Categories: System Center, ConfigMgr, OpsMgr

Well this will be my last post of this year. Nothing technical in this post just a overview of the year 2009.

It was a very exciting year which started with a new job at Inovativ in February. Inovativ enables me to specialize myself more and more on the System Center platform.

My first project this year was running the Technology Adoption Program (TAP) for OpsMgr R2. I went to Microsoft Redmond for a 3 day training which was a great experience!

Besides my projects I have been working with Kerrie Meyler as a contributing author for the System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Unleashed book. I have been writing articles before, but writing chapters for a book was a new, fun and cool experience. The result is a great book which has been published in July.

In April I went to the Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) in Las Vegas. This is the main event for IT Management solutions from Microsoft. It was a great time in Vegas and met lots of interesting people.

No events in May. Early May I gave a single day master class about the basics of ConfigMgr. With Inovativ we have those master classes a couple of times a year.

In July I received the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award which was the crown on all my contributions to the community. A huge and excited milestone for myself! Thanks again to everyone who made this happen!
That month we also had our SCUG meeting where I gave a session about deploying Windows 7 with System Center Configuration Manager SP2.

In the month September and October we had some great announcements. September started with the announcement of ConfigMgr R3. A new release with new features and improvements. That month Inovativ had his own event in the Netherlands; Meer dan Beheer. I gave a presentation about System Center Configuration Manager. The event was a great success!

Service Pack 2 of ConfigMgr became RTM in October! In October I also attended the Microsoft Technet Live event as ‘Ask the Expert’ in the Netherlands. Steve Ballmer did the keynote, pretty cool! I always like those events in the Netherlands where you meet colleagues and customers. Steve also did an interview at the Erasmus University. Although some is in Dutch you can watch the interview here.

November I went to the System Center Service Manager TAP event and the Microsoft TechEd EMEA event in Berlin. Microsoft TechEd is the congress for everyone working in IT. This year the main focus was; Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 7 and Exchange 2010.
I was ‘Ask the Expert’ at the ConfigMgr booth. I met a lot of people and really loved answering all kind of questions regarding ConfigMgr!

This year was the first time the event was held in Berlin. Although a bit colder than Barcelona (where the event was held previous years), Berlin is a great city to stay, especially with Wally Mead, Samuel Erskine and fellow ConfigMgr MVPs; Torsten Meringer, Ronni Pedersen and Adrian Stoian.

Right after TechEd we had our second SCUG meeting in the Netherlands. We had two speakers from Microsoft Redmond; Wally Mead for ConfigMgr and Daniel Savage for OpsMgr. Thank you guys!

And now it is December and the last day of the year. While writing this post I’m amazed to see what you can achieve in a single year! Overall it has been a great year for me and if 2010 will be as good as 2009 I’m pretty satisfied.

I wish you all a great and happy new year!

The International Client Pack version 1 for ConfigMgr SP2 is released. It contains the language files for English, German, Japanese and Spanish.

This is always released 45 days after the RTM release of the Service Pack. ICP version 2 is expected 90 days after the RTM release.

You can download the pack here!

I want to thank all readers of my blog and those who contributed through feedback and comments, really great!
Also I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a great and prosperous 2010.

2010 will be a great year for ConfigMgr. We will see more of vNext, ConfigMgr R3 and we will have a great MMS next year as well. I'm looking forward to it!

Enjoy!

When you install ConfigMgr 2007 RTM/SP1 some basic collections are created like; All Windows Server Systems, All Windows XP Systems and so on.

To be able to fully support Windows 7 systems with ConfigMgr you need to apply Service Pack 2. This Service Pack is however not creating a basic collection named All Windows 7 Systems.

You can create this collection manually. To automatically fill the collection you need to create a query based membership rule. You can use the following query:

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.OperatingSystemNameandVersion like "%Workstation 6.1%" or SMS_R_System.OperatingSystemNameandVersion like "%Windows 7%"

As you can see I specified two criteria; ‘Workstation 6.1’ and 'Windows 7'.

Enjoy!

As of today you can register for the Microsoft Management Summit 2010. The event will be held in Las Vegas from the 19th till the 23th of April 2010.

During my visit at TechEd Berlin, I was told that this will be the biggest MMS ever! There will lots and lots of sessions about new products like ConfigMgr vNext, Data Protection Manager 2010, System Center Service Manager and so on....

So a MUST attend for every System Center fan! More information and registration here!

See you in Vegas!