New release of SCCM CB 1702
Spring is here and new release of SCCM CB 1702 as well. It brings some interesting features which could make our IT life easier. I won’t be writing here about all new things because Microsoft has already did it in quite good way in this article What’s new in 1702. I want to just pin out few news which are the most interesting for me.
- Package ID displayed in Task Sequence – this is pretty nice, no more searching application/package name and then listing their IDs based on the logs. Now you see the package ID directly in Task Sequence.
- Convert BIOS to UEFI during in-place upgrade – whereas the Windows 10 systems don’t work with standard Legacy BIOS settings very well (slower boot, you can’t use Bitlocker…) it’s much better and recommended to use UEFI with Windows 10. This new possibility is quite tricky but possible to configure now during in-place upgrade. If you want to try it follow instructions here.
- Content library cleanup tool – we know similar tools from past which were very useful for cleaning up the old content on Distribution Points. Now we have this new tool which seems to be really cool. Check out here.
- Office 365 installer – this is the one of the things which makes me really happy. Question is if IT companies will accept this possibility instead of their standard packaging processes. From my point of view it’s much easier to use Configuration Manager to deploy O365 than ever before. You will configure how O365 will be delivered meaning choose of it’s channel, version, language, products, exclusions and creation of application in CM in one wizard. You can deploy it to some test collection and then manage it as you wish based on your plan.
New CB 1702 also supports new incoming Windows 10 Creators Update which should be released worldwide around 11th of April. On the other hand it drops support for following products:
- SQL Server 2008 R2
- Windows Server 2008 R2
- Windows Server 2008
- Windows XP Embedded