SCCM 2012 - Install - Application Catalogue - The WCF is Not Activated

Problem:

After adding the Application Catalogue Web Service Point and the Application Catalogue Website Point to the sccm server, the Applicaiton Catalog web service point appears in a Critical state under site status. Viewing the Status Messages for the component will return the following

Site Component Manager failed to install component SMS_AWEBSVC_CONTROL_MANAGER The WCF is not activated

Cause:

A required prerequisite feature/role of Windows Server 2012 R2 has not been installed.

Resolution:

In spite of the fact that you followed all the right guidance and the pre-requisite checker passed when you originally installed sccm, there's a chance you won't have installed the following feature:

.NET Framework 3.5

-->HTTP Activation (and all sub-options which are suggested)

It's also worth double checking the following features and roles have been selected:

.NET Framework 4.5

-->ASP.NET 4.5

Web Server (IIS):

-->Common HTTP Features:

       -->Default Document

-->IIS 6 Management Compatibility:

       -->IIS 6 Metabase Compatibility

-->Application Development:

       -->ASP.NET 3.5 (and automatically selected options)

       -->.NET Extensibility 3.5

After enabling whichever feature/role you missed out, you'll need to uninstall the Application Catalogue Web Service Point and the Application Catalogue Website Point system roles and then reinstall them. You can keep an eye on the respective installtion progresses (which should throw up no error messages) by looking at: 

Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager/Logs/SMSAWEBSVCSetup.log
Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager/Logs/SMSPORTALWEBSetup.log

SCCM 2012 R2 - Install - reinstall of SCCM database fails - Configuration Manager requires a dedicated SQL Server instance

Problem: 

You run the Prerequisite check for the SCCM 2012 R2 installer and are met with the following Failure message;

Dedicated SQL Server instance: Configuration Manager requires a dedicated SQL Server instance to host the site database. You selected the SQL Server instance that site hosts the Configuration Manager database for another site. Select a different SQL Server instance for this new site to use, or resolve the conflict by uninstalling The Other excellant site or moving to a different database SQL Server instance.

Chances are you previously had the database for another sccm installed on this server but then uninstalled it. Although the uninstall process went as expected, apparently all is not well since the SCCM Pre-requisite checker still thinks something is occupying the sql instance.

Cause:

Some of the old registry settings were not removed when the previous sccm site was uninstalled. The new install wizard is detecting these reg keys and interpreting them as a current install of sccm on the target instance.

Fix:

Remove the problem registry keys. If you navigate to the below mentioned locations, you should find the following three registry keys are still present even though the uninstall of your old site may have completed without issue. Delete these and only these keys, 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SMS\Components\SMS_SITE_SQL_BACKUP_<SITESERVERNAME>]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SMS\Operations Management\Components\SMS_SITE_SQL_BACKUP_<SITESERVERNAME>]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SMS\Tracing\SMS_SITE_SQL_BACKUP_<SITESERVERNAME>]

After these keys have been removed, re-run the Prerequisite check and you should be good to go

SCCM 2012 R2 - Install of Management Point Fails - error 1603 - mp.msi could not be installed

Problem:

...having completed the installation of SCCM 2012 R2 you notice that the Management Point has failed to install. You open up the SCCM Console and go to Monitoring > System Status > Site Status you see a red alert symbol next to the Management Point. 

To further confirm the failed install check you open up (%installdirectory%/Microsoft Configuration Manager/Logs/MPSetup.Log) and encounter a number of error messages including, 

"Fatal MSI Error - mp.msi could not be installed"

You may also encounter "mp.msi exited with return code 1603" in the MP.msi.log

You may also open up IIS. You may then notice that it's missing the vast majority of the usual sccm entries under Default Web Site:

Cause:

When the server was built the old SCCM 2007 installed a client onto the server. Even if you already uninstalled the client, there's a good chance that some of the components of the client are still hanging around in the wmi repository. This will interfere with the MP installation to the extent that it will fail.

Solution:

Option A 
Remove the MP from SCCM 2012. Uninstall the 2007 SCCM client by opening an elevated command prompt, navigating to the C:\windows\ccmsetup folder and then entering ccmsetup.exe /uninstall. Reinstall the MP on SCCM 2012.

