There are plenty of ways to randomly add systems to a collection in SCCM, a common query being something similar to

select SMS_R_System.Name from  SMS_R_System where SMS_R_System.SMSUniqueIdentifier like “%0” OR SMS_R_System.SMSUniqueIdentifier like “%1”

In a recent instance, i needed to ensure that systems were randomly chosen for a product roll out across a 1500-ish servers. The client was specific about staging the deployment and wanted to selection process of what went when to be truly random… fair enough.

SCCM cant really do do random when limited to a number…. the query above for example is likely to retrieve approx 20% of your total client count…. where-as i needed a random 50.

I ended up using the following powershell to accomplish the task.

Function Connect-ConfigMgr {
Param(
)
write-host -ForegroundColor Magenta “Connect-ConfigMgr”
Try {
Get-WMIObject -ComputerName $CMSiteServer -Namespace “root\SMS” -Class “SMS_ProviderLocation” -ErrorAction Stop | foreach-object{
if ($_.ProviderForLocalSite -eq $true){$Script:SiteCode=$_.sitecode}
}
if ($SiteCode -eq “”) {
throw (“Sitecode of ConfigMgr Site at ” + $CMSiteServer + ” could not be determined.”)
Exit 1
}
}
Catch {
$ErrorMessage = $_.Exception.Message
$text = “Error, could not connect to Site server $CMSiteServer, check spelling, network connectivity, permissions etc.”
$text += “`nError message: $ErrorMessage”
Write-Error $text
Exit 1
}
#$CMNamespace = “Root\SMS\$($SiteCode)”

write-host -ForegroundColor Green “ConfigMgr Site Code: $SiteCode”
write-host -ForegroundColor Green “ConfigMgr Site Server: $CMSiteServer”
#write-host “ConfigMgr Name Space: $CMNamespace”

#Import ConfigMgr Module
if (!(Get-Module -Name ConfigurationManager)) {
write-host “PowerShell module not loaded.”
If (Test-Path -Path “$($ENV:SMS_ADMIN_UI_PATH)\..\ConfigurationManager.psd1” -PathType Leaf) {
write-host “Attempting loa PS module from: $($ENV:SMS_ADMIN_UI_PATH)\..\ConfigurationManager.psd1”
Import-Module “$($ENV:SMS_ADMIN_UI_PATH)\..\ConfigurationManager.psd1” | Out-Null
}
ElseIf (Test-Path “$($ScriptPath)\ConfigurationManager.psd1” -PathType Leaf) {
write-host “Attempting loa PS module from: $($ScriptPath)\ConfigurationManager.psd1”
Import-Module “$($ScriptPath)\ConfigurationManager.psd1” | Out-Null
}
Else {
$text = “Error, unable to load PowerShell module ConfigurationManager.psd1, file not found.”
Write-Error $text
Exit 1
}
}
if (!(Get-Module -Name ConfigurationManager)) {
$text = “Error loading PowerShell module ConfigurationManager.psd1.”
Write-Error $text
Exit 1
}

#Set the current location to be the site code.
Set-Location “$SiteCode`:”
write-host -ForegroundColor Green “————————————————————————”
write-host “”
}### End Connect-ConfigMgr ###

Function GetRandomCollectionMembers {
Param(
)
write-host -ForegroundColor Magenta “Getting collection members”
$CollMembers = Get-CMCollectionMember -CollectionName $SourcecollectionName

#Randomising and selecting first x members
write-host -ForegroundColor Magenta “Selecting $NumberofMembers members randomly”
$CollMembers = $CollMembers | Sort-Object {Get-Random}
$CollMembers = $CollMembers | Select -First $NumberofMembers

Foreach ($CollMember in $CollMembers) {
$CollectionName = $CollMember.Name
write-host -ForegroundColor Green “Adding $CollectionName to $DestinationCollectionName”
Get-CMCollection -Name $DestinationCollectionName | Add-CMDeviceCollectionDirectMembershipRule -ResourceId $CollMember.ResourceID
}

}

##############Start of Main Script ####################

#Begin {

## Get script path and name
$ScriptPath = [System.IO.Path]::GetDirectoryName($MyInvocation.MyCommand.Definition)
$ScriptName = [System.IO.Path]::GetFileNameWithoutExtension($MyInvocation.MyCommand.Definition)
$PowerShellVersion = [int]$PSVersionTable.PSVersion.Major

#Save current path, to return after CM operations
$path = Split-Path -parent $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Definition

#Set variables here
$CMSiteServer = ‘sccm01.adexis.com.au’
$Script:SiteCode = $null
$SourcecollectionName = “All Systems”
$DestinationCollectionName = “RandomSystems”
$NumberofMembers = “5”

Connect-ConfigMgr
GetRandomCollectionMembers

#} #End Begin

There seems to be a great deal of mis-information about this floating around the web…. despite articles like this that lay it out quite well.

