Microsoft Cloud Library

Ensuring software updates are applied across an organization is a key focus area for system administrators. Configuration Manager has been used by thousands of organizations for years to aid in this pursuit. Other organizations have opted to use standalone WSUS ... continue reading

This post is authored by Daniel Grabski,Executive Security Advisor, Microsoft Enterprise Cybersecurity Group. As an Executive Security Advisor for enterprises in Europe and the Middle East, I regularly engage with Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs), Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and ... continue reading

The below PowerShell script can be used to automatically close old SCOM alerts. This script looks for active alerts along with the time when alert was created (alert age). If the alert age is greater than the specified number of ... continue reading

Visual Studio Authoring Extension(VSAE) is now updated to be compatible with Visual Studio(VS) 2017. VSAE is the most commonly used authoring extension by the Management Pack(MP) development community. The MP developers want to use it with the latest Visual Studio ... continue reading

Here is a step by step upgrade path from System Center Configuration Manager 2012 SP2 hosted on Windows Server 2012 R2 to System Center Configuration Manager 1702 or later hosted on Windows Server 2016. These steps can be used if ... continue reading

Continuing our video series to help you get to know Project Honolulu, here are a few videos that give a quick run-down of some tools in Server Manager. If you haven’t already, download Project Honolulu at https://aka.ms/HonoluluDownload to try it ... continue reading

The following is a special guest blog from Savision Modern enterprise IT infrastructures are becoming increasingly difficult to manage as the deployment of new services and applications continues to grow. Applications tend to rely on many other services and applications ... continue reading

TLS 1.2 is the secure way of communication suggested by Microsoft with best-in class encryption. SSL and early TLS are not considered strong cryptography and cannot be used as a security control. Microsoft has added official support for TLS1.2 security ... continue reading

When creating a maintenance schedule, selecting more than 216 target objects (these can be any specific entity instances or groups) might result in the Operations Console to disconnect with the following error:“The client has been disconnected from the server. Please ... continue reading

This blog post is authored by Jonathan Trull, Cheif Security Advisor, Enterprise Cybersecurity Group. While a securely configured operating system is essential to repelling todays cyber attacks, the base images provided by vendors do not come pre-hardened and require significant ... continue reading

Important: Configuration Manager current branch version 1706 is needed for any ConfigMgr environment using WUfB deferral policies. ConfigMgr client version 1702 will periodically delete all WUfB deferral policies, if configured. This could lead to unintended results. As you are probably ... continue reading

We are listening to customers’ requests on User Voice. The issues reported on DHCP MP have been rectified and we have released a new version of the MP. You can download the Microsoft System Center Management Pack for Windows Server ... continue reading

This post is authored by Igal Gofman, Security Researcher, Advanced Threat Analytics. On June 27, 2017 reports on a new variant of Petya (which was later referred to as NotPetya) malware infection began spreading across the globe. It seems the ... continue reading

Following is the work around for installing SC 2016 OM console and SC 2016 SM console on the same server: Install SC 2016 OM console and then install SC 2016 SM console on the same server Add system environment variable ... continue reading

This post is authored by Andrew Marshall, Principal Security Program Manager, TwC Security, Yanbing Shi, Software Engineer, Internet Information Services Team, and Sourabh Shirhatti, Program Manager, Internet Information Services Team. As a follow-up to our announcement regarding TLS 1.2 support ... continue reading

This post is authored by Ann Johnson, Vice President, Enterprise Cybersecurity Group. In the wake of recent ransomware outbreaks, I wanted to understand how impacted firms have evolved their thinking on cyber resilience planning and implementation. I asked the Detection ... continue reading

Recently, we’ve seen an increase in the number of high CPU/High Memory usage problems with WSUS, including WSUS in a System Center Configuration Manager environment – these have mostly corresponded with Update Tuesdays. Microsoft support has determined that the issue ... continue reading

Starting with System Center Configuration Manager, version 1702, unknown computers that are started from media or PXE may not find task sequences targeted to them. The SMSTS.log shows: There are no task sequences available to this computer. Please ensure you ... continue reading

Hello everyone, Our colleague Umair Kahn has a helpful post on his blog where he and Sean Mahoney walk through adding a new secondary replica node to an existing SQL Server Always On availability group for a primary site server ... continue reading

This post is authored by Andrew Marshall, Principal Security Program Manager, Trustworthy Computing Security. In support of our commitment to use best-in-class encryption, Microsoft’s engineering teams are continually upgrading our cryptographic infrastructure. A current area of focus for us is ... continue reading

This post is authored by Alex Weinert from the Identity Division’s Security and Protection Team. Hey there! I want to share three basic hygiene tips for account protection that every organization should consider. Applying these will go a long way ... continue reading

This post is authored by Berk Veral, Senior Marketing Communication Manager, Enterprise Cybersecurity Group. Perhaps one of the best-kept secrets within Microsoft cybersecurity services is the Global Incident Response and Recovery team. We affectionately call them the “GIRR” team for ... continue reading

NOTE: This information is now available in multiple languages in the Microsoft Knowledge Base article Configuration Manager SQL Server queries for compliance reporting related to MS17-010. The following is shared by CSS Support Escalation Engineer Vinay Pamnani, to help give ... continue reading

This blog is a step-by-step example for the configuration of email notification for Configuration Manager Reports and well as for deleting the email subscriptions. We will also cover a bit of background changes (like in database & SSRS Config file) ... continue reading

A Microsoft System Center 2012 or System Center 2012 R2 client installation (CCMSetup) initially fails and causes a client retry task to be registered in Windows Task Scheduler. After the client installation succeeds, the retry task is not deleted as ... continue reading

Microsoft Support still gets frequent inquiries about whether System Center 2012 R2 VMM can support guests running Windows Server 2016. Installing Hotfix 1 for Update Rollup 11 of Microsoft System Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) enables you to ... continue reading

~ John Clyburn | Senior Consultant Hi everyone, my name is John Clyburn and I’m a senior consultant here at Microsoft. I was recently working at a customer site where we were getting “Unsupported Cluster Configuration” errors in the SCVMM ... continue reading

Although we’re a very long way from putting artificial intelligence (AI) in charge of national defense, the use of AI in cybersecurity isn’t science fiction. The ability of machines to rapidly analyze and respond to the unprecedented quantities of data ... continue reading