Installing SCCM 2012 Beta 2 Step-by-step

I will first install a central site and then the primary site.

Your servers need to be part of a domain.

If you are migrating from SCCM 2007 and you have extended the schema already then you won't need to extend it again.

Otherwise browse to the source folder\\SMSSETUP\BIN\X64 or i386 and run extadsch to extend the schema.

Now go to ADSI Edit and connect to your domain.

Now go to the System container, right click it and select new object. Select container and click Next.

Name it as System Management.

Click Next and then Add.

Click Next and then finish.Right click the System Management container and select Properties. Now change to the security tab and click on Add.

Click on Object Types, tick Computers, click Ok. Now enter your SCCM2012 server name and click Ok.

Select the servername, give it full control and click on Advanced.

Select the server name again and click on Edit. In the Apply to dropdown box select This object and all descendant objects. Click Ok 3 times.

Repeat the last steps for the Primary Site computer account. This is important! Otherwise the site won't be able to publish to AD. Also if you are migrating from SCCM2007, you don't have to extend the schema but you still have to include the new site server account to the System Management container permissions.

Install SQL Server 2008 SP1.

Now download and install the cumulative update 10 or above for SQL 2008 SP1. You can download the CU10 from here.

Download the SCCM 2012 beta 2 from here if you haven't already.

Make sure you install:

.NET Framework 3.5 and 4 (with WCF Activation)
IIS (Webdav is no longer required)
Remote Differential Compression

Now run the splash.hta from the source folder.

Now click on Install.

If you did not install one of the versions of .NET, you will get this message.

Now select Install a Configuration Manager Central Administration Site.

Select the location where you want to download the latest updates. If the download fails the first time, try again.

 Select a Site Code, a Site Name. NOTE: You must create a new different site code if you are migrating from SCCM2007. You can't use the same code. 

Specify your SQL Server, instance if not the default and database name.

Specify the name where the SMS Provider will be installed.

Then you should get a summary like this one.

And a Prerequise Check like this one if you did everything right. You will get a warning that the firewall is blocking the SQL Server ports 1433 and 4022. If you will have sites in different domains you will have to allow the traffic for this ports.

Finally click on Begin.



After setup is completed click on close to launch the console.

Check if the site was successfully published to AD.

That's it for now in the Central Site. Let's step to the Primary site. I will not go through everything again. I will just show what's different between the 2 installations.

First thing is one extra requirement. BITS. So go on and install it. Also you will have to install WSUS 3.0 SP1 or later if you are going to use software update points. I'm going to skip it for now.

Let's get started. Launch the splash.hta from the source folder and click on Install. Select the Install Configuration Manager Primary Site server option.

Now give a new site code and name to the Primary site.

Type the name of the Central site which the Primary site will join.

Specify the SQL Server, instance and database.

Type the NetBIOS name.

Now select to allow HTTP and HTTPS client communication.

In the protocol drop down boxes select HTTP for both.

The summary should look like this.

And I said before I'm skipping the installation of WSUS for now.

Click Next and then Begin. When finished click on Close to start the console.

Make sure you add the Primary Site Computer account to the Central Site Server SMS_SiteSystemtoSiteServerConnection_PRI group and the Central Site Computer account to the Primary Site Server SMS_SiteSystemtoSiteServerConnection_CEN group.

The types of discorery you enable is up to you. I will enable all AD discoveries.

NOTE: if you are migrating from SCCM2007 do not configure boundaries and discoveries until you finish the migration.

Enable AD Forest Discovery. Select to automatically create AD site boundaries when they are discovered and Automatically create IP subnet boundaries when they are discovered.

Enable all other AD discoveries. They all look like this.

Now check if the info was published to AD and the discovery was successful.

You can also go back to the System Management container and check it out.

You can also see the Addresses were created for the Central and Primary site.

Go to Boundaries and check if they have been successfully populated.

Now we have to put those Boundaries in Group otherwise we won't be able to manage clients and content.
So right click Boundary Groups and click Create Bounday Group.

Give it a name and Add Boundaries.

Now go to the References tab and select to Use this boundary group for site assignment and select the site server for content location.

In the Site Operations, click on Server and Site System Roles and click on Add Site System Role.

Click Next. Select Application Catalog Web Service Point and Site Point and click Next.

Now select HTTP and type port number 80. Click Next.

Select Use HTTP for all client communication. Type organization name. Click Next, Next and Close.

Now on Sites under Site Operations click on Client Installation Settings and select Client Push Installation.

Still on Sites click on Properties go to the Advanced tab and enable the Publish management points in DNS.

Now enable automatic site-wide client push installation. Just be careful because this configuration will allow SCCM to push the ccm client to all your clients.

Go to the Accounts tab and enter the account that will be used to push the clients. Keep in mind that this account has to be a member of the Administrators group of the destination computer.

You can change the Installation properties. I will just leave the default.

Now click on Configure Site Components and click on Software Distribution. Go to the Network Access Account tab and specify the network account.

Now click on Site Settings and enable the Optionally, specify a fallback site to...... The Client approval I will leave as default which Automatically approve computers in trusted domains.

If you were migrating from SCCM 2007 the first place you would have to go is Migration and then right click on Active Source Hierarchy. Select Specify Source Hierarchy. They you would specify the SCCM 2007 site server and one account with permissions to retrieve the data.

In Monitoring, click on Site Hierarchy and check the health of your sites.

Now go to System Status and check that the Site Status and Component Status are all ok. You will have some warnings in the beginning of the Components Status. Don't worry about that.

Now go to Assets and Compliance and check you have Users and Devices.

That's the end of this post. Soon I will create a new post about software deployments, using the Software Center and the Software Catalog.