Configuring SCCM 2012 SP1 - Part 2

If you haven't installed SCCM yet you can check my last post HERE.
Also you can check Configuring SCCM 2012 SP1 - Part 1 HERE.

In this post I will show some of the clients settings and how you can push the client using automatic push or Group Policy.

So first click on the Administration Node and then click on Client Settings. From the ribbon menu click on Create Custom Client Device Settings.

Give it a name and select which custom settings you want to modify.

In this example I selected the Computer Agent settings where you can set the default website for the Application Catalog, Organization Name to show on Software Center, Powershell execution policy, etc.

In this example I selected the Remote Tools settings where you can enable it, configure unattended settings, etc. All theses settings are specific to your environment and that's why I'm only showing where you can find them and how you can set them rather than telling you which settings you should choose.

Next still in the Administration node, click on Sites and click on Hierarchy Settings.

Here you can enable the use of a fallback site. Just make sure you install the Fallback Status Point role in a site server before you enable this.

Here you can choose how clients are approved.

Now this is a really nice new feature. You can enable this setting to automatically upgrade SCCM clients once updates are available.

OK so you have all settings the way you want and now it's time to deploy the clients. The first method I will show is the automatic site wide client push installation. As the name indicates all clients that SCCM can discover will also receive the client. Still on Administration, Sites, click on Client Installation Settings and select Client Push Installation.

Tick Enable automatic site-wide client push installation. Select the System types and whether or not you want to push the client to Domain Controllers.

Click on Accounts tab and click on the start icon to add a new account to install the clients. This account must be part of the Administrators group of the client computers.

Type the Installation properties. Usually just the site code property is enough but you can also specify properties such as cache size, fallback, management point, etc. You can see all properties HERE.

The next method is Group Policy installation. The first thing to do is to copy this special install file used by group policy to a location accessible by all computers. So in the site server browse to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\bin\i386 and copy the file ccmsetup.msi to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\Client

Now it's time to create the policy using GPMC. From GPMC, right click the OU where you want to link the policy to and select Create a GPO in this domain, and Link it here... Give the policy a name and click on OK.

Right click the new policy and click on Edit...

Under Computer Configuration, expand Policies, Expand Software Settings, right click Software installation and click on New - Package.

Browse to the share where the ccmsetup.msi file is, select it and click on Open. Remember that this location must be accessible by all computers!

Click on OK.

And that should be all you need. But I like to make use of the ADM templates that are provided as well where you can set the site code and retry intervals.

To import the templates right click Administrative Templates and click on Add/Remove Templates...

Click on Add..

Browse to the share where the templates are located, select them and click on Open. This should be in \\ServerName\SMS_SiteCode\Tools\ConfigMgrADMTemplates

Click on Close.

Now expand Classic Administrative Templates (ADM), expand Configuration Manager 2012 and click on Configuration Manager 2012 Client.

Double click the first policy, enable it, type the site code and click on OK.

Double click the second policy, enable it, type the installation properties and click on OK.

And that's the end of part 2. Part 3 will be about Software Updates. To go to part 3 click HERE.