Sometimes I do a review of existing ConfigMgr environments. Most of the environments have extended the Active Directory schema which is always a good idea. It saves you lots of administrative tasks and configuration.

ConfigMgr needs access to the schema and one of the things I always check in those environments is to see how the rights in Active Directory are configured. Today I faced that all the ConfigMgr computeraccounts were a member of the Domain Admin group! Well...never seen that before!

Let me clarify; this is not required at all.

The schema extension allows ConfigMgr to publish data in a AD container named ‘System Management’ which is a sub-container of the Active Directory System container.

The System Management container is not created by default so this should be done by hand with the ADSIEDIT tool.
All the site server computer accounts must have Full Control rights on this 'System Management' sub-container and all childs, to publish their data. An important note; also Secondary Sites need those permissions.

So hopefully once and for all; All ConfigMgr Site Server computer accounts needs Full Control rights on only the 'System Management' container and all child objects.

Two days ago the ConfigMgr product team signed off Service Pack 2. This means that it is now Released To Manufacturer, which means that this is the final version and no changes will be made at this time.

It will be Released To Web very soon. Keep you posted!

A common scenario when managing 64-bit systems with ConfigMgr is; I can't find the ConfigMgr client?

The ConfigMgr client can be located in the Control Panel and the actual installation files through the explorer but the client is kind of hidden on 64-bit systems.

The reason is that the ConfigMgr client is a native 32-bit application and those application are not displayed right away in the Control Panel.
To show the ConfigMgr client icons in the Control Panel you must do the following:

Windows Server 2008 64-bit
Open the Control Panel
Enable Classic View
Double-click the ‘View 32-bit Control Panel Items’ icon

Windows Server 2003 64-bit
Open the Control Panel
Double-click the ‘View x86 Control Panel Icons’ icon

Sometimes it is required to look at the file systems at the client, for example to review some logs. On 32-bit systems the client is located at %Windir%\System32\CCM. This path is different for 64-bit systems. On those systems the client is located at %Windir%\SysWOW64\CCM.

From the same livemeeting with Jeff I can share you the following timeframe for ConfigMgr R3:

TAP Nominations Open - September
Beta - January 2010
TAP Nominations close - February 2010
TAP Program commences - March 2010
RTM - Q2 2010

Microsoft received already more than 500 TAP nominations which is really huge and impressive to see! Never the less TAP nominations are still open and available through Microsoft Connect.

Currently I'm in a really great livemeeting with Jeff Wettlaufer who just announced the following dates regarding Service Pack 2 for ConfigMgr

Release To Manufacturing (RTM) - End of October
Release To Web (RTW) - End of October
Slipstreamed media - Early November
General Availability - December

So in just two weeks you're good to go with Service Pack 2!