For newbies on the MS-SCCM server here is another cool utility, it is aimed at the support role and will give you easy access to log-files and status of SCCM agents.
SMS Client Center – http://sourceforge.net/projects/smsclictr
And as its open source its quite cheap 😉
Thanks to: knudsen-consulting.com for sharing this tip 🙂
During one of those late nights browsing the net I stumbled across what turned out to be a time-saver in the high-roller end, what is the real interesting thing is that it is a was a total coincidence I got to think of an alternative use for a small utility aimed at a complete different audience.
If you are using MS-SCCM 2007 you know the hassle of hardware certification of new and old pc-models. If you wish to keep a tight leach on which drivers you install to the PC’s you deploy using MS-SCCM, you have to figure out which drivers are actually needed and obtain unpacked versions. Now even if this may sound like a very simple task, experience quickly makes you think twice, take a modern Laptop PC and try to see how many odd hardware devices it contains.
The process has so far been to install the PC using your installation CD, then download the drivers from the manufacture and install them and figure out which driver was related to which unknown hardware device. Then you would need to unpack the strange driver packages and figure out which files was actually required and import them to SCCM. Often you would end up with installation packages which could not easily be unpacked (if at all), and you would have to do a lot of manual labour and testing to obtain the drivers.
Well think again… and let me cut your hardware certification time to a fraction… Now you take your new laptop out of the box, start it up and let it install the preloaded OS. Then install “Driver Magician” and use the build in backup function to extract the drivers, finally import the extracted driver-directory to SCCM and you are done, the pc model can now be deployed using SCCM.
“Driver Magician” was not actually made with this in mind, it is actually what I would describe as a geek tool. It is intended for those who often install their computers and wish to minimize the time it takes to install the drivers, but believe me as a side effect it does a VERY good job of hardware certification for use with MS-SCCM.
This mean you can likely save at least 4-6 hours per pc model you need to hardware certify.
Piece of pie..
Watch a geeked YouTube intro, mind you this is not aimed at SCCM usage but more the original intend.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uq6U0y25mE
Have you ever met the annoying dialog box stating that the file you are trying to delete can’t be deleted – stating that it is in use (even though you KNOW this NOT to be true?).. Sure you have, especially running Vista (strangely enough I seem to see this issue more often on my Vista box than on Win2003/xp) ..
Well anyhow, there are ways to deal with that (not guaranteed, but quite often it works)..
http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/
is a small freeware utility that will assist in resolving this, it can quite often delete a file that states its locked.
UPDATE Nov 2009;
Also check https://readmydamnblog.com/?p=1045 for an alternate utility in a 64bit version (Lockhunter)