One of the most common requirements at the time of OSD is to have the option to specify a custom machine name during the deployment.
There are multiple ways to accomplish this. I am demonstrating the approach of using a simple HTA file to achieve this.Before we discuss about the steps required for this objective, let us discuss briefly about HTA files and setting up task sequence variables:

HTA Files:

HTML Applications (HTAs) provide a way to wrap your scripts up in a graphical user interface. For more information on scripting HTA files please refer to following links:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee692662.aspx
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee692768.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

 Task Sequence Variables:

We can create, get, and set task sequence variables in a running task sequence by using the task sequence environment COM automation object (Microsoft.SMS.TSEnvironment). In the example below I have used this object to set the OSDComputerName and OSDDomainOUName variables:

   1: SET env = CreateObject("Microsoft.SMS.TSEnvironment") 

   2: env("OSDComputerName") = OSDcomputername.Value 

   3: env("OSDDomainOUName") = computerOUName.Value 

This can also be set using powershell:

   1: $OSDEnv = New-Object -COMObject Microsoft.SMS.TSEnvironment

   2: $OSDENV.Value("OSDComputerName")

   3: $OSDENV.Value("OSDDomainOUName")

Please refer to following article to know more about Task Sequence Variables in a Running Configuration Manager Task Sequence:

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc145669.aspx 

Using HTA file to provide Computer Name during task sequence:

I have used a simple task sequence in this example where I have left the Domain OU name blank(for the next example where I provide the option to enter an OU name as well). I am not using any custom unattend.xml file:

  1.) Create a package with the HTA file:

2.) Modify the boot image to include this package and add a prestart command to it:

To know more about using Prestart command please refer to following article:

https://blogs.msdn.com/b/steverac/archive/2015/04/22/power-belongs-to-you-the-osd-prestart-command.aspx

3.) Enable HTA support in boot image. This can be done by going to the Optional components tab and then clicking on the yellow start on the lower right had corner to bring up the complete list:

In case you wish to enable powershell support, please choose that as well

4.) Confirm these settings (click apply and ok), re-distribute the  boot image to DP

5.)  Boot up a new machine (I used boot media during my test, however we can use PXE boot as well)

6.)  Click Next to start the task sequence wizard:

7.) This will execute the prestart command and bring up the HTA file:

8.) Select the task sequence:

9.) We can see that the HTA file execution was completed successfully:

10.) We see that the Task Sequence writes the data to unattend.xml file, this consists of the Task Sequence variable we set as part of HTA file in the beginning:

11.) We can open the Unattend.xml in WINPE and verify the name has been set:

12.) The machine will reboot and after sometime get into full OS. We can verify from the netsetup.log that at the time of install the value specified was picked up for machine name:

Using HTA file to provide Computer Name and OU Name during task sequence:

Same steps can be performed to provide with an OU name as well during the install process. Complete Distinguished Name of the OU needs to be provided for this to work:

At the time of OSD this value is appended to the default unattend.xml file:

Similarly we have a list of task sequence variables which can be set during the Install Process. Please refer to following TechNet article for the list of variables:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-au/library/hh273365.aspx

Hope this helps!

Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confers no rights

OUName.zip

I recently worked on an issue with backup on ConfigMgr 2012 R2 where the backup continuously failed when it was trying to make a connection to a registry key using UNC path. We observed that the SMS VSS Writer is missing from the output of 'vssadmin list writers'.

We get following entries in the log files:

SMSBAckup.log:

