If you haven’t updated your SCOM 2007 R2 environment in a while, consider taking a look at CU6. This CU provides some xplat features and a number of fixes to bugs. Some of them particularly important with RMS upgrades.

Have fun, learn System Center. www.infrontconsulting.com/training.php.

Download Infront’s free Orchestrator MP which monitors your Runbooks!! www.infrontconsulting.com/mp.php

We followed the checklist located here:

http://www.microsoft.com/online/help/en-us/helphowto/ee2cfa2c-0261-4485-9cb6-7025a9390bd0.htm

We were able to get to step 4: Set up and configure your Office desktop apps, click Set up. The Office 365 desktop setup tool starts.

At this point an application opens on my computer titled "Microsoft Office 365 desktop setup" and this application tells me that it is "Checking my system configuration." It is at this point an error message pops up. The error message window is titled, "Microsoft Office 365 desktop setup" and I have options to click "Details," "Continue," or "Quit." If I hit continue the program continues to check my system configuration and never ends. If i quit the program quits and office 365 doesn't configure outlook. The details I listed below.

System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0x80070422): The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070422)
   at WUApiLib.UpdateServiceManagerClass.get_Services()

The solution was simple, I had my Windows Update service set to disabled. Once I enabled the Windows Update service, and clicked Try Again. It worked seamlessly.

Solution: Set the Windows Update service to Automatic and start it.

Good luck with your Office 365 migrations.

Rory McCaw

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/5236.visual-studio-authoring-extensions-for-system-center-2012-operations-manager-en-us.aspx

If you are looking for in-depth technical training on System Center, look to the experts and MVPs at Infront Consulting Group. www.infrontconsulting.com/training.php

Have fun, learn System Center. www.infrontconsulting.com/training.php

- Microsoft will allow you to add licenses to your account through their customer portal but you must call Microsoft, navigate a complex voice mail system and speak with an agent to remove accounts.

- Calling MS Online support will almost always put you into a queue where wait times are typically greater than 10 minutes. This is particularly frustrating when looking to do something simply like allow users to connect their Microsoft Mobile devices to their BPOS email account

- As a paying customer, we have been in the ‘Pending upgrade to Office 365’ state for more than three months. When we call support to ask when we will be migrated to allow us (the customer) to plan for this, Microsoft is unable to give us a date or even a window (a month) during which the migration is scheduled.

- When you submit a service request online and ask for something simple to be done like enabling ActiveSync for a user to allow them to connect their Microsoft Mobile Phone to BPOS, you get a phone call back confirming that you want this done. What’s the point of opening up a service ticket online and asking for something to be completed. I now open up tickets and put in the ticket that I don’t want to be called, I just want the task requested to be completed. Microsoft’s support doesn’t understand how IT operations work.

- If you have employees with multiple devices, be careful. I ran into the situation a couple of months ago where I was travelling and my password was set to expire so I changed it. I had my iphone with me as well as my notebook but I didn’t have my ipad. My account continued to get locked out because I wasn’t able to change my password on my ipad. I called support to asked them to set my account to ‘do not lock out after any number of failed login attempts’. I realize that this isn’t great security but it was a necessity and I was aware of the risks and asking for the setting change as the customer. The answer I was given, was no, that cannot be done. Instead, Microsoft wanted to be change my password on my ipad or call someone to have the password changed. Not sure how that is more secure as I would have to tell someone over the phone what my new password is.

- We originally started using BPOS as part of a free one-year subscription as a Microsoft partner. Because of this we were entitled to 250 free seats in our subscription for internal use. We only actually used a small portion of that but when that free year ended, Microsoft charged us for all 250 seats and provided no way online to reduce the seat count. We were over-changed more than $20,000. After 6 months back and forth with Microsoft, we were finally reimbursed but what a hassle this was.

- If you Blackberry enable a user, understand that there is a hard link in the backend that sets that user as a Blackberry user. If you disable or cancel your Blackberry subscription at any point in the future, all of your users that are set up as Hosted Blackberry users will be disabled. Microsoft online services where unaware of how to unlink a user from hosted Blackberry so there only solution was to re-enable the Hosted Blackberry subscription

- In preparing for our move to Office 365, we were told that we had to remove all of our content from SharePoint online as SharePoint online with BPOS was really Windows SharePoint Services and not SharePoint and nothing would migrate. We followed the instructions only to find out that this wasn’t really the case at all.

In the end, using a hosted mail service has been good as it takes the support and availability of mail out of our hands and allows us to focus on what we do in our day to day business but this hand off comes with trade-offs. It’s frustrating to deal with support people that often aren’t competent. It’s frustrating to deal with a large organization that can’t provide answers to your questions. It’s frustrating to wait on the phone for hours to get support to the simplest of issues and have no way to escalate them.

We don’t regret our move to the cloud for email and don’t have any other providers to compare our experience to.

Good luck!

When you click Browse to manually locate the file and select it, you are prompted to point to a location where the file exists. It feels like a vicious circle.

