Welcome to the Recast Endpoint Management Recap, for the 2020 holiday season, by Gary Blok.

Here’s a quick summary of the new features added and bugs fixed in Right Click Tools for October. Each month we will provide a full recap of what’s new and each quarter we will publish a series of deep dives of all the big new features you’ve been asking for.

Welcome to the Recast Endpoint Management Recap, October 2020 by Gary Blok

Here’s a quick summary of the new features added and bugs fixed in Right Click Tools for September. Each month we will provide a full recap of what’s new and each quarter we will publish a series of deep dives of all the big new features you’ve been asking for.

Welcome to the Recast Endpoint Management Recap, September 2020 by Gary Blok

Here’s a quick summary of the new features added and bugs fixed in Right Click Tools for August. Each month we will provide a full recap of what’s new and each quarter we will publish a series of deep dives of all the big new features you’ve been asking for.

Welcome to the Recast Endpoint Management Recap, August 2020 by Gary Blok

Definitions to use when thinking about Recast Management Server items

Running Right Click Tools without Local Admin rights. This article is going to talk about three different ways of setting up Enterprise Right Click Tools with the Recast Management server, and what the Local Admin Requirements are for each.

In this second installment of our ConfigMgr community highlights, I had the opportunity to have the MVP Maurice Daly (@modaly_it) participate. I've known Maurice for many years now, as one of my projects at my former company was starting to cross paths with a project Maurice was just releasing initial versions.

Here’s a quick summary of the new features added and bugs fixed in Right Click Tools for July. Each month we will provide a full recap of what’s new and each quarter we will publish a series of deep dives of all the big new features you’ve been asking for.

‍Welcome to the Recast Endpoint Management Recap, July 2020 by Gary Blok

You likely already know how important it is to keep all your software up to date. Software updates fix bugs, add features., and increase compliance. Check and see if your Right Click Tools are out of date by running the script below:

Here’s a quick summary of the new features added, and bugs fixed in Right Click Tools for June. Each month we will provide a full recap of what’s new and each quarter we will publish a series of deep dives of all the big new features you’ve been asking for.

In this Highlight series, we'll be covering stories from community influencers who have created tools or process that have greatly impacted the community.

‍Welcome to the Recast Endpoint Management Recap, June 2020 by Gary Blok

Learn about the Required Certificates needed for a CMG and how to set them up, including Client Authentication Certs, Web Cert for CMG device and Root CA Cert

In the previous posts we've created the Certificates required for CMG and looked at Azure to confirm we have things in place. We also confirmed we have the rights setup in Azure that are needed. Let's start the process in the CM Console.

What to do within Azure Portal to get things ready for a CMG. This was the biggest thing that tripped me up, mostly because I was using an account that didn't work properly. So just a note, if you don't log into your Azure Portal Directory with the Same "domain name" as the one you're managing, you'll run into issues.

We're four posts into our CMG Sub Series here, and we're finally getting to the CMG setup, we're going to go through the CMG Setup in the Console.

In our previous posts, we've setup the pre-reqs and the CMG, now it's time to continue setting up CM to leverage the CMG.

So now we've got everything in place, let's do some CMG tests to confirm it's working.

Here’s a quick summary of the new features added, and bugs fixed in Right Click Tools for May. Each month we will provide a full recap of what’s new and each quarter we will publish a series of deep dives of all the big new features you’ve been asking for. Enterprise Customers can install the latest version by logging into your Portal Account.

Hey Team, Gary Blok here, I'm coming back after a few weeks and am now adding Channel Query Collections.

Thanks for joining me once again for the Recap, this month was busy with several cool announcements from Microsoft and some other announcements that just created busy work. Moving from Office 365 to Microsoft 365 and the update channel names which take effect in the next couple weeks (more about that later), to a new packaging tool winget. Microsoft is keeping busy while we're stuck at home.

In this post I'm going to cover how we're doing our Self Service Deployments for the Microsoft 365 Apps. We're controlling it via Active Directory Group Membership.

In this post I'm going to cover how we are using a ConfigMgr Baseline to control the user experience. I'm not suggesting everyone do it this way, but for us, we wanted to provide a good user experience, even to those on slow links, and make it look pretty while still looking legit, and native.

Here at Recast Software, we are always adding new functionality to benefit our users. We were asked if we could have our tools leverage the ConfigMgr fast channel, so after a bit of development time, a few "debates" among our team, and two HR interventions, we've came up with the Recast Agent.

