Microsoft released first update 1701 for SCCM Configmgr Technical Branch in the new year 2017 with some new features and improvements to the existing features that are reported through user voice  .

These technical preview updates will help you to test in lab environment and report feedback to Microsoft before they make into current Branch (Production Version). You can install this version to update and add new capabilities to your Configuration Manager technical preview site.

To see these preview updates in your Configmgr console,you must have the base version of SCCM Configmgr Technical preview 1610 (not applicable to current branch).These Technical Preview updates are intended for use in a lab environment. For more information about technical preview and updates, please refer https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/core/get-started/technical-preview

New features you can try out with this version:

Boundary groups improvements for software update points

Hardware inventory collects UEFI information

Improvements to operating system deployment

Host software updates on cloud-based distribution points

Validate device health attestation data via management points

Use the OMS connector for Microsoft Azure Government cloud

For more information about these features ,read the documentation here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/core/get-started/capabilities-in-technical-preview-1701

If you do not have lab to play around with Configmgr technical preview features ,download the baseline version of technical preview 1610 from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-system-center-configuration-manager-and-endpoint-protection-technical-preview .

To download and install this preview update 1701 ,launch the console ,go to administration node,cloud services ,updates and serving ,click on check for updates

Monitor dmpdownloader.log for downloading the content.

Refresh updates and servicing node in the console to see updates .

Look for easysetuppayload folder for download of files

select the update and click install update pack ,go with the options that it take you through.

For installation status ,monitor CMUpdate.log or use updates and servicing status in the console—>Monitoring node.

Close the SCCM console and open it to install new console version.

Technical preview update 1701 has following versions for:

Console Version:5.0.8471.1000

Site Version:5.0.8471.1000

Client Version:5.00.8471.1000

For Technical preview documentation read https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/core/get-started/technical-preview

Configuration Manager Resources:

Documentation for System Center Configuration Manager Technical Previews

Documentation for System Center Configuration Manager

System Center Configuration Manager Forums

System Center Configuration Manager Support

Download the Configuration Manager Support Center

Installing the distribution point on workstation or server is straight forward method from console .All you need is ,an account that has local admin rights on remote computer to install IIS components and install DP role.

To install Distribution point role on remote computer, Open configuration manager ,go to administration node, expand site configuration ,right click on servers and site system role ,choose create site system server and from there ,all self explained.

Installing DP role on 1 or 2 computers can be done using the console GUI ,but what if you have more than 10 or 50 or 100 computers to install DP ? can you do that manually from the console or use scripting to be done in few min ?

I recently installed DP role on 100+ workstations across the ASIA region and these 100+ distribution points are tagged under different secondary sites.

In this post, we will walk through the powershell script to install DP role on N number of computers and pipe the result into log file for reference.

Script does few things listed below:

1. It will read the CSV file for computer name,description and site code to which the DP need to be tagged under.

2.Check if the supplied computer name exist in Active directory or not ,if it is not ,pipe the output into log.

3.If the computer exist in AD ,check if DP role already installed or not ,if installed ,pipe the output into log.

4.If DP role not installed ,run the script to initiate the DP role  installation and pipe the output into log.

Note:The script do not check if the remote computer is online ,offline or issue with firewall ports as these are basic requirements before you run the script. Also script do not create any boundary groups ,no proxy configured.  This script will install DP Role using site server computer account (make sure your SCCM server account is member of local admin group on all remote computers).

To install DP role, i have used 2 basic commands which are New-CMSiteSystemServer and Add-CMDistributionPoint . To know more about these command and examples ,refer https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/sccm/configurationmanager/vlatest/configurationmanager or from the powershell command, you can run get-help New-CMSiteSystemServer

If you want to install DP role using service account instead of using site server account ,you can do so by editing the script .

Download the script from Technet Gallary ,extract the content to folder ,edit the dpcomputers.csv to pipe computer name,description and Tsitecode (target sitecode) that you want to tag the DP .

CSV file format:

Output:

Hope it helps.

This is a quick post on an issue that I come across recently at a customer who was unable to install the IIS role for setting up a distribution point.

As we all know, IIS is a prerequisite for setting up a distribution point in Configuration Manager.

During the installation of the IIS feature, you need to provide the path to source files, this will be usually the SXS folder from the OS media file as shown below.

I have specified the SxS folder during the installation of IIS and made sure that, the OS version matches the ISO file that was downloaded.

 This is the usual procedure that we all do to install the IIS feature and it always works, but in this case, it never worked for me.

Following is the error code:

The request to add or remove features on the specified server failed. The source files could not be found. Error Code 0x800f081f.

I tried a couple of times by changing the ISO to the latest one, but it failed with the same error code.

what other options do we have to install the IIS role now for DP to work?

If the SxS source files cannot be used by the server to install IIS, we will use the WIM file from the same ISO to install the IIS feature using Powershell cmdlet.

Following is the PowerShell syntax.

Install-windowsfeature web-server –source wim:D:\sources\install.wim:2

Here 2 refers to the image index.

How do we know what index to use? This is based on the OS edition installed on the server.

You can check the OS edition on the server using WINVER from the RUN command.

Once you are done with this, run the following DISM command against the source wim file to know the index.

dism /get-wiminfo /wimfile:E:\sources\install.wim

Index 2 refers windows server 2019 standard with desktop experience

If your OS is datacenter with desktop experience, you need to use index 4.

once we have all the necessary information, run the PowerShell to install the IIS role.

Install-windowsfeature web-server –source wim:D:\sources\install.wim:2

Status after the Powershell command.

likewise, you can install all other features using the same format.

If the standard practice doesn’t work, we take other routes to make things work

Hope it helps!