Part 1: Configuration Manager 2007 R3 beta deployment in Microsoft IT
Microsoft IT Configuration Manager team has recently deployed Configuration Manager 2007 R3 beta in production as part of R3 dogfooding. And below are the detailed steps we documented for deploying Configuration Manager 2007 R3 beta. Special Thanks to Partha Chandran for the detailed operations documentation for R3 beta deployment.
This document highlights R3 beta upgrade preparation, server upgrade and validation tasks to be performed post R3 beta upgrade. Please note this document is not an inclusive task list, so please refer to the R3 documentation for more details.
As standard Configuration Manager Server upgrade, plan for complete hierarchy upgrade - starting from Central Site, Primary Site and all secondary sites. R3 beta upgrade also involves a client side hotfix deployment which is mentioned in the later section of this document.
Below table indicates the site roles where this upgrade is applicable.
Role |
What to Install |
Comments |
Site Server (Primary Site) |
Hotfix & R3 Installation |
|
Site Server (Secondary Site) |
Hotfix & R3 Installation |
|
Provider (if on remote server) |
Hotfix |
|
MP, DP, SUP, SQL DB Server (if remote) |
Not Required |
No specific steps required for other roles. |
Admin Console |
Hotfix & R3 Installation |
Without Console upgrade, the UI of power management may be incorrect. Hence before configuring power policies upgrade consoles. |
Pre-Flight Checks for R3 Beta Upgrade
1. Ensure ConfigMgr Site Backup is successful before beginning ConfigMgr R3 beta upgrade.
2. Take a backup of Configuration.MOF and SMS_Def.MOF from the site server that is to be upgraded.
3. Ensure all site server component and dependent services are healthy to avoid conflict for R3 beta upgrade, including installing of required security updates and reboot of servers if required.
Configuration Manager 2007 R3 Beta Server Upgrade Tasks
1. Install the server side hotfix (KB977384) from the R3 installation bits location using the below command line. Ensure logging is provided as parameter to review the installation log later and to capture and report any errors.
MSIEXEC.exe /i SCCM2007-SP2-KB977384Beta-X86-ENU.msi /l*v %temp%\R3_Hotfix_Installation.log
2. During the installation process, when prompted to create a software distribution package for client hotfix deployment, Confirm to create one and provide a name for the ConfigMgr package. This client hotfix package has to be deployed to all ConfigMgr SP2 clients in the environment before their power policies can be managed. Steps on client side hotfix deployment covered in later section. Activities related to package, program creation done by hotfix is logged in Advertisement.log in the logs folder.
3. After successful installation of hotfix pre-requisites, execute R3 beta installation from the installation source location using SPLASH.HTA. Follow the wizard to complete the installation.
Post Configuration Manager 2007 R3 Beta Server Upgrade Validation Tasks
1. Verify the hotfix installation log provided at the installation time (%temp%\R3_Beta_Hotfix_Installation.log), reports successful installation as shown below.
MSI (c) (78:BC) [22:31:50:118]: Product: Software Update for ConfigMgr 2007 SP2 (KB977384Beta) -- Installation operation completed successfully.
MSI (c) (78:BC) [22:31:50:119]: Windows Installer installed the product. Product Name: Software Update for ConfigMgr 2007 SP2 (KB977384Beta). Product Version: 4.0.6487.2125. Product Language: 1033. Installation success or error status: 0.
2. Open SCCM Console & navigate to Site Database – Site Management - <Site Code> - <Site Name> and view properties to confirm that R3 Installed is “Yes”.
3. Verify that the SMS_Def.mof has been appended with R3 specific WMI classes, without any changes to the pre-existing class definitions.
4. Verify that the Configuration.MOF has not been changed after R3 installation.
5. Verify if the R3 beta installation was successful by reviewing the ConfigMgr2007R3.log at %temp% folder of user profile.
MSI (c) (34:2C) [22:36:07:337]: Product: Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R3 -- Installation operation completed successfully.
MSI (c) (34:2C) [22:36:07:337]: Windows Installer installed the product. Product Name: Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R3. Product Version: 4.00.6479.1000. Product Language: 1033. Installation success or error status: 0.
