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Source: http://blogs.technet.com/softgrid/archive/2009/11/19/announcing-app-v-4-6-rc-and-integration-with-office-2010-beta.aspx

First of all, we are excited to announce the availability of App-V 4.6 RC! In August we announced the App-V 4.6 Beta. Since then we have taken in lots of customer feedback and continue to refine the App-V 4.6 release so that we can deliver a great product!  We invite you to check out the RC release by registering and downloading the App-V 4.6 RC release via Microsoft Connect, where you can also submit feedback directly to the team.

We’re not done though, in addition we’d like to share some great news and also announce our integration with Office 2010 Beta:

Microsoft Office 2010 Beta, Ready to be Sequenced With the Microsoft Office 2010 Beta Deployment Kit for App-V

As you know the Office team just completed a major milestone Microsoft Office 2010 Beta, congrats to the team!  Throughout the process of building Office 2010 the App-V and Office teams have been working very closely to make sequencing Office 2010 Beta possible with App-V 4.6 RC!  We have taken the feedback and requests from post-Office 2007 and App-V 4.5 releases, and have been hard at work implementing a solid integration experience for Office when App-V 4.6 releases in H1 2010.

So what’s Different when using Microsoft Office 2010 Beta and App-V 4.6 RC together?

Office 2010 has introduced a new piracy protection initiative, the Software Protection Platform (SPP) service.  This service uses a machine’s hardware characteristics and product key to activate the installation, which is performed during the first Office application launch.

Since the Office 2010 product activation is linked to the hardware on which Office is originally installed, customers who wish to deploy Office 2010 using App-V must physically install the SPP service on the sequencer machine before beginning the sequencing process – and on any client machines that will stream and run Office 2010.

Our engineering teams have collaborated to address the top customer issues that people were running into when virtualizing past versions of Office.   As a result, Office 2010 has a much more integrated user experience.  The Office 2010 integration delivers key productivity enhancements and a seamless user experience by enabling the following::

· Microsoft SharePoint Integration – You can open, edit, and save Microsoft Office documents using Microsoft SharePoint.

· Microsoft Outlook Fast Search – You can use Microsoft Windows Desktop Search to find specific messages in your inbox.

· MAPI Proxy – You can connect to your inbox using Microsoft Outlook Send To functionality.

· Microsoft Office Document Indexing – You can index your documents so that you can use Microsoft Windows Search to locate files.

· Virtual Mail Control Panel icon – You can use the Email icon in Control Panel to perform advance mail configuration.

· URL protocol handler – You can configure links in the browser and specify the appropriate associated Microsoft Office application.

· Send to Microsoft OneNote Printer driver – You can print documents to Microsoft OneNote.

To help customers facilitate this process, we have created the Microsoft Office 2010 Deployment Kit for App-V (Beta). The Deployment Kit contains both the required SPP licensing component and Office 2010 integration features.

And what’s even more exciting, you can get your hands on it now.

How Do I Sequence Microsoft Office 2010 Beta for App-V 4.6 RC?

1. Download Office 2010 Beta here

2. Download the Microsoft Office 2010 Deployment Kit for App-V (Beta)

3. Download App-V 4.6 RC on Microsoft Connect

4. Read the App-V recipe for sequencing Office 2010 Beta on Microsoft Connect.

For detailed information on whether your environment meets the requirements of Office 2010 and App-V 4.6 RC, please refer to the App-V recipe.

Please note: We are providing a recipe to support the sequencing and testing of these pre-release products on Microsoft Connect.  Please provide feedback via Microsoft Connect, by choosing FEEDBACK once logged into the App-V 4.6 Program.

We look forward to hearing about your App-V 4.6 RC and Office 2010 experience!

Today, the System Center team is excited to share with you our plan to release System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R3. This new release of the ConfigMgr is packed with some extremely cool features, which over the coming months we plan to share with you in different ways.

Recent shifts in the world economy have brought new focus on IT departments, and also to technology investment.  Organizations are being pressured to do more with less, while at the same time manage an increasing range of working scenarios, mobility requirements, and business demands.  Through all of this, they need to maintain security levels, answer compliance challenges and address the growing Green IT landscape.

