Task Sequence Archives - LPM Automation

Tag: Task Sequence

ConfigMgr WMI Query ‘Not’ Statement

Posted on June 19, 2015 by lpmautomation

I had a scenario on client site to ensure the ‘Disable Bitlocker’ Action did not run for Virtual Machines. I did not have the MDT Toolkit running ‘In OS’ therefore I could not pull in the ‘IsVM’ variable therefore I wanted to exclude based on retrievable attributes from WMI.

Instead of the normal ‘like’ statements I used the below which you could adapt:

SELECT * FROM Win32_ComputerSystem WHERE NOT Model LIKE “%VMware Virtual Platform%”

SELECT * FROM Win32_ComputerSystem WHERE NOT Model LIKE “%Virtual Machine%”

For me this covered both VMware and Hyper-V virtual machines.

ConfigMgr OSD Goes to sleep z……….z………..z

Posted on June 4, 2015June 4, 2015 by lpmautomation

Recently I was working for a client on a Surface Pro 3 project with a very clean foundation platform as I like to do for a dynamic build. One disadvantage (which would fill a blog of opinions on its own) is the Office Install which can often take a long time.

I had a scenario whereby during this step my Surface Pro’s would drift off to sleep and until they were woken would simply ‘sit’ during the build process until an action on the keyboard or mouse was performed. They would then carry on.

After a bit of digging, during the OSD process the Balanced Power Scheme is applied as default from Windows 8.1 which includes the 10 minute sleep function. As Office takes longer than this it impacted the devices whether plugged in or not.

To combat this issue I placed a conditioned step in the Task Sequence to remedy the situation:

This will allow the build process to continue uninterrupted and allow the normal GPP Power Settings to apply once you get into Windows for whatever your power policies are.

0x80004005 error when using Applications in a Task Sequence

Posted on October 31, 2014October 31, 2014 by lpmautomation

This is a second post in a matter of days and although I like the new App model I must admit I am far from impressed on its current stabilitly and apparent frailty when compared to regular packages.

Aside from the dependancy in and around Build & Captures, at present the revision history seems to play potential havoc inside of Task Sequences in certain instances as outlined below:

When building a machine from a Task Sequence, an application (or multiple) will fail and produce what is apparently an access denied message (0x80004005) however the NA Account is configured correctly and all boundaries are in place.

The source of the issue can be traced to the revision history in the Task Sequence being referenced to an incorrect version causing the install to fail.

This explanation is detailed in this excellent post
Although I like the new App model I feel it has some way to go before moving away from Packages all together.