Ever wanted to have a report to get a list of updates that are not approved – Missing Updates MP is now available to download

If you have been working with System Center Essentials, you know that there is no report/view to see updates needed but not approved. As of today, the only way you have been able to get this list is to:

1. Use the powershell script that the SCE team has build(more information about this script can be found here) to get a list of updates needed for partners updates (for example Dell, HP or Adobe)
2. For Windows Updates, you have been able to use the WSUS console

Since all of the information we need do exist in the databases I thought a standard SQL report would be easier so I build one and I have added it as a Management pack that you can import (see link below)

1. Import the MP from the Administration space 
   
2. When the import is complete is can take a couple of minutes and before the report is visible in the console (you might need to do a refresh F5)
3. The report is target to the Windows Computer Class so whenever you select a Windows computer (in the computer space or in the monitoring space) you will have the option to run the “Missing Updates” report from the Action menu on right side
   
4. You can also run the report directly from the Reporting space
   
5. When you have selected the report you have the option to select one or more computers and also select from what category you want to run against (Microsoft, Adobe, Dell, Hp etc)
   
6. After you click run you will get a list of the updates the computer(s) need(s).
   

If you have any feedback on this MP, please send me a mail bjorn.axell@advisec.com or add it as a comment to the blog post

Download Missing Updates MP

I want to thank Ravi K. from the SCE team and to Mattias Lind – http://blog.mssqlserver.se/ for helping out with the SQL query

New support forum for SCOM

In the past, SCOM has used the old News groups (NNTP) for there support forums. With the release of SCOM 2007 R2, they have moved it to the new Online Forums (same as we have had for SCE).

Link to the Online Forum

System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 is now available to download

For all of you that have been waiting for SCOM R2 RTM release – you can now download the trial version from Microsoft. I’m not sure when it will be available for download from the VL site or the Technet/MSDN site but I guess it will be in a couple of days.

Download from Microsoft

What's New in Microsoft System Center Essentails 2010?

Are you using System Center Essentials 2007 (SCE)? Then you probably wonder what will be included in the next version. The SCE team has recorded a short video where they discuss and demo System Center Essentials 2010.

New features is:

• Virtualization – Full manageability of virtual machines. You will also be able to to a P2V directly from the console
• Better targeting of software
• Grouping of tasks
• Client and servers are now managed separately, this will give you the option have different patch option/configuration

I will publish more information when it become public available.

Check out this video from TechEd 2009

Link to the SCE team blog post

Ny System Center kurs hos Cornerstone – T954-Operations Manager and Configuration Manager:Best practices for real world scenarios

Min vän Anders Bengtsson (http://contoso.se) kommer ihop med sin kollega Jörgen Nilsson köra en helt nyskriven kurs som blandar SCOM och SCCM. Om du jobbar med dessa rekommenderar jag dig läsa mer om innehållet på Cornerstones hemsida.

Länk till kursbeskrivningen

Renaming groups in System Center Essentials 2007

Have you ever created a group and after some time wanted to change the name of it? This is something I did at a customer and then I found out that the change wasn’t reflected in the WSUS console. To understand why this happens, you need to know how SCE handles groups. SCE is basically a mix of OpsMgr 2007 and WSUS 3.0 groups. Both of these products has its own way of grouping computers, and System Center Essentials combines them into a so-called “SCE DeploymentGroup”. When you create a group in SCE, the following happens:

1. A corresponding WSUS computer group is created in the SUSDB database (using the WSUS APIs)
2. An instance of a DeploymentSettings type is created in the Opsmgr db
3. A relationship is added between the OpsMgr group and the DeploymentSettings instance.

Now, when you rename a group (from the authoring space in the console) – it will write the new name to the Opsmgr db but the WSUS APIs doesn’t support rename of there groups so the name will not change in the SUS db. The membership of the groups between SCE and WSUS will continue to stay in sync since these are linked based on a GUID rather than the name.

Some side effects that can appear confusing:

• The name of the groups will be different if you open the WSUS and the SCE console side-by-side
• You won’t be able to create a group with the same name as the original group – the error displayed is “group already exists”
• Hardware and Software reports will show the original group name and not the updated group name

Note"! The above explain the behavior for a group that you have created from scratch. If you create a group based on an existing MP’s (that exist in a sealed MP), this groups can not be renamed nor can it be deleted after you created/link it(except if you edit the MIcrosoft SystemCenter Essentials Default User MP)

I want to thank Richard R. from the SCE product team for helping me validating this behavior

Visio Add-in for Operations Manager 2007 R2" Beta released

Have you ever wanted to create your own diagram views? Now you can download the Visio Add-in and add real time data to any Vision object.

Read more about the Vision Add-in from the System Center Operations Manager team blog

Download the Vision Add-in from Microsoft Connect

Note that this only works for Opsmgr 2007 R2 so it will not work for SCE or Opsmgr RTM SP1

Are you a Vista or Windows Server 2008 user, SP2 is now available for download

If you are running Vista or Windows Server 2008, you should now start to download the Service Pack 2  – As of now it is only available on MSDN and TechNet

New cool System Center products and features was showcased at MMS 2009

This week was an important week for everyone that is working with System Center Products. Last night I was looking at one of the keynotes (click to view “MMS Day 2 Keynote”) that Brad Anderson presented and during the keynote a couple of cool demos was shown. There were especially two of them that made me happy:

1. I must admit that I have never been a big fan of SCCM but the SCCM vNext looks really cool. The new way you can “target” application will really make life easier for the user. Below you  see a print screen of the product where you can configure how the application should be applied to “me” as a user depending on how and what I logon to. They also moved to the new “System Center Console” instead of the MMC:(To view this demo, go directly to 01:33:20)
   

UPDATE – Bill Anderson talks about the SCCM vNext

1. The second thing I wanted to write about is the new product System Center Online Desktop manager (SCODM). This looks like a “System Center Essentials” in the cloud product. In the first release it will be able to manage (To view this demo, go directly to 01:13:50)
   1. Update management (Windows Update)
   2. Host Protection (Forefront Client Protection)
   3. Remote Assistance
   4. Asset Management
   5. Desktop Monitoring
   6. Desktop Configuration

This product will be updated every 6 month and feature that were mention during the keynote was Software Deployment

The above print screen show you an overview of your hole environment as regards to updates, malware and policy setting

The above print screen show you an overview of the update status in your environment

The above print screen show you an overview of the malware status in your environment