Recast’s Endpoint Management Recap – September 2020

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

Hi Bloggers! If you’re in the community and you’re blogging things, feel free to send me a DM or tag me in your twitter post when you tweet your latest blog post so I know it’s out there. I browse twitter fairly regularly, but I’m sure I still miss a lot of great content being created. If you’ve started blogging and it never shows up on my list, hit me up! @gwblok

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Thanks for checking out the September edition of our recap. As always, the layout to the post:

• Events / Conference News
• Microsoft Product Announcements
• Hardware Vendor Updates (Tools / Security / Features)
• Community Tools / News
• Recast Updates

That’s the idea, a high level overview of things going on that you’ll want to be aware of and you can dig into them further on your own. If you’re new to this monthly post, you’ll want to look back at previous months, so much great content.

Events & Conferences

Upcoming Events:

• [Community Event] SCUG.SE Online Workplace days 6-7 October 2020
• [MS Event] Microsoft Ignite (September 22-24) – Will be over by the time this goes out, but I bet they’ll have some good recordings.
• [Training (Paid)] Mastering Configuration Manager with Johan Arwidmark and Kent Agerlund (Options: Nov 2)
• [Training (Paid)] Advanced Configuration Manager Current Branch & Windows 10 with Kent Agerlund (Oct 26)
• [Previous Event: Recordings] Microsoft Inspire.
• Previous Event: MMS Tips & Tricks – Session 1 | Session 2 (Youtube)
• [GitHub Thingy] HackToberFest (Tweet)
• [MS Community] Ask Me Anything, Several from different groups including the MEMCM group.

‍Microsoft Products & Announcements

Microsoft has posted a page with a lot of great resources during this time, to help IT professionals, Educators, Families, and Remote Business, along with how Microsoft is helping in the battle on Covid-19 on their Responding to COVID-19 together page.

‍Products:

Microsoft Edge Browser (Based on Chromium Engine): [Landing Page][What’s New Page][RoadMap Portal]‍

• How to disable Internet Explorer on Windows
• Microsoft Edge Customer Adoption Kit

Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection – [Landing Page] [Resource Hub]

• [Blog Post] Introduction to Microsoft 365 Advanced Threat Protection (Vignesh Mudliar)

Microsoft 365 [Landing Page] [Roadmap] [Tech Community] [Youtube Channel]

‍ConfigMgr [What’s New Page] [Tech Community] [Virtual Hub]

• 2006 – The “Work from Home” Edition. Coded while the devs were working from home,
• 2006 Catch up HotFix for those who went early.
• Endpoint Analytics is now generally available in Microsoft Endpoint Manager
• Universal Print integration with Microsoft Endpoint Manager
• CommunityHub update available in the ConfigMgr console. Can now easily move objects between sites. Publish using Contribute wizard from Site#1. Connect to site#2 and import the object you just published. Easily move content from test to prod! (Mark Silvey@configmgrdev)
• MEMCM Client Extension for Windows Admin Center 1.2 Released

ConfigMgr Tech Preview [What’s New Page]

• TP 2009 – I’m always amazed what they can add each month, a couple of my favorites:
• View collection relationships
• Improvements to OS deployment
• [Blog Post] MEMCM 2009 TP CMG –Virtual Machine sets (Jörgen Nilsson @ccmexec)

Intune [What’s New Page] [Tech Community]

Windows 10 [Landing Page] [Tech Community][Release Information]

• Windows updates and recovery: smooth + seamless = happy IT and happy users
• Simplifying on-premises deployment of servicing stack updates
• Force firmware code to be measured and attested by Secure Launch on Windows 10

Security Alerts [Microsoft Security Portal – Security Update Guide]

• WSUS Attacks Part 1: Introducing PyWSUS
• WSUS Attacks Part 2: CVE-2020-1013 a Windows 10 Local Privilege Escalation 1-Day

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Hardware Vendor Updates

I’m only listing changes. If you want a more complete list of their tools, check out previous month’s posts.
This month of September was lite month for the vendors, but they all say they have things coming soon.

HP

• [Enterprise Tools Landing Page] [Community / Blog Site]
• [Blog Post] Automating Maintenance of HP Image Assistant Repositories (Updated 9/25/2020) – since version 1.62, it added the ability to run with options, which can then be scripted and scheduled as a Windows Task. A sample script is shown (and also available on GitHub), on how to run the downloader on a schedule.
• [GitHub Repo] HPIA-Repository-Downloader
• [Blog Post] Deploying HP Client Management Script Library with Microsoft Intune
• [Blog Post] Managing battery health settings with HPCMSL and Intune

Dell

• [Enterprise Tools Landing Page]

Lenovo

• [Enterprise Tools Landing Page][Blog Site]

Microsoft [Surface]

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Community Tools \ Blogs

One more note, I do my best to provide Twitter accounts with the blog posts, both 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.

