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Recast’s Endpoint Management Recap – March 2022
Gary Blok
Welcome to the Recast Endpoint Management Recap, March 2022 – by Gary Blok.
Let me start off this month’s Recap by promoting my favorite event of the year, the Midwest Management Summit (MMS). MMS is all about the Microsoft Endpoint Manager (MEM) Configuration Manager and Intune communities, and in my opinion, it is the best Systems Management conference for building your career. You can read more of what I have to say about MMS just below. I’ll also be updating you about the usual list of items, so use the quick links to get to what you need first.
Please remember, if you want me to include a community event or blog post, please reach out to me on Twitter.
- MMS – Midwest Management Summit
- Events / Conference News
- Microsoft Product Announcements
- Hardware Vendor Updates (Tools / Security / Features)
- Community Tools / News
- Recast Updates
It seems like I was just at MMS Miami Beach reconnecting with many of you, and now I’m preparing for my MMS sessions in May at the Mall of America (MOA). How time flies! I remember my first time as an attendee back in 2015. Talk about being overwhelmed by ideas, speakers, and meeting the ConfigMgr Product Team. This conference pushed me to start blogging, then presenting, and also embracing the community through social media, and user groups. I really appreciate how hard the MMS team works to make it a great experience. From events, food, and overall atmosphere, they truly make it conducive to building connections, learning new things, and walking away with excitement to put new knowledge into practice.
One way MMS creates this atmosphere is their speaker to attendee ratio. During any given event, you will have great access to speakers, MVPs, and even several Microsoft employees who work on the product teams. This year will be no different, and in actuality, you’ll have more access to speakers. I was talking with Brian Mason who helps coordinate the event, and he let me know that, “With travel restrictions still in place with so many companies, we’re looking to be about 1/2 our normal size which essentially doubles attendee access to great speakers.” If you’re going, you’ll definitely get an opportunity to ask your questions, and meet industry leaders.
I’ve always been thankful for how MMS embraces work life balance. They encourage bringing your family, making it into a vacation, especially during the destination events. The evenings are full of activities that your significant other is welcome to join in. I could go on, but I can’t fully do it justice. If you’re in the endpoint management field, you need to attend this conference.
The Recast team will also be out in full force at MMS MOA. We will have lots of exciting giveaways, and goodies to hand out, including stickers! You won’t want to miss our session, and make sure you check out my speaker sessions as well as Garth Jones’ and Bryan Dam’s sessions.
If you’d like more tips about how to prepare for MMS or information about why you should attend, please see these blog posts:
– Learn One New Thing at the Midwest Management Summit (MMS)
– My First Midwest Management Summit
– Go to the Midwest Management Summit!
Do you have questions about MMS? Please reach out to me @gwblok.
- Modern Endpoint Management Summit 2022 – April 7
- Cleveland Microsoft Endpoint Manager User Group – April 7
- Windows Office Hours – April 21
- MMS 2022 at MOA – May 2 – May 5
- ViaMonstra Office Hours – Community – Every Wednesday. “This is your chance to join us every week for Q&A and roundtable discussion on anything related to Windows deployment, MDT, ConfigMgr, or Microsoft Intune. We bring the experts; you bring the questions.”
Please note, after the product name, there are several standard links to product specific landing pages, YouTube channels, or related content. As I find more items that are handy to be associated with a product, I’ll append them on. I’ll often reference past Endpoint Recaps just for those different links.
Products:
Microsoft Edge Browser (Based on Chromium Engine): [Landing Page][What’s New Page][RoadMap Portal]
Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection – [Landing Page] [Resource Hub]
Microsoft 365 [Landing Page] [Roadmap] [Tech Community] [Youtube Channel][ODT Release]
- Transforming creation and collaboration with Microsoft Loop components in Teams chat now available!
- Microsoft 365 self-service using Power Apps
ConfigMgr [What’s New Page] [Tech Community] [Virtual Hub][MS Q\A][Reddit][Feedback]
- Accessibility features in Configuration Manager – Keyboard Shortcuts
- 2111 Update KB12896009: Update rollup for Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager
ConfigMgr Tech Preview [What’s New Page]
- 2203 – Dark theme for the console and escrow BitLocker recovery password to the site during a task sequence.
