Find the Collection Membership of a Specific Machine

There many times during the course of troubleshooting issues within SCCM where you will need to find out what Collections a specific client machine is a member of. Unfortunately there is no native way of finding that out, but you can use SQL and reports to help you find this information.

You can run the following SQL query against your SMS database within SQL Management Studio

select v_FullCollectionMembership.CollectionID As 'Collection ID', v_Collection.Name As 'Collection Name', v_R_System.Name0 As 'Machine Name' from v_FullCollectionMembership
JOIN v_R_System on v_FullCollectionMembership.ResourceID = v_R_System.ResourceID
JOIN v_Collection on v_FullCollectionMembership.CollectionID = v_Collection.CollectionID
Where v_R_System.Name0='ClientMachineName'

Replace ClientMachineName with the device name

You can create a custom report within SCCM. You would need to modify the query slightly, you would replace the ClientMachineName section with a parameter, like so:

select v_FullCollectionMembership.CollectionID As 'Collection ID', v_Collection.Name As 'Collection Name', v_R_System.Name0 As 'Machine Name' from v_FullCollectionMembership
JOIN v_R_System on v_FullCollectionMembership.ResourceID = v_R_System.ResourceID
JOIN v_Collection on v_FullCollectionMembership.CollectionID = v_Collection.CollectionID
Where v_R_System.Name0=@Comp

I would encapsulate the above query into one dataset and use that to populate the table results within the report. Then create a second dataset holding the SQL query:

select Name0 from v_R_System

That can be used to populate the options within your @Comp parameter. Your SQL report builder will look something like this:

The above SQL should work both on Configuration Manager 2007 and Configuration Manager 2012.

Uninstall Project 2013 with Configuration Manager

As I'm sure all of you have found there are lots of helpful articles out there about how to do a silent install of Microsoft Office/Project/Visio/etc through SCCM, but there is very little information out there on how to do an un-install silently. After much head scratching I finally found the method of doing so...

1. Navigate to the directory where your install files are located
2. Edit the config.xml file located within prjstd.ww (note this changes depending on the version of Project)
3. Remove the values from the Display level line and change it to look like below

4. Within your SCCM deployment modify the Uninstall file to read:
setup.exe /uninstall prjstd /config prjstd.ww/config.xml (again note the visio version name will differ depending on the edition)

5. Click OK and test the uninstallation via SCCM software centre

Uninstall Visio 2013 with SCCM

As I'm sure all of you have found there are lots of helpful articles out there about how to do a silent install of Microsoft Office/Project/Visio/etc through SCCM, but there is very little information out there on how to do an un-install silently. After much head scratching I finally found the method of doing so...

1. Navigate to the directory where your install files are located
2. Edit the config.xml file located within vispro.ww (note this changes depending on the version of Visio)
3. Remove the values from the Display level line and change it to look like below

4. Within your SCCM deployment modify the Uninstall file to read:
setup.exe /uninstall vispro /config vispro.ww/config.xml (again note the visio version name will differ depending on the edition)

5. Click OK and test the uninstallation via SCCM software centre

Running Configuration Manager 2012 Remote Control standalone

In some instances you might not want to roll out the full SCCM console but still allow the user to run the Remote Control SCCM tool.

Here is how to do it:

1. Find the directory where the AdminConsole is installed, example: C:\Program Files(x86)\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminConsole\bin\i386, copy the following directory and files:
0000049
CmRcViewer.exe
RdpCoreSccm.dll

2. Copy the whole directory and the files to the computer you want to run Remote Control from. You can create a folder anywhere on the computer, i.e My Documents\Remote Control

3. Then simply launch the CmRcViewer.exe file and that is you!

Changing Startup to Automatic on the SCCM Remote Control Service

One of the biggest bugbears within the support staff is that the Configuration Manager 2012 Remote Tools client service is set to Automatic (Delayed Start) when installed as default.

If you are working on a users machine and you have to restart it, it can often feel like an age before you can remote control the machine again.

Using Group Policy and a Group Policy Preference Settings you can change this. Under Services add the SCCM Remote Control Service and change the startup type to “Automatic”.

Shrink the SQL Server Reporting Services log database used by ConfigMgr 2012

So today I came across an issue with my SCCM database server running low on disk space. On investigation I found the ReportServer_log.ldf file had grown to over 320GB in size!

It would appear this is a known issue and some simple configuration changes to your database setup can resolve this.

Change the recovery model
1. Log onto SQL Management Studio and connect to the SCCM instance
2. Expand Databases and right click on ReportServer (your name may vary depending on your installation)
3. Go to Options
4. Change the recovery model from Full to Simple
5. Click OK to save the changes

Shrink the file
1. Log onto SQL Management Studio and connect to the SCCM instance
2. Expand Databases and right click on ReportServer (your name may vary depending on your installation)
3. Select Tasks > Shrink > Files
4. Under File type select Log and click OK
5. This should reduce the size of the LDF file to a more modest size, you may have to repeat the shrink step two or three times for it to complete successfully

Change the Maximum File Size
1. Log onto SQL Management Studio and connect to the SCCM instance
2. Expand Databases and right click on ReportServer (your name may vary depending on your installation)
3. Select Properties
4. Select Files
5. In the Database files field, scroll until you see the Autogrowth column.
6. Click on the ellipsis button (…) for ReportServer_log (again this name may vary slightly depending on your installation)
7. Change the value of the Restrict File Growth (MB) field to a suitable amount for your environment.
8. Click OK to save the changes

This should now resolve your issue and not see it reoccur.