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Podcasts / Blog Series / Video Blogs‍

• [Documentation Series] Beyond the MS Docs, a ConfigMgr overview, starting with Task Sequence Steps in depth (Gary Blok @gwblok)
• [Youtube Channel] Intune Training Series [@OnPremCloudGuy & @AdamGrossTX]
• [PodCast] Latest Episode  (Couple of Jerks @JustJerksPod) – Just a Couple of Jerks takes us into the IT community to meet the individuals out there who are helping others and sharing their solutions and ideas.
• [Video Series] Video Tutorial: Introduction – Applications in MEMCM (Steve Rachui @steverac)
• [Website Rename] ConfigMgrFTW -> MEMFTW (Jason Sandys @JasonSandys) [Tweet]
• [Multi-Part Post] Building a ConfigMgr Lab (on a NUC) (Sune Thomsen @SuneThomsenDK)

Blog Posts

 Cloud Tech

• [Blog Post] Collect Windows 10Events with Log Analytics (@JLefebvreGloben)
• [Blog Post] How Azure AD Windows Sign-in Works (Steve Syfuhs @SteveSyfuhs)
• [Blog Post] What’s new in Microsoft Endpoint Manager – part 1 (Niall C. Brady @ncbrady)
• [Blog Post] The right way to find logs from your CMG (Niall C. Brady @ncbrady)
• [Blog Post] Troubleshooting application deployment failures during the Enrollment Status Page for Windows Autopilot (Niall C. Brady @ncbrady)
• [Blog Post] BitLocker Silent Configuration via Microsoft Endpoint Manager (Michele Vigilante @Mik_Vigilante)
• [Blog Post] Introduction to Group Policy Analytics (Peter Klapwijk @inthecloud_247)
• [Blog Post] Analyze your on-prem GPOs to find the appropriate Intune policies (Damien Van Robaeys @syst_and_deploy)
• [Blog Post] Backup and Import Conditional Access Policies (David Brook – EUC365 @DBBrook24)
• [Youtube] Getting Started with Microsoft Intune Proactive Remediations (Ben Whitmore @byteben)

ConfigMgr

• [Blog Post] Monitor SCCM OSD Task Sequence Progress (Benoit Lecours @benoitlecours)
• [Blog Post] VPN Boundary Type and Understanding Its Options (Nic Wendlowsky @Wendlowsky)
• [Blog Post] Manage Distribution Point Content Using PS – CM Content Mgmt (Adam Cook @codaamok)
• [Blog Post] Troubleshooting BitLocker Management in ConfigMgr – Part 1. Server side (Niall C. Brady @ncbrady)
• [Blog Post] Windows 10 Feature Updates – Testing the /MigNEO Disable Parameter (Adam Gross @AdamGrossTX)
• [Blog Post] How to Access the Local System Account (Garth Jones @GarthMJ )
• [Blog Post] Adding DaRT to ConfigMgr Boot Images – And starting it earlier than early (Johan Arwidmark @jarwidmark)
• [Blog Post] Display toast notification with Header picture to user in System context with Intune or SCCM (Damien Van Robaeys @syst_and_deploy)
• [Blog Post] CMPivot Browser Related Queries – Find Default Browser (Anoop C Nair @anoopmannur)
• [Blog Post] Use the Task Sequence deployment type to deploy an application with sensitive information (Michaël De Bona @TuttuFR)p

 Other SysAdmin Goodies

• [Blog Post] SCCM Report Office 365 Client Upgrade Readiness Dashboard | Part 3 (Ankit Shukla @ankitshukla073)
• [Blog Post] How To Create a Hyper-V VM Using Powershell (Daniel Engberg @danielclasson)
• [Blog Post] Dell BIOS Password Management – WMI (Jon Anderson @ConfigJon)
• [Blog Post] Automatically install the latest HP drivers during Autopilot provisioning (Nickolaj Andersen @NickolajA)
• [Blog Post] Analyzing BSOD Memory Dumps (Katy Nicholson @coaster_katy)
• [Blog Post] Build a PowerShell systray tool with menus, sub menus and pictures (Damien Van Robaeys @syst_and_deploy)

Tool Updates

• OSD Builder Updated! Support Windows 10 version 2004 & a couple bug fixes
• Driver Automation Tool 6.4.9 [Update Post](Maurice Daly @modaly_it)

Recast Software Updates‍

• New and improved Technical Documentation
• New Help Videos to aid your learning of ConfigMgr

Thanks for checking out the post, and look forward to more monthly updates of what’s going on.  If you think we missed something, or want any other news added, find us on Twitter: @RecastSoftware

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