Option B 
Time to fully clear down the wmi repository of any traces of the old sccm client. Remove the MP from SCCM 2012. Open up Powershell in an elevated command prompt and enter the following command:

Get-WMIObject -namespace "root" -query "SELECT * FROM __Namespace where name = 'ccm'" | remove-wmiobject

Once this has finished running, reinstall the MP on SCCM 2012. Keep an eye on the install process by opening the MPmsi.log and MPsetup.log. It should run with only a few IGNORE errors. When it has finished, open up IIS and confirm that all the rest of the SCCM entries have appeared:

Option C
The nuclear option. Rebuild the sccm server and make damn sure the SCCM client from the old 2007 environement doesn't get installed. This may mean disabling client push in 2007, disabling the install of client install in the build task sequence, building the client in a block GPO OU - whatever you need to do just make sure it never has the 2007 client installed! 

SCCM 2012 R2 Install - IIS BITS Warning in Prerequisite Check

When installing SCCM 2012 R2 you may find that, in spite of the fact you have installed all of the required Roles and Features: 

Server roles:

Web Server (IIS)

Web Server (IIS) Role Services Required:

Common HTTP Features

Static Content
Default Document
Directory Browsing
HTTP Errors
HTTP Redirection

Application Development
ASP.NET 3.5

ASP.NET 4.5

.NET Extensibility 3.5

.NET Extensibility 4.5
ASP
ISAPI Extensions
ISAPI Filters

Health and Diagnostics
HTTP logging
Logging tools
Request Monitor
Tracing

Security

Basic Authentication
Windows Authentication
URL Authorization
Request Filtering
IP and Domain Restrictions

Performance
Static Content Compression
Dynamic Content Compression

Management Service
IIS 6 Management Compatibilty
Management Service
IIS Management Scripts and Tools
IIS Management Console

Features:

BITS
Remote Differential Compression

.Net Framework 3.5 (this can be tricky - (http://robotarchive.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/install-dot-net-35-on-windows-server.html) 

So all the roles and features are installed but you still see that BITS and IIS are listed as warning under the prerequisite checker, as shown below:

In order to sort this issue, have a look into the following:

• Check that IIS Admin Service is running
• Check Background Intelligent Transfer Service is running
• Check World Wide Web Publishing Service is running
• Double Check you've installed all the required pre-requisite roles and features

SCCM 2012 - Download Prerequisite Files for Offline Install

While installing SCCM 2012 R2 you will encounter this screen:

             If you are fortunate enough to be able to connect to the internet simply specify a download location and click next. If you are installing SCCM on a server which has no internet access, you will need to acquire the Prerequisite files on another machine and then import them into the installer.

            In order to acquire these files, you need to log on to a 64bit machine which has internet access. From the extracted SCCM installer folder, copy the  %\SMSSETUP\BIN\X64\ directory on to the 64 bit machine. Once the copy has completed, open up setupdl.exe:

Once it has opened, enter the location you wish to download the pre requisites to:

Click 'Download' and the prerequisites will stat to download to the aforementioned directory.

Once the download has completed, you can point the SCCM installer to that location and it should merrily pull in all the required updates.

SCCM - Package Adobe Flash Player in SCCM with ORCA

Below is a basic step through of how to package up an Adobe Flash Player msi install file along with a transform file to ensure that, once installed, flash player will not automatically check for updates.

Part 1

Download Microsoft SDK and install ORCA


[currently the SDK ISOs can be found here http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8442 but MS do tend to move files around their site so your best bet is probably to google it]

Part 2

• Download the latest redistribu
  
  table verison of Flash Player (ActiveX/NPAPI/PPAPI) from the Adobe website and save it locally
• Open ORCA
• Browse to the location where the flash player msi file saved to and open it
• Click Transform > New Transform.
• Select the “CustomAction” table
• Select “NewCustomAction1″ and then change the Target column entry so that -au 2 is appended to the -install -msi, so the text in the NewCustomAction column will read -install -msi -au 2

• Click Transform > Generate Transform and save the mst file to the folder where the flash msi file is stored.

Part 3

• Move the folder containing the flash msi file and mst file to the share you use for sccm
• Create a new package in SCCM
• For the Program enter the following:

msiexec /i “install_flash_player_13_active_x.msi” /qn /t flashtransform.mst

•  Ensure the package is distributed to all relevant distribution points
• Advertise the package to a collection

Side Notes:
> The AU switch can also be set to 0 (silent automatic update enabled for all users)


> It's worth noting that in some cases the command line to install the msi with the transform will be:        msiexec /i “install_flash_player_11_active_x.msi” /qn /t flashtransform.mst


> The flash player update behaviour can also be controlled with an mms.cfg file which can be distributed through sccm. This file is located in C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash and contains the following two settings:

In the above example Auto Update has been disabled and the SilenAutoUpdateEnable has not been enabled.