nalinu

Hi All, Is there a sure fire way to move a distribution point from where it's stored (d:\ for eg:) to a new drive ( eg: e:\) ? I know that there are at least two methods described that are floating around (within Microsoft web site) at the minute. One is on Technet by C. Hornbeck and the other in MS social community forums. Both of them provide slightly different paths and I am not sure either works or not and wouldn't want to try it on our live server. ( Links mentioned above : http://blogs.technet.com/b/smsandmom/archive/2008/09/04/moving-the-smspkgc-share-to-a-different-drive.aspx http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/configmgrgeneral/thread/8c42e5df-6332-45b4-b218-9bde9ef156ba/) The reason I am trying to move the distribution point is that I have a SSD drive set up to improve drive access and I would like to move all packages and distribution point to this drive. I know this is a place where I will get concrete answers ( yes or No) and either way I will also know why I can do it or can't. As for the above two methods here are my gripes about them. I read the method in the Technet article and thought wow! that's easy enough ! Then I read the method outlined in the second article and I thought the contributor was right to mention about existing packages and the need to change their definitions. However I couldn't quite run the query he gives out within SCCM console. Then I lost confidence about his method. I will be really grateful if someone can help me or point me in the right direction please ? Thanks Nalin.

Hi, Thank you for this tip. I just had the same problem and thanks to this forum I was able to fix the issue. All I did was remove all the PXE images ( just cut and paste) to another folder ( eg: on sCCM server desktop) and tried to restart the server. I could restart the server at this point. Then I stopped the service again. Added back one image at a time back in to the original folder , each time checking if I could start the service. There was one folder that didn't have a .wim file and that was the one causing the problem. I cannot thank enough for this TIP. Best wishes, NXU

Hi Anyweb, Thanks for a great article. I have used this and SCCM unleashed book to understand most of how this part of SCCM works. What I still don't understand are four bits ( or need clarification ) if you would please. 1. Deployment Management node-- Are these similar to advertisements in the software distribution part ? 2. If I want to apply (eg: win 7 sp1) to a classroom and see it happen say within an hour how would I go about doing it ? ( assuming I have all the engine working wsus , sup etc) what logs at either end should I use to check the progress or lack of it ? 3. How do i set the time in the update tab in the sccm client ? it's set to 3:00 am and most of our classrooms are shutdown at that time. i have tried to find anything that says how to change this on the internet and have come up with a blank. 4. Is it possible to deploy MS hotfixes using this method ( am i right in thinking that this is only possible if the hotfix is in a MS catalog ?). If not do I have to use Software distribution to do this ? I would be really grateful if you could have even a brief answer at your earliest please . Many thanks again for maintaiing this wonderful resource. Nalin.

Hi Peter, Thanks for the response. I have set the wds cache timeout to 10 minutes using the registry key we have all been told about. However I found that advertising this TS to unknown computers did the trick. Also I found that the laptop name label had been changed so I was trying to deploy to the wrong machine almost. Once I knew this and then used the unknown computers collection all seemed to fall in to place. It's a jungle, this SCCM is, and with the help of all the good Bloggers and web sites like these i will get there... Many thanks to all who put valuable information out to help each other.

Hi Niall I have tried your process. This time it didn't work. I have also deleted the computer in question from "all systems" collection and did a Computer Association import. Still no luck. I also went through the process of "clear Pxe advertisement " etc. I also checked in the "conflicting records " area... No luck. Also FYI, when I carried out your method, I couldn't see two entries for this PC in the collection I was interested in. I had a query based selection for this PC and a direct rule as well. I could see only one entry in the collection. I went through the routine of Update collection and Refresh.... For now it's a restart of the server and then WDS .. I think. Thanks in advance for any help.

Niall requested me to attach the SMSts.log. I thought about the TS and I though I added the following step to it before it all went pear shape. Extract from exported TS. <step type="SMS_TaskSequence_RunCommandLineAction" name="Run Command Line-- CLEAR DISK" description="" runIn="WinPEandFullOS" successCodeList="0 3010"> <action>smsswd.exe /run:WHS00141 cmd.exe /c diskpart /s clear_disk.txt</action> <defaultVarList> <variable name="CommandLine" property="CommandLine" hidden="true">cmd.exe /c diskpart /s clear_disk.txt</variable> <variable name="SMSTSDisableWow64Redirection" property="DisableWow64Redirection">false</variable> <variable name="PackageID" property="PackageID" hidden="true">WHS00141</variable> <variable name="_SMSTSRunCommandLineAsUser" property="RunAsUser">false</variable> <variable name="SuccessCodes" property="SuccessCodes" hidden="true">0 3010</variable> </defaultVarList> </step> When I checked this against other TSs that are running, it was not correctly ditributed to the DP. So I changed to a similar script that had been ditributed to the DPs. That got me past the initial issue where it was failing just after the GATHER phase and going right ot the end of the TS and not doing anything in between. Now I have the TS running, but fails in midstreem with 0x80070002 error !. Having said all of the above, The TS seem to be proceeding without problems now. WHY is SCCM so sensitive ? Thanks Niall for your efforts to help the SCCM community. Without the blogs you guys have, Niall, Michael Niehauss, Xtreme deployment, Mark Arwidmark Kent Agerlund etc etc SCCM would have gone to ground long time ago.One simply can't get SCCM support from microsoft. Nalin.

Hi Niall, Firstly thanks for all the great work you have done on WindowsNoob. It's great site and without sites like yours I simply wouldn't have been able to progress with SCCM ( I have attended the MS training course). I wonder if it was possible for you to tell me how I can debug why a Gather step in a OS deployment TS would send the TS to the last step without doing the intervening steps. I am talking about the gather process that happens right at the start. format and partition, Toolkit package then gather. Soon after this the machine doesn't go to the next step but goes straight to the last step which Gather Logs and statestore on Failure. I went through smsts.og but couldn't find the silver bullet. Is there anything else i can do ? Any help would be greatly appreciated.