Currently Software Center will use WMI to query all available software for the computer, then it will ask the management point for user assigned apps.

If your computer is a bit slow/old the wait time checking WMI can be painful. You can check this on the client log SCNotify_MONASH@%username%_1.log

Please vote for my Uservoice - https://configurationmanager.uservoice.com/forums/300492-ideas/suggestions/39082435-speed-up-software-centre-searches-by-returning-use

If your SQL is slow you have another problem.. You can check this on the MP UserService.log - Search for GetFilteredApplications.

SQL Fixes:
Set the right compatibility level - https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/3196320/sql-query-times-out-or-console-slow-on-certain-configuration-manager-d

Reindex right - https://www.scconfigmgr.com/2017/01/03/configuration-manager-sql-database-maintenance/

If you get this error try adding this command line to your task sequence

cmd.exe /c Wpeutil disablefirewall

let me know if this workaround helps.

When I see 'Failed to run Task Sequence - This task sequence cannot be run because the program files for XXXXXXX cannot be locataed on a distribution point'

I go to Monitoring \ Distribution Status \ Content Status. It's the quickest way to search all package objects. Today the search came up with no results.

I exported the task sequence to make sense of it, found the ID in a section about OSDSubTaskSequenceTsReferencePackages -

<variable name="OSDSubTasksequenceTsReferenceApplications" property="TsReferenceApplications"></variable>

<variable name="OSDSubTasksequenceTsReferencePackages" property="TsReferencePackages">ZZZ00019,ZZZ0001F,ZZZ00020,ZZZ00024</variable></defaultVarList></subtasksequence>

What happened was someone removed a driver package and deleted it. The main task sequence still referenced it. To fix I modified the main task sequence, so it kicked off new policies.

In an environment where you use certificates this can happen.

CLientIDManagerStartup.log will mention

Regtask: Failed to refresh MP. Error: 0x80004005

alot of times...

Below I have the 2 fixes!

Fix 1 is to take advantage of the TS Variable SMSTSPostAction to restart the computer once completed
with the value 'shutdown /r /t 0 /f'

This should ensure the cert is requested.

Fix 2:

From testing - after Fix 1 you may need to re-start the SCCM agent.
To do this create a scheduled task that runs on start-up

Program: Powershell

Arguments: -Command "& {start-sleep 120; restart-service ccmexec; Unregister-ScheduledTask -TaskName 'Restart SCCM Initial boot' -Confirm:$false;}"

Run whether or not user is logged on.

Export the scheduled task as 'RestartSCCM.xml' and create a package and command line to run at the end of OSD

SCHTASKS.exe /CREATE /RU system /XML "RestartSCCM.xml" /TN "Restart SCCM Initial boot"

Happy deploying!

SCCM will mark a computer inactive if none of the activity checks happen

• Client policy request
• Heartbeat discovery
• Hardware Inventory
• Software Inventory
• Status messages sent

See technet

The default settings are 7 days for each of these settings which can be fine for a lot of businesses. If there are many devices that don't often connect to the network if may look as if there is more client health issues than there really is. To get an idea of how many devices have been on the network within x amount of days you can run the following query in the SQL Management Studio:

This uses LastOnline (Connected to AD) to get a list of the last 7 days. Then all you need to do is modify the 7 in the query to higher values to get a number that represents a higher percentage of your fleet contacting the AD. It could be 14 days, 30 days.

This will change depending on VPN usage, Direct Access. Once you enable the Cloud Management Gateway this setting will need to be tweaked again not using this data as clients will request policy from the internet.

To configure these settings:

1. In the Monitoring workspace, click Client Status, then, in the Home tab, in the Client Status group, click Client Status Settings.

    

Install Splunk - It's free! https://www.splunk.com/en_us/download/splunk-enterprise.html

Modify Program Files\Splunk\etc\system\local\inputs.conf

Add the lines

[WinEventLog]
evt_resolve_ad_obj = 1

Then we need to reboot splunk, in Splunk click Settings, then Server controls and click Restart Splunk

Next we need to add our data source, click Add Data from the launch screen, then monitor

Choose Local Events then ForwardedEvents and click Next

Click Create a new index, call it ForwardedEvents, click Save, change the Index to ForwardedEvents and then click Review, Submit

Give it some time to collect a few logins, then go to Search & Reporting

index="forwardedevents" LogName="Microsoft-Windows-User Profile Service/Operational" (EventCode=1 OR EventCode=2 OR EventCode=6 OR EventCode=7)  | transaction ComputerName startswith=eval(EventCode=1) endswith=eval(EventCode=2) | table ComputerName, duration

So I'm using the selected data, filtering for 4 event codes, then getting the time between event code 1 and 2, and putting it into a table..