- I just want to point out that this is huge. The ability to escrow the BitLocker during OSD, many security teams require this before handing out a device, so ensuring that it happens during OSD, will be a big time saver.
- Enabling dark-mode in Configuration Manager 2203 – Niall Brady (@ncbrady)
- Escrow BitLocker recovery password to the site during a task sequence in Configuration Manager 2203 – Niall Brady (@ncbrady)
Intune [What’s New Page] [Tech Community] [Feedback] [Overview][YouTube Channel]
Windows [Landing Page] [Tech Community][Release Information][PowerToys][YouTube Channel]
- Windows Server
- Windows Client
- I wanted to plug the Insider program. If you monitor the Insider Releases, you’ll see a huge amount of work being done, for instance this release notice showing all of fixes that are important for enterprises.
- Windows 365 – [W365Community]
Security Alerts and Info [Microsoft Security Portal – Security Update Guide]
I’m only listing changes. If you want a more complete list of their tools, check out the previous month’s posts. For a full list of tools, blog posts and information about the vendors, check out the ConfigMgr Manufacturers’ page.
** Much of this information is provided directly from the vendor, so when you see “we” think of it as, “Vendor Name,” and not Recast Software.
HP [Enterprise Tools Landing Page] [Community / Blog Site] [Outlet Site]
HP is about to release an update to the Client Management Script Library, so you’ll want to look for that, along with some blog posts that I’m working on here at Recast. This new update will be a game changer for how we manage driver packs as it overcomes one of the current issues with all driver packs and how they quickly become stale. That’s enough about it for now. Make sure you monitor the HPCMSL page for its upcoming release.
Dell [Enterprise Tools Landing Page] [Refurbished Sale Site] [Outlet Site][Command Tools Reference]
Unfortunately, I haven’t heard anything new to share from Dell in months. I checked out their Unified Workspace Community, but personally, I didn’t find much value apart from some decent webinar recordings of earlier sessions, specifically one about BIOS from March 17. I also reached out to Dell because there appears to be fake accounts and spam posts associated with this site. They acknowledged the issue and said they would work on it. I’ve checked back a few times and can say they have been cleaning it up. I’m hopeful that this space will turn into a good bridge for our community to be engaged with Dell.
I noticed on their website that Dell Command | Integration Suite for Microsoft System Center 6.0.1 was released, so if you’re using that, first off, please let me know on Twitter how that’s working out for you, and update it if you haven’t yet.
Dell Command | Update was also updated this month, check out the new version.
Lenovo [Enterprise Tools Landing Page][Blog Site]
You can now find Lenovo utilities like System Update, Update Retriever, Thin Installer and Dock Manager in the Winget repository. Phil Jorgensen has an article on how to leverage these in Configuration Items and Baselines: Winget and Configuration Items/Baselines (lenovocdrt.com).
Microsoft [Surface]
Surface Hub 2 Smart Camera is more than a professional grade camera. It is the first AI-powered camera from Microsoft. Surface Hub 2 Camera reframes, adjusts lighting and enables incredibly wide angles of view, all without any warping, distortions or depth-of-field issues that might otherwise limit what is visible. – Full Post
One more note, I do my best to provide Twitter accounts with the blog posts. I do this to provide credit where credit is due, and so you can then follow them yourselves to stay in the loop as things are coming out and ideas are being discussed on Twitter.