As organizations look to reduce financial costs and environmental impacts, power management is proving to be a successful approach. The payback for power management is clear – when a PC is using less power it translates directly into reduced operational costs – either directly through reduced energy consumption or from a growing number of electrical companies that offer rebates to companies that can prove enforcement of centralized power management policies. In addition, continuous PC power management pays environmental dividends measured in terms like Kwh, or CO2 emissions savings.

Forrester estimates that more than 90% of firms are implementing or considering PC power management. Despite the advanced capabilities provided in Windows Vista and Windows 7, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that no more than 10% of all enterprise PCs in use have their power management capabilities turned on today. Without centralized management power management simply doesn’t happen.  Through research with our customers, partners, and industry experts, it became clear that System Center needed to deliver this capability in the box, with ‘R3’ as the release vehicle.

System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R3

There are a few areas of focus for ConfigMgr R3, with the main engineering effort concentrating on Power Management.  Here are the goals for this feature:

Power Management
The goal of this capability is to enable Configuration Manager to further reduce the operational costs of IT by providing basic power management features native to the product.  Our approach is based on 3 primary areas:

A. Help the organization plan a power strategy by monitoring current power state and consumptions and reporting on machine utilization trends, current power settings and current energy consumption

B. Enable the Administrator to easily create, deploy and enforce specific power settings using the existing ConfigMgr infrastructure
−Ability to set peak and non-peak schedules
−Ability to remediate settings if changed
−Ability to opt out machines from power policy

C. Provide the business meaningful report formats that are relevant to Power Management

Here is a quick video of some of the sample reports we plan to release.  These are a ‘mockup’ and do not represent final calculations, views, values etc.

An effective approach to power management needs to maximize power policy deployment while minimizing the impact to the end-user. System Center Configuration Manager helps customers further reduce their operational costs by adding new in box capability to their ConfigMgr infrastructure, and by seamlessly enabling power management client agent services to their existing Collection landscape.

In addition to power management, ConfigMgr R3 will provide customers with enhanced scale and performance support above current numbers.  In addition, further capabilities – in time for your Window 7 deployments – around Operating System Deployment will be enabled.

Configuration Manager 2007 R3 will release as a beta at the end of October 2009, with a targeted release of late Q1 calendar 2010.  Continued blogging and product news, Twitter updates, interviews with key people on the project, and some videos and demos of the new code in action will be releasing over the coming months.

Configuration Manager 2007 R3 TAP Nominations now Open
Product feedback is very important to the success of any product.  The nomination survey for ConfigMgr 2007 R3 TAP is now open.  You can access this nomination survey https://connect.microsoft.com/content/content.aspx?ContentID=13924&SiteID=16

Look to the following resources in the coming months for more information on our plans:
System Center http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/en/us/default.aspx
Configuration Manager http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/configurationmanager/en/us/default.aspx

Greg Ramsey: Grab the Docs and the Download on DellTechCenter .  Stay tuned for some video demos coming your way in the near future!

What is the Dell Deployment Pack? The Dell Deployment Pack (DDP) is an easy-to-use graphical user interface (GUI)-based tool that integrates directly into the Microsoft® System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2007 (ConfigMgr) console. It eliminates the need for command-line tools and scripts normally used in the Dell™ OpenMange™ Deployment Toolkit (DTK) software. To configure and deploy your Dell systems, you need to select configuration options and commands on the GUI using drop-down lists and check boxes (see "Using The Dell Deployment Pack"). These selections make your system deployment an easy, automated task.

source: http://www.buit.org/2009/02/13/how-to-integrate-app-v-with-sccm-without-losing-the-features-you-care-about/

One of the most anticipated features of SCCM 2007 R2 is “App-V Integration”. We have recently tested the end-to-end scenario for this integration and we can say with confidence: it BLOWS . In a nutshell, by integrating App-V with SCCM you lose App-V’s best features and reduce the solution to something that’s even worse than SCCM by itself!

So what happens when you enable the App-V/SCCM integration feature in the SCCM Management Console?