6. Review all Configuration Manager Logs (sitecomp.log, sitectrl.log, smsexec.log, compsumm.log, dataldr.log, distmgr.log) for any abnormal errors.
JFYI: It was found that the distmgr.log took long time to start processing packages. Upon troubleshooting it was found that, there is a hotfix that need to be applied on ConfigMgr 2007 sites to skip DP properties validation during startup, as mentioned in the KB article https://support.microsoft.com/kb/956194. If required, apply this hotfix on the server.
Note: This is outside of R3 beta installation, and is not a mandatory installation.
7. Verify that the Client hotfix package & program that are created during installation are available in ConfigMgr Console under ‘Software Distribution’ – Packages Node.
During R3 installation, the source bits for the client hotfix package will be copied to <ConfigMgr Installation Directory>\client\i386\hotfix\KB977384Beta folder. Please validate that this folder exists, and is the same as the source directory for the ConfigMgr package in console.
Post-Upgrade Configuration Manager 2007 R3 beta Server Configuration Tasks
In ConfigMgr Console, navigate to Site Database – Site Management - <site code> - <site name> - Site Settings – Client Agents. Open “Power Management Client Agent” properties and check the box “Enable Power Management on Clients”.
Deployment of Configuration Manager 2007 R3 beta hotfix to Clients
After R3 installation is completed on the site server, the next step is to deploy R3 hotfix to all SP2 clients to use all R3 features. The package required for deploying the hotfix is created as part of R3 installation on the site server already. However appropriate validation of properties of package, program needs to be done to ensure conformity of production deployment standards. These sections below cover the preparation and deployment of the package to clients in general context, hence any specific standards like naming conventions, limiting of collections etc. needs to be performed as per standard procedures of a software deployment.
1. Validation of Package & Program Properties
Package Properties:
a. If not done already, confirm that the source directory of the package exists on the Site server, and if required move it to appropriate package source repository as your production deployment standards.
b. If required, change the share name in the ‘Data Access’ page of the package
c. Adjust the Disconnect settings for package update in ‘Data Access’ page.
d. Leave the MIF name as is in the ‘Reporting page’ of the package for proper reporting of the installation status.
Program Properties:
a. Add logging to the MSIEXEC command line of the program to ensure there are logs that can be captured for any future troubleshooting.
msiexec.exe /p sccm2007ac-sp2-kb977384beta-x86-enu.msp /L*v %TEMP%\sccm2007ac-sp2-kb977384beta-x86-enu.msp.LOG /q REINSTALL=ALL REINSTALLMODE=mous
Note: Based on implementation experience, ensure that FSP command line is appended to the installation parameters of R3 hotfix deployments and SLP name as missing FSP parameter in command line would remove existing FSP entries from the clients
Command line to be used with FSP:
msiexec.exe /p sccm2007ac-sp2-kb977384berftp12-x86-enu.msp /L*v %TEMP%\sccm2007ac-sp2-kb977384berftp12-x86-enu.msp.LOG /q REINSTALL=ALL REINSTALLMODE=mous FSP=<server FQDN name>
b. Modify the Program ‘Run’ value to Hidden.
c. Update the Category to any appropriate value as per standards.
d. Ensure the program is set to run ‘Whether or not user is logged on’ and ‘Run with Administrative Rights’ is checked.
e. Note that the ‘After Running’ is set to ‘Program restarts computer. As the hotfix installation restarts the CCMEXEC service, this is required to capture the correct installation status.
f. In the Advanced page of the program, ensure ‘Suppress program notifications’ is checked.
The installation of the program on clients don’t require a restart, this setting is to ensure after restart of CCMEXEC, ConfigMgr can report the installation status accurately.
2. Update the package on all Distribution points, before deploying the package to all clients.
3. Creation of Collections
Ensure all standards for collection creation are followed like - Naming standards, limiting to the right master collections etc. to conform to production deployments. Like in all large deployments, this hotfix is also suggested to be deployed in phases with growing counts ensuring successes in the previous deployments. The collection structure is left to the SMS Admins standard practices.
a. In Microsoft IT, the deployments were carried out in multiple phases, the first one being Pilot and the second one is per site/region wide rollout. The collection structure followed is as below.
b. R3 client hotfix can be deployed only on ConfigMgr SP2 client, hence create query rules to target machines only with SP2 client version or higher. The following WQL Query was used for the collection ‘Client Hotfix KB977384 Rollout’ Collection which was treated as master collection for the deployment. The ‘Pilot 1 – Client hotfix KB977834 Rollout’ collection was targeted first and is limited to the above master collection.
