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All Posts for 2013

Uploading a custom VHD to Azure with PowerShell and adding it to your VMs

Sure, it’s fun to go into Azure and see all of the cool supported operating system images you can have running in mere minutes.  But it is even cooler to take your own internal server or data image and upload that to Azure to use in your VMs.  It is even cooler to do it all with PowerShell!  If the demo gets a bit technical, be sure to skip to the end for my concluding notes.

Azure Powershell - Current Storage Account error when making a new VM

I was trying to make a new Linux VM using the Azure PowerShell commandlet New-AzureQuickVM, which basically makes a VM very quickly for you using one of the images available in the catalog.  However, I kept running into this message:

New-AzureQuickVM : CurrentStorageAccountName is not accessible. Ensure the current storage account is accessible and in the same location or affinity group as your cloud service.

SCCM SQL Query for SSD Drives

Recently at a client, a need arose to provide a report listing whether a workstation had an SSD or a spinning disk.

Unfortunately, Windows does not concern itself with noting whether or not a disk is spinning or solid state, and thus the information is not in the registry or WMI for us to collect with SCCM.

However, most manufacturers stick to a naming convention, and with a little bit of elbow grease, you can expand this to work in your environment too.  In this format, you’ll get ‘Known SSD Drive’ if the drive model or naming is captured in the CASE filter of query, or the drive model if not.

Jump here for the code : Detect SSD Drive

SCCM OSD: The case of the nightmare desktop

Recently, a client has been mentioning some issues they’ve had when doing image testing on a new desktop model.  I came in to help sort out the issue, and it was quite an experience!  We received all sorts of errors, many were quite puzzling.  In the end, this desktop (the HP ProDesk 6oo G1 SFF / Small Form Factor) and the issues around it tested every element of my SCCM OSD Troubleshooting knowledge.

Now that the matter has been solved, I’ll detail out the symptom and cause of each error:

New record for slowest speed of all time

I was wrong earlier.

Yep, this is now the slowest ever transfer. I was uploading the contents of a Server2012\Install\Sources\SXS folder to another server in Switzerland. Such Speed!

Just to be clear, this was the fourth attempt to complete this transfer, at a scorching speed of 3 KBPS!!