About this Book

Chapter 1 covers most of what you’ll need to know about this book, but there are a few extra points worth covering ahead of time.

While there are a couple of chapters that are theoretical in nature, the majority of content in the book is designed to be hands-on. To this end, chapter 2 covers setting up a fully functional, self-contained lab environment. I strongly recommend that you take the time to get your lab up and running, as the content makes much more sense if you’re implementing it in a live environment. If you don’t have a system with enough resources to run the lab environment, ask your boss nicely!

The content is designed to be consumed in order, as the labs in each chapter are built on those in the previous chapters. You might be really interested in application deployment, but resist the temptation to jump straight to that chapter (or any other chapter), as the labs are likely not to work if you haven’t completed the foundation tasks.

The content has been written for the latest version of Configuration Manager (Build 1511 at the time of writing) and for Windows 10 as the managed client (also Build 1511), but the information and labs will work on previous versions of Configuration Manager 2012, as well as on Windows 7, 8, and 8.1, with little or no modification.

Many of the resources referenced throughout the book, such as the MDT-based lab environment, as well as PowerShell scripts, are available for download on GitHub at https://github.com/jamesbannan/configmgr-month-of-lunches. You can select to download the entire repository as a ZIP file, or clone the repository. (I use Atlassian SourceTree, which is a free utility for Windows and Mac.) All the code has been tested and retested, but if you find something that doesn’t work (or something you think could be done better), then please make any changes you see fit and submit a pull request, or let me know via my blog at http://www.jamesbannanit.com.

Author Online

The purchase of Learn System Center Configuration Manager in a Month of Lunches includes access to a private forum run by Manning Publications where you can make comments about the book, ask technical questions, and receive help from the author and other users. To access and subscribe to the forum, point your browser to www.manning.com/books/learn-system-center-configuration-manager-in-a-month-of-lunches and click the Author Online link. This page provides information on how to get on the forum once you’re registered, what kind of help is available, and the rules of conduct in the forum.

Manning’s commitment to our readers is to provide a venue where a meaningful dialogue between individual readers and between readers and the author can take place. It’s not a commitment to any specific amount of participation on the part of the author, whose contribution to the book’s forum remains voluntary (and unpaid). We suggest you try asking him some challenging questions, lest his interest stray!

The Author Online forum and the archives of previous discussions will be accessible from the publisher’s website as long as the book is in print.