Edit: This search can be a bit funny, the delay ended up being between synching the roaming profile so I've also ran

index="forwardedevents" LogName="Microsoft-Windows-User Profile Service/Operational" (EventCode=1 OR EventCode=2 OR EventCode=6 OR EventCode=7)  | transaction ComputerName startswith=eval(EventCode=6) endswith=eval(EventCode=7) | table ComputerName, duration

Then click on the Visualization tab

This also lets you dive into each login by clicking one and get the event logs!

You can save this as a report, dashboard and share with people.

There is so much more you can do with this software, and it takes some time to learn it. Will post more as I do..

Windows has an amazing feature that let's you collect logs from remote computers, it's called Windows Event forwarding and is pretty easy to set up. Once we have this data we can use free tools such as Splunk or GrayLog to analyse the data, find patterns, fix.

Below is the way to get started collecting the user profile logs to analyse things such as login performance with roaming profiles, something we are dealing with right now! Please note you need to enable winrm on your computers for forwarding to work.

First you need a machine that will be the data collectior.

1. On that machine open Event Viewer and right click Subscriptions. You may get the following message to enable the service on startup

2. Now you should only collect data that you will use, in this example we are collecting the Microsoft-Windows-User Profile Service/Operational events so we will call it Microsoft-Windows-User Profile Service - Operational

3. Change the type to Source computer initiated and click Select Computer Groups

4. Add the group of machines to the Computer list and click OK

5. Click Select Events

6. We now select the Applications and Services Logs\Microsoft\Windows\User Profile Service

7. You can configure advanced settings to control how the computers forward the events.

8. Click OK

9. To get clean data we need to change the format of returned events by running the command:
wecutil ss "Microsoft-Windows-User Profile Service - Operational" /cf:Events

10. Next you deploy a group policy that tells your computers to go to the data collector for jobs

Create a group policy using Computer Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Event Forwarding

11. Select Configure target Subscription Manager

12. Set to Enabled

13. Click Show

14. Insert the line
Server=http://SERVER.FQDN:5985/wsman/SubscriptionManager/WEC,Refresh=60

15. Replace SERVER.FQDN with your data collector's name.

16. To test run GPUPDATE /FORCE on the remote machine

17. If successful, on the data machine you will see the number of source computers change and logs in the forwarded events

Visit https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/jepayne/2015/11/23/monitoring-what-matters-windows-event-forwarding-for-everyone-even-if-you-already-have-a-siem/ for more information.

PART 2 

If this happens during OSD, it is likely due to 2 settings in the BIOS.

I recommend

WIN7 -

Boot mode: Legacy
Sata mode: AHCI

Win10-

Boot mode: UEFI
Sata mode: AHCI

From the log:
The task sequence execution engine failed executing the action (Use Toolkit Package) in the group (Initialization) with the error code 2147942561
Action output: ... ursiveCreatePath(sPath.substr(0, nPos), psa), HRESULT=800700a1 (e:\nts_sccm_release\sms\framework\core\ccmcore\path.cpp,104)
RecursiveCreatePath(sPath.substr(0, nPos), psa), HRESULT=800700a1 (e:\nts_sccm_release\sms\framework\core\ccmcore\path.cpp,104)
RecursiveCreatePath( sNormalizedPath, psa ), HRESULT=800700a1 (e:\nts_sccm_release\sms\framework\core\ccmcore\path.cpp,159)
DownloadContentLocally (pszSource, sSourceDirectory, dwFlags, hUserToken, mapNetworkAccess), HRESULT=800700a1 (e:\nts_sccm_release\sms\framework\tscore\resolvesource.cpp,3582)
TS::Utility::ResolveSource (pszPkgID, sPath, 0, hUserToken, mapNetworkAccess), HRESULT=800700a1 (e:\nts_sccm_release\sms\client\osdeployment\installsoftware\runcommandline.cpp,399)
cmd.Execute(pszPkgID,sProgramName, dwCmdLineExitCode), HRESULT=800700a1 (e:\nts_sccm_release\sms\client\osdeployment\installsoftware\main.cpp,372)
Failed to resolve the source for SMS PKGID=PS10098B, hr=0x800700a1
Install Software failed to run command line, hr=0x800700a1. The operating system reported error 2147942561: The specified path is invalid.

Update: Adding more scratch space to the boot wim seems to have resolved the problem on Windows 10, Windows 7 seems to still have issues.

Update: This update is also in Windows 10 CU 3163018, causing the same error. No workaround yet 

If your build and capture is failing at the capture step make sure you don't have the cumulative Security Update for IE11 KB3160005. It's somehow stopping the registry load part of the step.