Register now for the second quarterly KACE Education Virtual User Group Webinar on November 20, 2018

This quarter's presenter is Eric J. Rzeszut, Help Desk Manager at the McIntire School of Commerce | University of Virginia

Eric will be discussing ways to:

·        Clean up your SMA inventory using smart labels

·        Create detailed reports on your inventory using machine names, hardware types, installed software versions, and many other criteria

·        Use the SMA’s powerful scripting engine to streamline common tasks

·        Use custom inventory rules to track specialized software and organization-specific configuration

·        Manage software distributions to easily push out software to some or all of your clients

Register now

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I created a script to change BIOS settings to automatically turn on a PC on Saturday at 11pm so patching can be done on Sunday at Midnight without interrupting users.

This script also disabled the password prompt for PXE booting (F12) for use in pushing an image out to multiple PC's

1.  I downloaded the HPBiosConfigUtility.exe

2.  I ran HPQPswd64.exe to create a pwd.bin storing the current password

3.  I used a shared drive and created a folder and named it:   BIOS_Configuration_Utility

4.  I created a script and stored it in the same directory

Here is the script:  

rem Sets source directory for use throughout the script

rem Set a value on a HP physical system. Note the 64-bit version is used on an OS that is 64-bit

net use <path to the folder containing all necessary files> /user:<domain\user>

<path to the folder containing all necessary files>\BIOS_Configuration_Utility\biosconfigutility64.exe /CurSetupPasswordFile:"<path to the folder containing all necessary files>\BIOS_Configuration_Utility\pwd.bin" /setvalue:"Password prompt on F9 F11 & F12","Disable" /setvalue:"Saturday","Enabled" /setvalue:"BIOS Power-On Time (hh:mm)","23:00" /log /verbose 

You can update scripted or deployments with Microsoft updates via a power shell module.

You can install this ahead in your golden image and just run the last 2 lines of the PS script

Go to https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/2d191bcd-3308-4edd-9de2-88dff796b0bc

download the Windows Update PowerShell Module

To install as post tasks:

Create an AutoIT script to xcopy the files to the PS modules directory:

RunWait(@ComSpec & " /c " & "xcopy.exe .\source\*.* C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules /s /q /y","",@SW_MINIMIZE)

Zip that along with the files to install

I created a task group for the 2 items

First task copies the files

The second task installs and starts the windows updates. (check reboot required for this task)

The powershell script uppdate1.ps1: (line 1 installs; line2 adds Microsoft-updates as well; line 3 executes the job)

Import-Module PSWindowsUpdate
Add-WUServiceManager -ServiceID 7971f918-a847-4430-9279-4a52d1efe18d -Confirm:$false
Get-WUInstall -MicrosoftUpdate -IgnoreUserInput -AcceptAll -IgnoreReboot -Verbose

Here are the tasks within my custom deployment ( note I run the update after I install Office to get those updates also.)