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Using Collection Variables to Make System Account Management Simpler with OS Deployment in SCCM 2012

If you ever changed the passwords on service accounts used in your task sequences you know how much trouble it can be. Manually changing all the password references is dangerous because it is extremely error prone.

A much better alternative approach is to use collection variables to hold the passwords and only need to change the variables.  And you can do that with PowerShell:

New-CMDeviceCollectionVariable -CollectionName "collection name" -VariableName "OSDJoinPassword" -IsMask $False -Value "P@ssw0rd" 

New-CMDeviceCollectionVariable -CollectionName "collection name" -VariableName "SMSTSRunCommandLineUserPassword" -IsMask $False -Value "P@ssw0rd"

New-CMDeviceCollectionVariable -CollectionName "collection name" -VariableName "SMSConnectNetworkFolderPassword" -IsMask $False -Value "P@ssw0rd" 

With this you do not have to specify the passwords in the individual actions within the task sequences.  These variables are native to SCCM so the client will look to these variables when required.