Error: GatherWriterMetadata failed. SMS_SITE_BACKUP 3/13/2015 3:44:44 AM 4688 (0x1250)
STATMSG: ID=5046 SEV=E LEV=M SOURCE="SMS Server" COMP="SMS_SITE_BACKUP" SYS=Primary1.sccm2012.local SITE=PR1 PID=3420 TID=4688 GMTDATE=Thu Mar 12 22:14:44.117 2015 ISTR0="" ISTR1="" ISTR2="" ISTR3="" ISTR4="" ISTR5="" ISTR6="" ISTR7="" ISTR8="" ISTR9="" NUMATTRS=0 SMS_SITE_BACKUP 3/13/2015 3:44:44 AM 4688 (0x1250)
SMS_SITE_BACKUP failed. Please see previous errors. SMS_SITE_BACKUP 3/13/2015 3:44:44 AM 4688 (0x1250)
STATMSG: ID=5060 SEV=E LEV=M SOURCE="SMS Server" COMP="SMS_SITE_BACKUP" SYS=Primary1.sccm2012.local SITE=PR1 PID=3420 TID=4688 GMTDATE=Thu Mar 12 22:14:44.133 2015 ISTR0="Error: GatherWriterMetadata failed." ISTR1="" ISTR2="" ISTR3="" ISTR4="" ISTR5="" ISTR6="" ISTR7="" ISTR8="" ISTR9="" NUMATTRS=0 SMS_SITE_BACKUP 3/13/2015 3:44:44 AM 4688 (0x1250)
SMS_SITE_BACKUP service is stopping. SMS_SITE_BACKUP 3/13/2015 3:44:44 AM 4688 (0x1250)
STATMSG: ID=502 SEV=I LEV=M SOURCE="SMS Server" COMP="SMS_SITE_BACKUP" SYS=Primary1.sccm2012.local SITE=PR1 PID=3420 TID=4688 GMTDATE=Thu Mar 12 22:14:44.133 2015 ISTR0="SMS_SITE_BACKUP" ISTR1="" ISTR2="" ISTR3="" ISTR4="" ISTR5="" ISTR6="" ISTR7="" ISTR8="" ISTR9="" NUMATTRS=0 SMS_SITE_BACKUP 3/13/2015 3:44:44 AM 4688 (0x1250)
Raised backup task failure alert. SMS_SITE_BACKUP 3/13/2015 3:44:44 AM 4688 (0x1250) 

SMSWriter.log:

Successfully included C:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\install.map into to the metadata. SMS_SITE_VSS_WRITER 3/13/2015 3:44:33 AM 5540 (0x15A4)
Unable to connect to registry containing \\PRIMARY1.SCCM2012.LOCAL\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\SMS (Error=  - [error code: 53, error message: The network path was not found.]). SMS_SITE_VSS_WRITER 3/13/2015 3:44:33 AM 5540 (0x15A4)
Error: Failed to inlcude \\PRIMARY1.SCCM2012.LOCAL\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\SMS - C:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\BackupTemp\SMSbkSiteRegSMS.dat into the metadata. SMS_SITE_VSS_WRITER 3/13/2015 3:44:33 AM 5540 (0x15A4)
STATMSG: ID=6820 SEV=E LEV=M SOURCE="SMS Server" COMP="SMS_SITE_VSS_WRITER" SYS=Primary1.sccm2012.local SITE=PR1 PID=4228 TID=5540 GMTDATE=Thu Mar 12 22:14:33.409 2015 ISTR0="\\PRIMARY1.SCCM2012.LOCAL\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\SMS" ISTR1="C:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\BackupTemp\SMSbkSiteRegSMS.dat" ISTR2="" ISTR3="" ISTR4="" ISTR5="" ISTR6="" ISTR7="" ISTR8="" ISTR9="" NUMATTRS=0 SMS_SITE_VSS_WRITER 3/13/2015 3:44:33 AM 5540 (0x15A4)
Building meta data failed. SMS_SITE_VSS_WRITER 3/13/2015 3:44:33 AM 5540 (0x15A4)

After doing a review of the process in background, we found out that a call is made to a windows function to make the connection to registry:

RegConnectRegistry function

As per MSDN article: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms724840%28v=vs.85%29.aspx:

'"RegConnectRegistry requires the Remote Registry service to be running on the remote computer. By default, this service is configured to be started manually. To configure the Remote Registry service to start automatically, run Services.msc and change the Startup Type of the service to Automatic."

So the 'Remote Registry Service' should be enabled.

We checked and determined the service was disabled. After Starting the 'Remote Registry service' backup was successful once again.

Hope this helps.

I recently came across an issue with offline servicing in ConfigMgr2012. The issue was a bit obscure initially but a logical approach cracked it soon.