• Control of the App-V client is seized by the SCCM client. If you had App-V running on its own before you enabled the integration, you’ll notice that all App-V apps that are published through App-V’s Publishing Server are now rendered invalid. On launch you’ll get a “Unable to initialize package information (0×00000000)” error.
• You must now publish your App-V apps through SCCM as “Virtual Application Packages”. This works by importing the .XML file of the App-V package. SCCM will distribute the packages to its Distribution Points and you can enable those Distribution Points for HTTP(S) streaming.
• To get the App-V apps to your clients, you’ll have to create SCCM advertisements. Basically SCCM advertisements replace the App-V Publishing Server. The behavior of getting App-V apps to your desktop now becomes eerily similar to SCCM’s way of installing applications. No more getting your shortcuts immediately upon logon (like you get with App-V); you will have to go get a cup of coffee and hope that SCCM is willing to give you your apps today.
• If you created non-mandatory assignments, then you’ll have to go to Add/Remove Programs yourself and click “Run” for all the apps that you want. However clicking “Run” doesn’t actually run your app, it only registers the App-V app with the local App-V client. Don’t expect to see any progress bar or visual feedback that the registration actually happened; just keep scouring around in your Start Menu in hope of finding the shortcuts for your new app.
• If you created mandatory assignments, you’ll get one or more notifications from SCCM (after some time ofcourse) that SCCM has App-V apps for you that it would like to register with the local App-V client. It will do that on *every* desktop you logon to. Prepare to spend quite a bit of quality time with the SCCM Client…
• If you’re using either Windows Terminal Services or Fast User Switching in Vista, you’re SOL because the SCCM Client is allergic to terminal sessions. You’ll get a message telling you that “No programs are available to run from a Terminal Services session”. How nice. If you happen to be running the console session, you won’t notice this limitation because at the console session, everything works just fine. So make sure you also test your solution via a terminal session so you won’t get caught by surprise.

As a result of the findings described above, we were pretty disappointed with the solution and decided to reverse our decision to integrate App-V with SCCM. However we did like the idea of using SCCM Distribution Points to stream App-V apps from. So we had a go at doing a manual integration of App-V with SCCM so that we could use just the SCCM parts we wanted. The idea was inspired by Tim Mangan’s article which included this diagram:

In his article he never got around to actually testing if it was possible to stream an application that was published by App-V’s Publishing Server from an SCCM Distribution Point. He only verified that is was possible to install the App-V app through an MSI with SCCM. So we ventured to get HTTP streaming working against SCCM Distribution Points, with the shortcuts still being provided by an App-V Publishing Server. In a nutshell: it works! You do have to setup a few mechanisms to get load balancing working though.

Here is how it works:

• First and foremost: disable the App-V integration with SCCM. To do this, go to the SCCM Console -> Site Database -> Site Management -> <Site> -> Site Settings -> Client Agents -> Advertised Programs Client Agent -> Properties and make sure “Allow virtual application package advertisement” is NOT selected.
• Enable your SCCM Distribution Points for BITS, HTTP and HTTPS content transfer. To do this, go to the SCCM Console -> Site Database -> Site Management -> <Site> -> Site Settings -> Site Systems -> <your DP> -> ConfigMgr distribution point -> Properties and select “Allow clients to transfer content from this distribution point using BITS, HTTP and HTTPS”.
• We found that (at least in the RTM version of SCCM 2007 R2) you don’t have to enable “virtual application streaming” on the “Virtual Applications” tab of the distribution point to be able to stream from a SCCM DP when using our manual integration. The added benefit of this is that you can now also use Secondary Site DP’s as streaming servers!
• Set up an App-V Management Server on any server you like. You can even set it up on a SCCM server, it doesn’t matter. Use the default installation settings for the entire installation. After installation, set the Default Content Path to the following: http://%SFT_SOFTGRIDSERVER%
• Add an App-V package to SCCM for distribution and streaming:
  • Go to the SCCM Console -> Site Database -> Computer Management -> Software Distribution -> Packages -> New -> Package . Enter the information about your package and click Next. Select “This package contains source files” and set the Source Directory to the location of your App-V package and click Finish. Note that you import the App-V package as a normal SCCM package and NOT as a Virtual Application Package. Importing it as a Virtual Application Package will cause the .SFT file in the App-V package to be renamed and cause the .SFT file to be added to not 1 but 2 locations on each SCCM Distribution Point, doubling storage requirements.
  • When the package is added to SCCM, find the Package ID and use it to update the streaming location in the App-V OSD files. For each OSD file in your App-V package, update the HREF statement to HTTP://%SFT_SOFTGRIDSERVER%/SMS_DP$/SMSPKG/<your SCCM Package ID >/<name of your SFT file >
    (If you are using a File Share Distribution Point, the IIS vdir may be different than SMS_DP$. Verify the vdir name in IIS Manager and ensure that all DP’s are either standard DP’s or File Share DP’s.)
  • Now add some SCCM Distribution Points to your package so that SCCM can distribute the App-V content
• Import the same App-V package into the App-V Management Server so that you can distribute the shortcuts and set permissions:
  • On the App-V Management Server, go to the App-V Management Console, go to Applications
    -> Import Application and go to the same App-V package folder. Select the .SPRJ file and click Open. Perform your regular App-V import steps and finish the import.
  • The imported applications in the App-V Management Console should now show the correct http:// paths to both the OSD file(s) and the SFT file(s).
• That’s it! Now just configure your App-V Clients on the desktops to use your newly setup App-V Management Server by configuring a Publishing Server and use Group Policy to set the %SFT_SOFTGRIDSERVER% to the name of a SCCM Distribution Point nearby. We set this variable to DNS name that uses DNS Round Robin to distribute the load to multiple DP’s.

Jeff Wettlaufer: Today we release Configuration Manager 2007 SP1!
It is amazing to see that this was not a release based in bug fix, quite the opposite, there are hardly any hotfixes included in this release. This is a reflection of changes such as the ship of Windows Server 2008 and Vista SP1.
With some engineering cycles aligning, we have added some additional features that were ready to go at this time, details are as follows:<

As a recap SP1 specifically contains:
1. Complete support for management of Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008.�
2. Support for Configuration Manager 2007 Server Site roles on Server 2008.�
3. Integration with Intel VPro technologies. �
4. Asset Intelligence 1.5 

You can find additional details, and information for download on our product homepages, located here.http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/configmgr/default.mspx 

Also, we will have a full Technical overview at the upcoming Teched USA in Orlando June 10-13th.  We have a full breakout session , and we will be running SP1 (and R2 previews ) at the Microsoft pavilion pod area.  Also, we have a Technet webcast on Configuration Manager 2007 SP1, you can find that here.

Download the Visio add in and the web server component to connect and generate datasets to connect to your existing diagrams or auto generate your diagrams for your infrastructure monitoring needs. See your data from OpsManager and ConfigManager live in Visio diagrams.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=521B3884-1EDA-4B9D-8AD7-67D00FE9CE8A&displaylang=en

The first news to me is the rebranding of SoftGrid. I kinda thought it was a cool name but I guess when you acquire a product you’ll always, if not necessary, to rename it. So what’s the brand spanking new name?… Microsoft Application Virtualization!!. Funky? Well.. I’ll let you thrive on your own opinions

The good news however is that the upcoming version 4.5 will be tightly integrated with System Center Configuration Manager 2007.

One of the primary goals of SCCM R2 is to be able to manage virtualized applications just like a physical application for example, asset inventory or deploying.
If you’ve used or tried SoftGrid 4.0 or 4.1, you’ll know that in the application virtualization world, it doesn’t really exist therefore SCCM or SMS could not perform inventory on those application. So 4.5 addresses this now.
The 4 core integration is:

• Packaging and distribution of virtual applications. – (Being able to create a virtual application ‘package’ and distribute it to the DP)
• Deployment of the virtual application – (Advertise the package to clients)
• Launching and running in a connected or disconnected environment
• Inventory and Reporting (ability to perform inventory and report on packages application and usage)

If you’re trying out the BETA, the typical deployment to get this functionality is

1. Deploy the Softgrid Clients to the clients (this can be done manually or via SCCM’s Application Distribution

2. Sequence applications to output the native SFT package format {Sequencing is a method used my SoftGrid to re-package an application into a readable package}
3. Enable Virtual Application Distribution Point (This is done through the SCCM Site Roles)
4. Configure the Advertised Program Client to allow for Virtualized Application (This is done through the Client Agents configuration node)
5. Import Virtual Application Package (yes. A new available option in SCCM) in SCCM 2007 R2

If you notice from the screenshot above, there is a new orangy package icon. This denotes a Virtual App.