It’s likely because the version that you are selecting isn’t the .81 version but an older version. You have a couple of options. Locate the .81 version which you should find in %Program Files%\System Center Operations Manager 2007\ if you have the latest CU applied or edit the xml file that you are trying to open in Notepad and change the version of the Library MP it is looking for to a version number that either matches the one you have or that is older than the one you have.

Remember that when you apply a Cumulative Update (CU) in SCOM, CU’s normally come with updated MPs found in the ManagementPacks folder in the extracted CU repository. (%Program Files%\System Center 2007 R2 Hotfix Utility\KBxxxxxx\ManagementPacks)

Have fun, learn System Center… www.infrontconsulting.com/training.php

Have fun with System Center!

Rory McCaw www.infrontconsulting.com

This week, I had applied a bunch of Microsoft updates that were pending and I jumped on a flight. BAD MOVE!!! When I landed and tried to connect to MS Online services, I received the message ‘There was an error while preparing your application dashboard. Please try again later.’

I didn’t have the time to look into this throughout the week but now that I am back home and very frustrated, I decided to look into it. I opened up a support ticket with MS Online and they referred me to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972654. This didn’t help at all.

The solution was two-part.

1. Uninstall the Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Client Profile for Windows (KB982670) and reboot.

2. Open the Command Prompt and run sfc /scannow.

Now try to open and log into MS Online services client and it works like a charm.

When selecting a cloud provider, understand that the tech support at the cloud provider will never replace your onsite tech support if they are a smart bunch.

If you are struggling to find MPs from Microsoft, try this… http://pinpoint.microsoft.com/en-US/systemcenter/managementpackcatalog

For great training from experts in System Center, look to www.infrontconsulting.com/training.php.

1. Introduce yourself to as many people as you can. The folks attending MMS are typically REALLY nice but everyone’s a bit shy so take a leap of faith.

2. Introduce yourself to the speakers of the sessions that you attend and give them your feedback. Try to be constructive. Every speaker tries their best but not everyone has the same presentation skills or presence.

3. Talk to the vendors and ISVs in the exhibit hall and ask them about parties or events that they are holding.

4. Leverage social media like twitter with tags like #mms2011, #sysctr #orangef to meet and provide feedback to others.

5. Have fun.

6. Don’t burn yourself out. Remember to get some sleep, try to eat healthy and wear comfortable shoes as there is a LOT of walking.

I hope I get to meet you and wish you the best experience possible at MMS this year!!

Rory

I am going to be starting a new blog series titled ‘System Center for Managers, Directors and CIOs’. The reason for this blog series is based on customer feedback. I am constantly amazed at the number of customers that I speak with where the conversation starts off something to the effect of ‘We’ve just fired a “System Center” consultant who accomplished nothing over the last x months. We are now behind the eight ball and have a huge commitment to fill and we need is done yesterday.’

Step back to the 1-2 months prior to hiring the now fired consultant and you will begin to understand what led up to this failure. First, the customer performed a number of interviews and talked to both Microsoft partners and independents. In the majority of cases, the customer felt that they could get better value for their money by working with an independent consultant as their rates are typically lower that that of a larger firm. The second and more tragic mistake is that the customer didn’t know how to quantify the effort or the deliverables of the consultant. And this is the real challenge for many Managers, Directors and CIOs.

So let’s focus on that challenge and demystify this so that you can avoid making this same mistake. Below are a set of questions that I hope you can use to help qualify and validate the candidates that stand before you claiming to be ‘System Center experts’. I have not included the answers to these questions as I don’t want the alleged System Center Experts to read this and attempt to fool you but I would be happy to share these with you if you reach out to me on Linkedin. 

This first set of questions will help you to qualify a consultant or firm claiming to have System Center Operations Manager experience.

1. What does Event ID 1201 in the Operations Manager event log tell you?

2. If using Avicode and creating monitors with the Avicode Management Pack Templates, what must you do to remove a monitor created with the Avicode Management Pack Templates?

3. What server operating systems might get rebooted when CU4 is installed to already deployed agents?

4. What directory needs to be exempt from anti-virus to ensure that scripts run?

5. How will you demonstrate to me the number of customizations or Management Pack (MP) tuning that you have done?

6. How can I see the contents of a sealed Management Pack without loading it into SCOM?

7. What node (Administration, Monitoring, Reporting, My Workspace, Authoring) in the Operations Manager Console allows me to schedule maintenance mode at a schedule time in the future?

8. What two components need to be in place to monitor physical server hardware events?

9. What tool(s) do you use to author Management Packs?

10. Specific to MP development, describe cookdown?

Good luck with your Ops Mgr consultant hiring!! We wish you all the success that our customers have attained.

Systemcentercentral.com is a great community for all things System Center.

http://www.mms-2011.com/topic/details/OB03

Infront is hiring and looking for System Center experts. If you are looking for a change, a challenge, and an opportunity to work with some really smart folks, come and talk to us.

Looking for System Center training, check out www.infrontconsulting.com/training.php.