When you create an SCCM antimalware policy, the settings do merge.

You do not have to create bucketloads of policies and apply/re-apply the same settings over and over and over again.

This insane practice makes anti-malware policies much harder to manage and track.

Testing

In order to prove this for yourself, do the following:

• add a process into the default anti-malware policy – give it an obvious name such as “DefaultPolicyExclusion.exe”
• Now create a new policy, add an exclusion called “NewPolicyexclusion.exe”
• Apply the new policy to a machine and update policy on that machine
• Check the exclusion list (settings | Updates and Security | windows security | Virus and threat protection | manage settings | Add or remove exclusions)
• You can now see that both exclusions are listed

You can also run the following from a command prompt to see which policies are applied

reg query HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CCM\EPAgent\LastAppliedPolicy /f 2 /d

Notice that the exclusions are applied from both “Default client antimalware policy” and whatever you called your new policy.

Why this matters

We have clients that (correctly) create new antimalware policies for different types of servers…. e.g. to exclude sqlservr.exe on SQL servers – which makes complete sense.

Unfortunately, they then proceed to define every other setting that is available….. which means that if we want to change real time settings (for example) – we need to go into every single policy to do so. A little painful but not to base with 10 policies, but just unnecessarily time consuming when there are hundreds.

What about conflicting settings ?

This is where priority comes into play.

Its very simple… in the even of a conflicting setting (e.g. Real time scanning enabled in one policy and disabled in another) then the one with the lowest priority will win. This is referred to as “Order” in some parts of the console and Priority in other parts of the console. (As of SCCM 1910)

Notice that the default policy has a priority of 10000, which is not changeable – and therefore will always be the lowest priority settings.

A better way

Just like your SCCM client policies, the best way to handle anti-malware policies is to set the defaults and then only make additional policies where you need to deviate from those defaults.

Set all the default settings for all machines across the fleet in the “Default Client antimalware Policy”, then create additional policies where required…. but only set the specific settings that deviate from the default settings – not every setting!

Another approach, for slightly larger organisations is to:

• Leave the default policy alone
• Create a Default workstation policy – which the desktop guys control
• Create a Default server policy – which the server guys control
• And so on (for different area’s of the business if there is a management demarcation)
• Deploy appropriately

The downside of this model is that the default policy will keep needing to moved to the lowest priority each time you create a new policy.

What should i be excluding ?

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/953.microsoft-anti-virus-exclusion-list.aspx

A practical example

In this example were going to focus on an organisation with x00 servers, 2 of which are:

• SCCM with SQL co-loctaed
• Payroll application server with SQL co-located

In this case we would

• Create an SQL server policy. This would contain exclusions from https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/309422/choosing-antivirus-software-for-computers-that-run-sql-server
• Create an SCCM server policy. https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/systemcenterpfe/2017/05/24/configuration-manager-current-branch-antivirus-update/
• Create a payroll server policy – specific to the software…. look for the major processes that it runs and add them as exclusions.

Apply the SQL server policy to anything running SQL

Apply the SCCM server policy to anything running SCCM

Apply the payroll server policy to the payroll server

This way, when we update the SQL server policy – it flows through to all SQL servers automatically. We dont have to update the SCCM policy and the payroll server policy.

A few years back – an (ex) employee posted on the Adexis blog about the fun of Surface laptops and deployment in SCCM

Microsoft Surface Laptops and SCCM OS Deployment

Personally, i’ve deployed a lot of Surface Pro 3’s and 4’s…. but not so much after that…. until now.

During the week i was called into a client to find out why their new Surface Pro devices were not PXE booting.

Once i attended site, had a look at the pxe log – and saw unsupported architecture… strange…. both the boot images are distributed and boot roms are correct…

Upon further investigation and google – i found that the devices were Surface Pro X’s which are ARM based and not supported for deployment via SCCM or MDT.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/surface-pro-arm-app-management

the TLDR of the article is that the Surface Pro X is not an enterprise device…. the client managed to get devices replaced with Surface Pro 7’s – and they actually got a refund, as the 7 was slightly less expensive than the X….

Onto the surface pro 7’s….

These can be detected in the task sequence via a MWI query of

SELECT * FROM Win32_ComputerSystem WHERE Model = “Surface Pro 7″

Or by using the custom model variable from global conditions….

I prefer having one application with multiple deployments, each with a global condition of model…. this keeps the driver database less cluttered and is, for want of a better term, “neat”.

Issue with this is that the Surface Pro 7 drivers install fine from the MSI, but kill the task sequence…. given the time restraints on this project, i didnt really have time to check… so i extracted the drivers from the MSI, imported them as drivers and allowed auto-apply to do its job.

TL;DR version of the whole article

• Surface Pro X – no you cant deploy it via SCCM and yes it is shitty/confusing naming from MS
• Surface Pro 7 – installing drivers via MSI will kill your task sequence – extract the drivers and install them as part of auto apply or apply drivers instead