As a follow-up to our previous post announcing Recast's New Agent, Leverage the ConfigMgr Fast Channel, here we're going to cover a more normal enterprise scenario with the Recast Agent, deploying with ConfigMgr silently to however many endpoints you want.

Hey Team, thanks for reading through the Office 365 posts, hopefully at this point you've got a good grasp on the Office Setup Process, the Deployment Methods and the user experience. I happen to know a guy who has setup Office 365 Deployments in a rather large enterprise, and was faced with a few "opportunities".

We have setup 2 methods for channeling the Office Channel on devices. One that allows self-service via an application in the software center, and one that is forced via a baseline set on a collection.

This post will go over the Deployment and Maintenance of Office 365 using Microsoft's Endpoint Manager, Configuration Manager (MEMCM / SCCM).

In this Deployment and Maintenance of Office 365 using Microsoft's Endpoint Manager, Configuration Manager (MEMCM / SCCM) post, we're going to get familiar with the Office 365 App Creation process that comes built into Configuration Manager.

In this post, we're going to go over the magic of PowerShell and creating an XML file on the fly.

Thanks for making it this far in our Deployment and Maintenance of Office 365 using Microsoft's Endpoint Manager, Configuration Manager (MEMCM / SCCM) series, now that we have our Office application setup, it's time to get it deployed, and look into how we can change the channel [Channel on Docs]. Based on how you deploy it, and a setting in the XML file, you'll see different behavior.

In this post, I'm going to do a simple "How-to" on creating an ADR and deploying it to your devices. I'm not going to go into the depth that those other 2 posts do.. because I'm not a huge fan of reinventing the wheel. I'll have a little overlap, but will keep it simple.

Our Active Directory Dashboard, built into Microsoft SCCM, can identify and remove, disable, and isolate stale devices that no longer exist. It can also ensure all of your existing AD devices are being properly managed by Configuration Manager.

The Three Rs . . . Report, Remediate, and Repeat. The Software Update Deployment Status (SUDS) Dashboard, which is built into Microsoft SCCM, does just that.

With our Hardware & Firmware Dashboard, built into Microsoft SCCM, you can streamline those processes. You can also make Windows 10 feature updates easier by getting the big picture on hardware and firmware pre-requisites. Finally, view the firmware status and versioning to assist with necessary firmware updates, which are often pre-requisites to Virtualization-based Security components.

Our ReLAPS Dashboard is built right into Microsoft SCCM to help you maintain the health of LAPS in your Environment. Do this by seeing which devices may have LAPS health issues through the Client Install status, as well as whether or not the password is updating and storing correctly. Then, use the ReLAPS Dashboard in tandem with Remote Software Center to install the missing client.‍

Our BitLocker Dashboard, built into Microsoft SCCM, displays the compliance of devices' targeted BitLocker Policies from MBAM or CM BLM. You can also ensure keys are stored correctly in AD, MBAM, or CM BLM. Pair our BitLocker Compliance Dashboard with the BitLocker Status tool to easily remediate non-compliant devices.

We were hoping at this point we'd be reminiscing about the time in quarantine, gearing up for MMS in the coming week, and an overall lighter mood. But instead we've double down on our efforts, trying to win at staying home and yet being productive. During this time, we need to remember the importance of community, helping each other out, even from a distance.

Presented by the developers of Right Click Tools, get a closer look at all the new features and improvements in version 4.2, including improvements to Client Information Tool, System Information Tool, Remote Software Center and Hardware & Firmware Audit Dashboard. Plus we included several questions from the Q&A portion.

Here’s a quick summary of the new features added, and bugs fixed in Right Click Tools for March. Each month we will provide a full recap of what’s new and each quarter we will publish a series of deep dives of all the big new features you’ve been asking for.

What's new with Recast Right Click Tools 4.2? We're going to talk about the Remote Software Center [Recast Docs]. From the docs: "This tool has similar functionality as the local Software Center application with the ability to be run remotely from the administrator console and at scale on numerous devices or device collections."

We here at Recast are keeping busy, writing code and adding new features to Right Click Tools at an increasing rate. Here's a look back at everything we've shipped in the first quarter of 2020.

What's new with Recast Right Click Tools 4.2? We're going to talk about the Client Information Tool [Recast Docs]. From the docs: "The Client Information tool provides several types of information and available actions regarding the ConfigMgr client."

What's new with Recast Right Click Tools 4.2? We're going to talk about the System Information Tool [Recast Docs]. From the docs: "This tool pulls a variety of system information and allows several right click actions."