So in attempting to circumvent this and log in via the CPLS I am associated with, I get the following…  a web site asking for information and I have no idea where to find. It would be so much more helpful to have a ‘what’s this’ link or’?’ beside the text box to provide some context for what the heck Microsoft is looking for. But no, not ‘to the Internet’ or ‘to the cloud’ but instead ‘to the telephone’ to speak to someone that knows nothing about the problem I am having. Frustrating!!!

What is Location ID?

http://sqlblog.com/blogs/merrill_aldrich/archive/2011/02/23/scom-90-days-in-ii-noise.aspx

http://sqlblog.com/blogs/merrill_aldrich/archive/2011/02/23/scom-90-days-in-i.aspx

If you are looking for great in-depth training on System Center, look to www.infrontconsulting.com/training.php.

Rory McCaw

Infront Consulting Group

SELECT * FROM Win32_Processor

SELECT * FROM Win32_Process

SELECT * FROM Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfProc_Process

Typically, one of these will fail with ‘Invalid Class’.

Next, open a command prompt and type exctrlst.exe and confirm that the performance monitor library is enabled. If it’s not enabled, enable it.

Note: If your operating system doesn’t have exctrlst.exe installed, download it from here. It installs to c:\Program Files(x86)\Resource Kit\ on an x64 system.

Look for the 3 classes and if anyone of the three classes are not present, rebuild the classes.

Win32_Processor

Win32_Process

Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfProc_Process

On the server where the class isn’t present, net stop Winmgmt.

Then run wmiadap /f.

You can also try to run lodctr /R and then start the wmi service.

Check to see if all of the classes are now present with wbemtest by running the queries described above.

Should you need to rebuild WMI, you can run the following commands:

Net Stop WinMgmt

Ren %WinDir%\System32\Wbem\Repository %WinDir%\System32\Wbem\OldRepository

Net Start WinMgmt

You can also try to re-register your WMI dlls by performing the following steps:

1. STOP and DISABLE the Windows Management Instrumentation service.
2. Open a Command Prompt and change to the WBEM folder (cd "%windir%\system32\wbem")
3. Carefully enter the following command to ensure that all of the WBEM DLLs are properly registered.
for /f %s in ('dir /b /s *.dll') do regsvr32 /s %s
4. On Windows 2003 and later enter the following command to ensure that the provider host is properly registered. wmiprvse /regserver

For great, in-depth information on System Center, look to Infront Consulting Group’s System Center training at www.infrontconsulting.com/training.php. ]]> rorymccaw Fri, 18 Feb 2011 11:32:16 GMT http://www.systemcentercentral.com/tabid/143/indexid/84644/default.aspx BDNA WEBCAST: How to Normalize SCCM Data, Highlight Suites & Bundles – February 22

Operational data from SCCM rules your day-to-day activities. With it, SCCM administrators keep the lights on, secure the devices, and provide the business with tools for success. However, to elevate the role of SCCM, the data must be transformed into meaningful information that can be digested, analyzed, and acted upon by the business in their own language. In this webcast, you will learn how to:

· Convert raw SCCM data into actionable information for business analysis

· Assemble suite and bundle information for a true picture of your software deployments

· Hear directly from an IT executive at one of the largest US financial firms on how they transformed their operational data into actionable information

WHEN: Tuesday, February 22, 2011
TIME: 10:00 - 10:30am Pacific / 1:00 – 1:30pm Eastern
SPEAKERS: Walker White, CTO, BDNA & BDNA Customer, VP/Dir Infrastructure Technology, one of the largest US financial firms

REGISTER HERE

Installing a Cumulative Update (CU) for System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) is NOT as straightforward as a typical Windows operating system service pack. There are multiple steps that must be taken and a specific order of installation. If you READ THE KB, all of these steps will become clear and your likelihood of missing something or doing something in the wrong order will be greatly reduced.

Example…

If you don’t apply the SQL scripts after your RMS upgrade you can lose alert views:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2011/02/01/opsmgr-2007-r2-cu4-rollup-hotfix-ships-and-my-experience-installing-it.aspx

***NOTE – it is CRITICAL to perform the next step in this order.  The SQL scripts MUST be deployed at this time, immediately after installing the update on the RMS.  If you don’t, your alert views could be empty.  You could see multiple events on the RMS about errors from the SDK (26319) and DataAccessLayer (33333).  The RMS will not generate new config until these scripts are executed.  Your consoles might also show the following, until you run the SQL scripts:

If you are looking for GREAT, TECHNICAL training on System Center technologies, look to the experts at Infront Consulting Group www.infrontconsulting.com/training.php.

If you are looking for GREAT training, with in-depth technical content delivered by System Center experts, look to www.infrontconsulting.com/training.php.

For great System Center training from experts and work with the technologies day-in and day-out, look to www.infrontconsulting.com/training.php. ]]> rorymccaw Mon, 07 Feb 2011 02:34:13 GMT http://www.systemcentercentral.com/tabid/143/indexid/84430/default.aspx Microsoft has now released Cumulative Update (CU) 4 for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2. This update contains a number of fixes and provides support for SQL Server 2008 R2. Check it out at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2449679.

For the best in System Center training, look to www.infrontconsulting.com/training.php.