Maurice DalySo yet another awesome insight into future production releases of SCCM is upon us, this being 1708 technical preview. Lets explore some of the features included in this release and prepare those of you running production only environments for what is coming your way soon.
Software Center Branding Options
A big cosmetic change comes in the form of the ability to brand the Software Center with corporate logos without an active Intune subscription. This is achieved via a new client settings option;
On the Software Center options page you will now find options to set the colour scheme, assign a corporate logo (max size is 400 x 100 and 750kb in size, Jpeg & PNG formats are accepted) and the ability to selectively hide individual tabs inside the Software Center.
Reboot from the console
A new welcome addition to the console is the ability to reboot hosts directly from the console device collection screen. The restart time can be controlled through the client settings in the computer restart tab;
The reboot prompt also features a countdown timer and progress bar, hopefully the company branded logo will follow into this prompt before it hits the production build.
Note: The countdown timer will be shown where a user is logged on, otherwise it will honor the current restart settings.
Script Parameters
The development of the run script feature continues with the next logical step, the ability to specify parameters run at run time.
When importing a script or indeed when creating a new one, you are presented with a script parameter section if the script supports command line parameter binding. Subsequently after approving the script you then have the option to specify parameter values run running the script;
PowerShell Commands
PowerShell command count has been increased from 925 to 930, a total of 3 commands have been retired, these being;
Set-CMPowerControl
New-CMAmtProvisioningAccount
Invoke-CMAmtProvisioningDiscovery
Aside from the commands removed, we now have 8 new commands to utilise in our scripting arsenal. The good news continues when you see that all of them are for editing/adding task sequence steps;
Get-CMTSStepApplyOperatingSystem
Get-CMTSStepApplyWindowsSetting
Remove-CMTSStepApplyOperatingSystem
Remove-CMTSStepApplyWindowsSetting
New-CMTSStepApplyOperatingSystem
New-CMTSStepApplyWindowsSetting
Set-CMTSStepApplyOperatingSystem
Set-CMTSStepApplyWindowsSetting
The addition of these commands makes for improved task sequence management through PowerShell, something which we have seen great work on over the past number of releases.
Management Insights
This is an interesting addition and something many of you have been crying out for, the ability to quickly identify applications without deployments (also see my early post on this very subject –https://msendpointmgr.com/2017/08/11/using-powershell-for-cleaning-up-packages-and-applications/) and empty collections, allowing you to perform some spring cleaning.
Documentation
Documentation for technical preview 1708 is available on Technet – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/core/get-started/capabilities-in-technical-preview-1708
Nickolaj Andersen
Mattias Melkersen
Rudy Ooms
Ben Whitmore
What is the next build after 1702 and when will it be released? Any date for 1708?
The latest production build is 1706 and was released back in July, see https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/enterprisemobility/2017/07/28/now-available-update-1706-for-system-center-configuration-manager/ for more info. No word as of yet as to the next production release, but I would expect something soon.
Ok thanks. My client is currently on 1610, I see 1702 in the console as available but not 1706. Is 1706 not showing because I haven’t installed 1702? Is there a good link that explains how that works? Thank you!
PS – I used this web site for my BIOS to UEFI conversion task sequence for Windows 10 a few months ago, very helpful! Also, I have a script for all new users logging in to Windows 10 that removes Microsoft Edge from the taskbar. Would be happy to share it if you wanted. Tested on 1607.
The reason being is that 1706 is not a baseline build and 1702 is. See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/core/servers/manage/updates for more info on SCCM builds. In regards to the Edge script, send it over and I’ll have a look ([email protected])