What's new with Recast Right Click Tools 4.2? We're going to talk about the Hardware & Firmware Audit Dashboard [Recast Docs]. From the docs: "This tool Scans your environment and displays the Chassis Type, Manufacturer, and Model of the computers in your ConfigMgr Collections in a chart. This tool can also show UEFI and SecureBoot status as well as Chassis Type, Operating System Version, and BIOS Version"

Its difficult to prevent and fix security issues if you don’t know they exist. Right Click Tools help to surface and remediate blind spots that otherwise slip through the cracks. Our dashboards built into Microsoft SCCM surface common weak points like these and are paired with tools to quickly address problems that are discovered.

In this series, I'll be walking through how I've setup our Dev ConfigMgr Lab. This post will give a basic overview, and links to the posts as they are added. At the time of this posting the main lab setup will be complete, but additional items and posts will continue to be added as we add additional features and services into the lab.

If we have a lab and we want to keep it separate from rest of our environment, we need a gateway. You can do this with a linux VM, another physical router, or several other options. For our lab, we decided to use Microsoft Windows Server to be our gateway.

This post will be going over creating the Domain Controller for the Lab. This will be the basic setup, we'll be revisiting the Domain Controller later when we need to extend the schema and start adding additional users and groups into the mix, but for now, we're just going to get it functional, with DNS & DHCP. This post is 99% pictures, not much text.

This is the big one, this is our MEMCM server, so much is happening to setup this server it's going to take a few posts. This post is covering some basics, and the pre-reqs, we'll move into SQL & the actual CM Install in up coming posts.

Along the way when you setup your lab, you'll need to create accounts, groups, gpos, and other things to make life easier. While you want to keep it fairly clean and lean, if you plan to keep this lab around awhile, you'll want a few of these setup:

This short post will explain how I've setup the Source Share on the Server. The Source Share is were all content sources for Apps / Packages / Updates / Operating Systems / Drivers, etc will go. It is not the content in the DP, but it's the content that supplies the DP

So far, we've got our Gateway, DC and started to setup our ConfigMgr Lab Server, in this installment, I'll be going over the SQL install for CM.

We've been building up to this one, all the ground work has been laid. Let install ConfigMgr.

This post will go over all the things we need to do now that we have a server

So now we have a functional ConfigMgr Server, lets setup some Collections and Create a few Apps

This is a bonus, you can do everything you want in your lab without this feature, but guess what, if you're going to do anything that needs HTTPS, having your own Certificate Authority (CA) makes this so much slicker.

In this post, we're going to confirm OSD, and make sure we have what we need for basic OSD. This post will NOT cover the fancy stuff, but just the basics of getting OSD working.

So you've got your CM Server and some clients, now you want to surface that data via reporting. [MS Docs] Sure Power BI is cool, but who has money for that, SSRS is included and there are some pretty nifty free reports in the community. In this post, we're going to be installing SSRS 2019, along with getting it configured then installing the Reporting Service Role in ConfigMgr.

What a month! New terms entered our vocabulary, Social Distancing for example, activities cancelled, conferences gone virtual or postponed, schools closed, IT infrastructures put to the test as employers urged working from home, and toilet paper nearly became a currency. It's been a crazy month.

March is Women's History Month. We looked around the IT community and noticed so many strong women leaders. This blog highlights a few of them, giving them a chance to tell their stories.

Has this happened to you recently? Manager walks over to your cube, "What would it take to enable most of our employees to work from home, like yesterday?".. then walks out saying "Make it happen."

Someone on twitter pointed out that it would be better to use "Installed Software" instead of "Install Application" for the query, while I don't disagree, depending on your reasons, Installed software is not included in Hardware Inventory by default, so unless you went out of your way to enable it (and you should), you could not use it in a query.

Do you have a need to lock down devices to support kiosk-style requirements, such as computer labs or digital signage? Watch this webinar recording to see a walkthrough of how to set up these single-purpose devices with ConfigMgr, using Right Click Tools' Kiosk Manager.

To fully utilize the Right Click Tools, you need to have some settings configured in your environments.

This post will walk you through creating Collections to help find machines in your environment that have Recast Software Installed.

Here’s a quick summary of the new features added, and bugs fixed in Right Click Tools for February. Each month we will provide a full recap of what’s new and each quarter we will publish a series of deep dives of all the big new features you’ve been asking for.