(continue reading…)

Michael Kelly was invited to stage at the annual Microsoft Management Summit to demonstrate how System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) will manage the physical datacenter layer. Kelly talked about the Sequencing possibilities in SCCM and about the partnering around SCCM with Dell. The integrated dell server deployment will provide a sequencing step to configure the hardware when Windows PE will be booted; for instance — like RAID configuration. The beta version of this software will be available in the coming weeks on the Dell website.

Kelly also talked about the Configuration Manager 2007 R2 that will be coming out in the future. Multicast will be added to the features of SCCM to deploy multiple servers at once, while keeping the network traffic as low as possible. With this and the other SCCM OS deployment features, Microsoft forsees SCCM as the main means to provide the hardware layer with the OS layer.

Want to start with System Center Configuration Manager 2007? The blogcast repository has a good section with all kinds of blogcasts describing how to start using SCCM 2007.

We have spent a great deal of time to bring you the videos you see on this page and site for free. We sincerely hope that these help you in you process to upgrade from SMS or adopt SCCM into your organization. The videos have all been tested and internally documented for accuracy. However, your organization may have unique server settings that may affect the what we describe a process in the Blogcasts.

Visit the Systems Center Configuration Manager 2007- Start to Finish Guide

Also

Download links for the 88 files that System Center Configuration Manager needs during install

When installing System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM aka SMS v4), it is not always possible to give internet access to the server involved. I like to have everything I need beforehand whenever doing an install.

When SCCM setup launches, it tries to download the ConfigMgr.Manifest.cab from here. Overall it is best to allow SCCM to grab all the files it needs automatically because the ConfigMgr.Manifest.xml file inside the ConfigMgr.Manifest.cab file can be updated by Microsoft to point to new locations when these files are updated or moved.

With that said, here are the links contained in ConfigMgr.Manifest.XML as of 12-15-07 for the RTM release of SCCM 2007, broken into groups:

Microsoft Remote Differential Compression Library
(x86, x64, ia64)

Windows Update Agent
(x86, x64, ia64)

WMI
(x86, x64, ia64)

BITS
Windows 2000 – KB 842773
(ARA, CHS, CHT, CSY, DAN, DEU, ELL, ENU, ESN, FIN, FRA, HEB, HUN, ITA, JPN, KOR, NLD, NOR, PLK, PTB, PTG, RUS, SVE, TRK)

Windows 2003 – KB 923845
x86: (CHS, CHT, CSY, DEU, ENU, ESN, FRA, HUN, ITA, JPN, KOR, NLD, PLK, PTB, PTG, RUS, SVE, TRK)
x64: (CHS, CHT, DEU, ENU, ESN, FRA, ITA, JPN, KOR, PTB, RUS)
ia64: (DEU, ENU, FRA, JPN)

Windows XP – KB 923845
x86: (ARA, CHS, CHT, CSY, DAN, DEU, ELL, ENU, ESN, FIN, FRA, HEB, HUN, ITA, JPN, KOR, NLD, NOR, PLK, PTB, PTG, RUS, SVE, TRK)

Save all of those files into a directory, and simply point SCCM to that directory for the updates instead of attempting to download them all.

If you are looking for a text file that just has all of the HTTP links inside for use with a downloader program, you can right click and ‘Save as’ the text file here.

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Stefan Schörling has published a nice guide:
“I wrote a brief introduction on Desired Configuration Management (DCM), the article contains information about what DCM is and some guides for importing configuration packs and assigning them. I hope this will bring some light to thoose of you who want to get familiar with DCM.”

You can read my article here: http://www.msfaq.se/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/introduction-to-desired-configuration-management-in-configuration-manager-2007.pdf