present in your machine.

In my case it was the following

vi:           pci\ven_8086&dev_153a&subsys_220e17aa&rev_04

     dvi:           pci\ven_8086&dev_153a&subsys_220e17aa

Now once we have the device ID we need to navigate to the driver package from where the Ethernet driver was extracted. We have to look inside the folder and search for the .inf file. When you open the file you will see the driver info

 So in my case the device ID of the Ethernet card and the device ID of the driver package do not match and this explains the fact that though  the Ethernet driver were present in boot image it was not able to contact the MP since those are not the correct set of drivers.

A very simple way to get the correct driver for the device (in case it is not available in the manufactures website) is to do the following

• Go to www.pcidatabase.com

• There will be search box at the top put in the device ID of the Ethernet card in my case its 153a

• It will give you the make and model of the Ethernet card and in most of the cases it will also give you the link to download the drive.