SELECT SMS_R_SYSTEM.RESOURCEID,SMS_R_SYSTEM.RESOURCETYPE,SMS_R_SYSTEM.NAME, SMS_R_SYSTEM.SMSUNIQUEIDENTIFIER, SMS_R_SYSTEM.RESOURCEDOMAINORWORKGROUP, SMS_R_SYSTEM.CLIENT FROM SMS_R_SYSTEM WHERE SMS_R_SYSTEM.CLIENTVERSION >= "4.00.6487.2000"
c. During Beta deployment, it was found that few installations failed with 1603 error. Upon troubleshooting it was found to be MSI was failing with errors when there was not enough disk space for installation (Required disk space > 90 MB). It is also recommended to add this check in the collections for R3 hotfix deployment to prevent such errors.
4. Creation of Advertisements
No special changes are required in creating advertisements for this deployment.
Configuration Manager 2007 R3 beta Client upgrade Validation Report
After you have deployed the R3 beta Client hotfix, you can use the below query to create a web or SQL SRS report for tracking the R3 beta Client upgrade status
SELECT CASE sis.Client_Version0
WHEN '4.00.6487.2000' THEN 'ConfigMgr SP2 RTM'
WHEN '4.00.6487.2125' THEN 'ConfigMgr SP2 R3 beta'
END AS [ClientVersion]
,COUNT(1) AS [Total]
FROM v_R_System sis where
sis.Client0 = 1
AND sis.Obsolete0 = 0
AND sis.Client_Version0 IN ('4.00.6487.2000','4.00.6487.2125')
GROUP BY CASE sis.Client_Version0
WHEN '4.00.6487.2000' THEN 'ConfigMgr SP2 RTM'
WHEN '4.00.6487.2125' THEN 'ConfigMgr SP2 R3 beta'
END
Other Useful Links
Configuration Manager R3 beta available now on below link:
More details: https://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/en/us/configuration-manager/cm-r3.aspx
What to expect for future series on Configuration Manager 2007 R3 beta deployment in Microsoft IT?
- How Microsoft IT is using R3 for managing Power Policies?
- How to implement/use non-Power Management features of R3?
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Comments
Anonymous
May 28, 2010
The comment has been removedAnonymous
June 24, 2010
The comment has been removedAnonymous
October 10, 2010
If you're thinking of deploying the R3 beta and want to know how Microsoft IT deployed it then checkAnonymous
October 27, 2010
Good one, thanks for sharing tips on R3, both Partha and Shitanshu. R3 Client patch FSP Switch was unknown to me and this seems proprietary info :-) only insiders know it, anyways its really useful. Curious why do you still use v_r_system with client and obsolete switches, as same is achived wihtout any switches in v_r_system_valid. Just wondering to know as I have almost moved away from v_r_system to use the later one and wanting to know if I really miss any good part of invenory by using valid table only ? Second, only client version changes to 6487.2000 to 6487.2125 but no change on SCCM Server console or server' ccmexec.exe, right ?Anonymous
October 27, 2010
Few more observations, especially on below statement..., "The installation of the program on clients don’t require a restart, this setting is to ensure after restart of CCMEXEC, ConfigMgr can report the installation status accurately" I see that after the KB patch install, it has created pendingfilrenameops registry key that points to few temp files in C:windowstemp. I could open these binaries files to see that they are of Power Management settings etc activites carried out this KB. So, this means KB requires a mandatory reboot ? and if not package/program'd correctly it can impact other software install/udpates as well ? Any Insights ? Thanks for time VasuAnonymous
March 24, 2011
I can't believe how poorly written this software is! Wow! And so many requirements too..Anonymous
March 28, 2011
‘After Running’ is set to ‘Program restarts computer and I am still getting the status message errors using the RTM version of the client MSP. any more that I may do?Anonymous
June 20, 2011
I had followed the steps mentioned but the client installation is failing with error code 1642