Podcasts / Blog Series / Video Blogs
- [Documentation Series] Beyond the Microsoft docs, a ConfigMgr overview:
- [YouTube Channel] Let’s Chat: PowerShell – Jordan Benzing (@JordanTheITguy)
- [YouTube Channel] MECM World – Yagnesh Malaviya (@YagneshMalaviya)
- [YouTube Channel] Intune Training Series [@OnPremCloudGuy and @AdamGrossTX]
- [YouTube Channel] Namaste Techies [@anoopmannur and @Hoorge]
- [YouTube Channel] MEM – tips and tricks – Mattias Melkersen – (@MMelkersen)
- [YouTube Channel] Deployment Research | ViaMonstra Office Hours
- SSO to domain resources from Azure AD Joined Devices – The MEGA Series – Part 5 – Configure the Network Device Enrollment Service (NDES)– Ben Whitmore (@byteben)
- Remove a Central Administration Site in Configuration Manager (SCCM) – PatchMyPC
- Cloud attach – Endpoint Managers silver lining – part 10 using apps with tenant attach – Paul Winstanley (@SCCMentor) and Niall Brady (@ncbrady).
Blog Posts
Cloud Tech
- Microsoft Endpoint Manager QuickStart Guide 1 – Groups – Toby Skerritt (@TobySkerritt)
- Introduction to Microsoft Endpoint Manager – Edward Christy (@mecm365)
- Proactive Remediation: detect devices with recent BSOD and automatically upload log files to SharePoint – Damien Van Robaeys (@syst_and_deploy)
- Using Power Automate to update MEMCM Device based on Intune User – Sean Bulger (@managed_blog)
- Using a PowerShell script to determine app requirement in Intune – Paul Winstanley (@SCCMentor)
- Set .Zip files default app association to 7-zip via Intune – Paul Winstanley (@SCCMentor)
- Honest Win32App Thief – Rudy Ooms (@Mister_MDM)
- Silently Collect AutoPilot Hashes Using Microsoft Graph and a Provisioning Package – Sean Bulger (@managed_blog)
ConfigMgr
- Upgrade SSRS SQL Server Reporting Services to 2019 for SCCM Infrastructure -Anoop C Nair (@anoopmannur)
- Fix SCCM Import New Driver Wizard Completed with Errors – Jitesh Kumar (@jitesh8092)
- ConfigMgr – CI/CB Disable Fast Startup – Love Arvidsson (@LAFigure_IT_Out)
- ConfigMgr – Change NetAdapter settings using CI / CB – Love Arvidsson (@LAFigure_IT_Out)
- Application Deployment – Global Conditions – Model Requirement – Love Arvidsson (@LAFigure_IT_Out)
- Support Center – Client Tools Part 1 – Client Information – Love Arvidsson (@LAFigure_IT_Out)
- Fixing application install error 0x80070005 – Liam (@Systems_Liam)
Other SysAdmin Info
- Geeking out: Offline domain join – Michael Niehaus (@mniehaus)
- Do you properly wipe your disks (maybe following US government standards)? – Michael Niehaus (@mniehaus)
- Want to refresh a Windows 11 device? Don’t use USMT. – Michael Niehaus (@mniehaus)
- Uninstall programs (remotely) with PowerShell – Wolfgang Sommergut (@wolfgang-sommergut)
- Delivery Optimization Internals – Researching the Logs – Johan Arwidmark (@jarwidmark)
Tool Updates
- Intune Management 3.4.0 – Micke Karlsson (@Micke_K_72)
- Get-WindowsAutopilotInfoPrerequisites – Ioan Popovici (@IoanPopovici)
- Bitlocker Recovery Key Tool – Nicklas Ahlberg (@AhlbergNicklas)
- Right Click Tools: 5 Part Webinar Series – Join Recast’s Solution Engineer Marty Miller and Technical Customer Support Engineer Courtney Baty in several deep dives of Right Click Tools’ Dashboards and Automation platform.
Register Now for April’s Webinars!
-April 5 – Software Updates
-April 20 – Endpoint Insights
You can also watch recordings of our past webinars: Security and Compliance, Device Insights, and Automation in Action. - Content Distribution Monitor – Right Click Tools
- Check the HP Warranty Status Again
- SCCM Remote Software Center | Right Click Tools
- We are hiring! If you or someone you know is looking to make a huge impact at a fast-growing company, take a look at our job postings and apply today.
- Follow us on Twitter @RecastSoftware to hear the latest.
Thank you for checking out Recast’s Endpoint Management Recap – March 2022. Stay tuned for more helpful content coming your way next month.