‍Welcome to the Recast Endpoint Management Recap, February 2020

In a recent customer survey, we found that the use cases for locking down devices are wide and vary by industry, from healthcare to education to manufacturing. Right Click Tools’ Kiosk Manager (previously Lab Manager) allows customers to support common kiosk-style requirements, including Shell Replacement, Automatic Login, Restart on Idle, and more.

In this post we dive into how one school district saves hundreds of hours by using Kiosk Manager to more efficiently administer their state tests.

See a walkthrough of how to lock down a machine and set up digital signage players in ConfigMgr, using Right Click Tools' Kiosk Manager.

Having Model & Manufacturer collections can be quite useful. Targeting Client settings based on Manufacturer, deploying BIOS / Drivers based on Model, having collections makes it a bit easier.

Presented by the developers of Right Click Tools, get a closer look at all the new features and improvements in 4.1, plus a transcript of several topics from the Q&A section.

Episode three of a monthly edition of recent updates, news and helpful resources for the ConfigMgr community.

Here’s a quick summary of the new features added, and bugs fixed in Right Click Tools for January. Each month we will provide a full recap of what’s new and each quarter we will publish a series of deep dives of all the big new features you’ve been asking for.

In our recently release of Right Click Tools 4.1, we added the Hardware Audit Dashboard, as we continue to add functionality, to make best use of this feature, you'll have to make sure you're collecting additional information via hardware Inventory, mainly Product in Baseboard.

Learn how to add additional items into Hardware Inventory. Two examples, one for HP and one for Lenovo help to import additional information into your CM Database which will help with reporting and queries.

Recast Right Click Tools 4.1 released and as part of it the Recast Management Server also has a new installer. The upgrade is very straight forward, and we have a few minute video to show for it.

Several new tools and features have been added to Right Click Tools version 4.1. A new Remote Software Center can be run remotely from the administrator machine and at scale on numerous devices or device collections.

Learn more about the 4.1 release of Right Click Tools, now available for download. Several new tools and features have been added to both the Community and Enterprise editions of Right Click Tools 4.1.

Several new tools and features have been added to Right Click Tools version 4.1. The new Hardware Audit Dashboard provides a visual of the hardware of the endpoints in an environment.

This is the final post of a mini series of small (but important) tips to help you when troubleshooting your Task Sequences. Tip 7 is: Run PowerShell Step

Here’s a quick summary of the new features added, and bugs fixed in Right Click Tools for December. Each month we will provide a full recap of what’s new and each quarter we will publish a series of deep dives of all the big new features you’ve been asking for.

This is the sixth of a mini series of small (but important) tips to help you when troubleshooting your Task Sequences. Tip 6 is: Static IP Addresses and OSD

This is the fifth of a mini series of small (but important) tips to help you when troubleshooting your Task Sequences. Tip 5 is: Run Task Sequence Step

Episode two of a monthly edition of recent updates, news and helpful resources for the ConfigMgr community.

This is the fourth of a mini series of small (but important) tips to help you when troubleshooting your Task Sequences. Tip 4 is: SMSTS Log Stamping

This is the third of a mini series of small (but important) tips to help you when troubleshooting your Task Sequences. Tip 3 is: Variables Gather and Capture

This is the second of a mini series of small (but important) tips to help you when troubleshooting your Task Sequences. Tip 2 is: Task Sequence Pause

This is the first of a mini series of small (but important) tips to help you when troubleshooting your Task Sequences. Each day we'll post something simple and easy to start using right now. Tip 1 is: Use the Description Field as a way to version your Task Sequence.

This post we'll cover Microsoft's Unified Write Filter (UWF) technology and how Recast's solution will remove some of the pain of implementation of UWF.

Microsoft's Unified Write Filter, its a windows feature included in your OS, off by default, but gives you the ability to prevent changes to your system. This post is geared toward a general overview and demo of implementation.

Here’s a quick summary of the new features added, and bugs fixed in Right Click Tools for November. Each month we will provide a full recap of what’s new and each quarter we will publish a series of deep dives of all the big new features you’ve been asking for.

This is the first of many to come, a monthly edition of recent updates, news and helpful resources for the ConfigMgr community. Highlights include events, Microsoft product announcements, hardware vendor updates, community tools and Right Click Tools updates.

Interested in getting a refresher of some of our most-used Community tools? How about a look at what's new in 4.0 Enterprise edition? Check out a recent webinar from the developers of Right Click Tools for all of this and more.

A recap of MMS Jazz 2019, including sessions presented by the Recast team and photos of the event.