Offline Servicing fails with following error -

Mounting image at index 1. Image file='C:\ConfigMgr_OfflineImageServicing\TCM0012B\Win7SP1_Office10_NET40_x64_10_02_2012.wim', MountDirectory='C:\ConfigMgr_OfflineImageServicing\TCM0012B\ImageMountDir', ImageFileType='WIM', Mode='ReadWrite'SMS_OFFLINE_SERVICING_MANAGER           29/11/2013 10:44:20 AM               18772 (0x4954)Image OS information : MajorVersionMS = 6, MinorVersionMS = 1, MajorVersionLS = 7601, MinorVersionLS = 18015                SMS_OFFLINE_SERVICING_MANAGER  29/11/2013 10:47:23 AM               18772 (0x4954)SQL>>>set quoted_identifier on;set ansi_warnings on;set ansi_padding on;set ansi_nulls on;set concat_null_yields_null on;set arithabort on;set numeric_roundabort off;set DATEFORMAT mdy;            SMS_OFFLINE_SERVICING_MANAGER                29/11/2013 10:47:23 AM               18772 (0x4954)SQL>>>>> Done.              SMS_OFFLINE_SERVICING_MANAGER  29/11/2013 10:47:23 AM               18772 (0x4954)SQL>>>select distinct cpkg.Content_ID, ContentSubFolder, FileName from vCIAllContents cont join CI_ContentFiles cf on cf.Content_ID=cont.Content_ID join CI_ContentPackages cpkg on cpkg.Content_ID=cont.Content_ID join SMSPackages pkg on pkg.PkgID=cpkg.PkgID where CI_ID=16791696 SMS_OFFLINE_SERVICING_MANAGER  29/11/2013 10:47:23 AM                18772 (0x4954)SQL>>>>> Done.              SMS_OFFLINE_SERVICING_MANAGER  29/11/2013 10:47:23 AM               18772 (0x4954)

____________________________________________________________________

Interesting thing was that the number  “2” kept changing every time we tried to run the wizard for offline servicing.

 On running the SQL query in SQl management Studio We got:

____________________________________________________________________

Result:

Content ID           ContentSubFolder                                               Filename

16791021           2921051e-5897-4120-b749-0f38f3ea6ac9        windows6.1-kb982666-x64.cab

It turned out that the number “2” was the first character for the string “2921051e-5897-4120-b749-0f38f3ea6ac9”. This would change on subsequent attempts and the number “2” would be replaced by the first alphabet/digit of the value under ‘ContentSubFolder’.

This Number  ‘2921051e-5897-4120-b749-0f38f3ea6ac9’ was actually the name of the folder in the ‘DataLib’ directory in ‘SMSContentLib’.

I:\SCCMContentLib\DataLib\2921051e-5897-4120-b749-0f38f3ea6ac9

[File]

Attributes=00000020

Size=63945

TimeModified=129385629639903558

 ____________________________________________________________________

The FileLib Directory was split across multiple drives. We found that the actual content for this Update was stored on E:\.

E:\SCCMContentLib\FileLib\0DCA

For more information on how to navigate inside SCCMContentLib please refer to:

https://blogs.technet.com/b/configmgrdogs/archive/2012/04/16/configmgr-2012-content-library-overview.aspx

Thus we knew that the content was very much present, but, was not reachable from OfflineServicing thread. At this point I decided to use procmon  for the entire process. I found out that the E:\ Directory was not even being scanned  in this process:

Looking at the registry value 'HKLM\Software\Microsoft\SMS\DP\ContentLibUsableDrives'  'E:\' was not added over there.

On further investigation we found out that ‘NO_SMS_ON_DRIVE.SMS’ was present on ‘E:\’.This would make the smsexec process skip the drive when looking for content.  We removed the ‘NO_SMS_ON_DRIVE.SMS’ from ‘E:\’ and restarted the ‘smsexec’ service. After this  we got ‘E:\’ listed as a usable drive in registry:

We ran the wizard for Offline servicing again and this time it completed successfully.

 Hope This Helps!

Shalabh Pradhan

Support Engineer | ConfigMgr Microsoft