After living with SMS 1.1, 2.0, and 2003 for 10 years I must say I'm finished. Never in my 10 years with this product have I ever seen anything as convoluted as this. Pxe boot - Does not work...Period (And I tried all options, both here and other forums) Console slow Console crashes (All hot fixes applied) Even a simple OSD capture escapes me. And I have set that up with SMS 2003 countless times for cust. and on PXE (RIS, and we all know how easy that was LanDesk worked as advertised right out of the box...

What specific issue are you hitting with PXE or Capture. Most the time the issue is not with the product it is with due to the admin thinking he needs to do more work than he really does. For PXE i can ussually get one up in about 30 minutes if i do the following: - Setup a Windows 2003SP2 Machine - Install Windows Deployment Services (WDS not RIS) - After the bits are installed you dont even need to configure WDS SMS will take care of it for you - Go into SMS Console (which agreed is slow) and add the PXE Role to the machine Afterward you need to import the machine (Check out Computer Association) as unknown machines are not supported in RTM only in R2 (coming soon to theatre near you). For Capture a common new OSD Admin issue is adding to much to the sysprep.inf files. If you use the defaults from download.microsoft.com you will be fine, again let SMS take care of it for you. The same thing for afterward when you apply just stick with defaults and let the OSD tools do all the work for you. If you are still having issues, reply back and lets see what can be done to get you going

Hello - I am very curious as to your experience with LanDesk as I am looking at either upgrading our SMS infrastructure to SCCM or going with LanDesk. Of course the main hurdle I am running into is that SCCM is in our Microsoft Enterprise Agreement so the software is 'free' as the group tells me. Any thoughts you have on this would be appreciated.

I do understand such opinions about SCCM 2007. It is certainly the most frustrating tools I've ever used. The very surprising thing is the difficulty to find an answer when we have an issue. Even Microsoft's consultants encounter problem to find solutions. For example, my questions about data user migrationdoesn't find any answer yet. I am waiting for explanations on this by Microsoft's consultant, but I am not optimistic... However, the question about computers managment is very complex. How SCCM couldn't be ? Lionel G

Jbowne1 wrote: Hello - I am very curious as to your experience with LanDesk as I am looking at either upgrading our SMS infrastructure to SCCM or going with LanDesk. On a side note... I would probalby go for a clean install rather than an upgrade. The disadvantage however is that you lose the history for your clients, depends how valuble that information is to your company.

I must be frank. My earlier frustration was due to lack of knowledge and and a core understanding of the new product. Also I was working with a very early release (Beta). After dozens of SMS to SCCM migrations (and LanDesk to SCCM) since then, and considering the amazing amount of functionality now inherent in SCCM, I would be VERY hard pressed to recommend LanDesk or any other management product over SCCM. Now with R2 in release, the picture comes complete. "This stuff ROCKS!" ~B

Hi yyyh412 In reaction to your remark about LanDesk to SCCM migrations, I'm very interested in the high level steps that worked best in your experience. My current line of thinking is: - Deploy new SCCM infrastructure - Import MSI Packages from LanDesk into SCCM - Deploy SCCM agent - Run inventory to discover installed apps - Remove LanDesk agent using SCCM Two things that I'd appreciate your opinion on: - Existing (LanDesk installed) apps that later need to be upgraded / patched with SCCM, will that work as if SCCM installed them or can you expect many issues? - Having the LanDesk and SCCM agents together installed (for a short period, at least needed to uninstall the LanDesk agent using SCCM) is that a scenario you come across or recommend? I'm somewhat worried about the Remote Desktop Takeover functionality of both products as in the past I've seen some serious (GINA related) issues where two RDT products were installed simultaneously. Thanks in advance for your reaction, best regards, Ruud.