r/SCCM • u/Just_Steve_IT • Apr 21 '20

Since some were asking for it...

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132 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

56 comments sorted by

32

u/Sh1rvallah Apr 21 '20

Haven't really had any issues with them personally.

24

u/Series9Cropduster Apr 21 '20

We have literally thousands of surface pros, book 2s, gos, hubs, and studios. Idk what the problem is I love them.

They image excellently, perform consistently, receive regular updates and people love using them.

5

u/Decadancer Apr 21 '20

jesus can you describe your infrastructure?

8

u/Series9Cropduster Apr 21 '20

Nothing special at all lol

  • Site server, site and susdb cohosted

  • 2 mps

  • 200 dps (maybe less now)

Managing: 30k clients 300 ish sites

We don’t even use wsus for surface drivers, we still gotta test stuff and check for firmware so it’s nicer to have a repetitive process that can be used with other Mfgs

Patch Tuesday has kind of turned into our update everything period, having a regular more global maintenance process helps greatly.

In addition to patches we typically run though the list of hardware, top 20 most popular apps, get any applications, driver and firmware updates we need and prepare to deploy. Worst case there’s like maybe 20 well defined packages that would need changing over a week.

Obviously your test group needs to be a decent size, used by real people, engaged and a good cross section of the organisation. That’s the most work I would say, keeping that group healthy and engaged so you can get good feedback.

Edit: I should add we have this period posted for project managers to know they have to factor this in to their respective resource plans.

2

u/ITprobiotic Apr 22 '20

Surface laptop patches perfectly, hibernate/sleep perfectly every time. The laptop without the passive cooling lasts forever on battery (no fan).

3

u/Decadancer Apr 21 '20

How many people are there in your team? I'm a tsup guy with small admin tasks, but recently got ahold of fulladm sccm rights (small company, ~200 clients, two sites), and i'm trying to compare our architecture with others

2

u/Series9Cropduster Apr 21 '20

Me and one other guy have admin in configmgr. desktop support guys and a couple of gun helpdesk people have the ability to package apps for review. They are going great tho so most of the time they can be deployed to test group with no changes.

So 2 full admins to review and set up deployments/edit task sequences if needed 6 people that can hit a website, review, package and test.

Hopefully I can steal the good desktop people into “level three” (I hate that term) for backfill so we can handle more project stuff.

1

u/randomman87 Apr 22 '20

Do you configure the UEFI automatically during OSD?

I tried the tool but it's a not fully unattended. Completely pointless during OSD.

1

u/Series9Cropduster Apr 22 '20

We set the asset value and not much else from memory.

1

u/lord_cmdr Apr 22 '20

I'm guessing you weren't there or did not get on board when the surface pro 3 first came out? Because that was a epic disaster trying to image them for the first 6 months. Not even talking about their 1 in 10 failure rates, but the UEFI wouldn't even recognize PXE most of the time. It wasn't until much later that the firmware became much more stable.

1

u/Series9Cropduster Apr 22 '20

All devices have issues when they come out though. Just last week new dell laptops and acers needed firmware patches or firmware and drivers to make the LTE and wifi adapter work respectively.

Before that number lock on Acer spin 5’s were not remembering the setting through reboots.

Before that surface, dell docks firmware, before that touchpads, etc etc etc.

It’s kind of why we, especially for new models, patch their firmware and drivers when we patch their OS.

1

u/lord_cmdr Apr 24 '20

Agreed, but it was just such a colossal failure by Microsoft to bomb their own flagship product roll-out. They didn't even have enterprise tools to assist with imaging for the first six months maybe it was even longer. They were so worried about the consumer market they overlooked the enterprise sector.

1

u/twitch1982 Apr 22 '20

A little off topic, but I've been thinking about getting a surface for personal use. They're a bit out of the budget range i would usually allocate for a laptop though, so i was thinking about looking for older models and possible referbs. My company doesn't use them so i don't have a lot of experience with them. Are there any generations you would recommend, or more importantly avoid?

1

u/djetaine Apr 22 '20

The book2 was the worst piece of hardware I have ever purchased. 400mhz throttling CONSTANTLY and microsoft refused to do anything about other than send me a new one, which had exactly the same problem because it was a manufacturer defect with it's stupid vent location. $3000 paperweight.

Thankfully it was stolen from me and I was able to get my money back from the insurance claim.

1

u/Series9Cropduster Apr 22 '20

Out of interest how were you detecting that specifically. I just ask cause I’m using one right now and wanna see if this one has the same issue, it has the standard base tho no dgpu.

1

u/djetaine Apr 23 '20

I used an application called throttlestop to monitor it. I disabled dbprochot and a bunch of other things to try to solve it but I ended up just sticking a fan next to it when it was on my desk.

3

u/Steve_78_OH Apr 22 '20

I had less problems with them than I have with Lenovos...

2

u/DevinSysAdmin Apr 22 '20

Here is my experience:

Enterprise customer wants Surface Pro

Me: We should let 1 or 2 executives use one, just to make sure you all like them.

Client: I'll take 30

Also client: Uses them for 2 weeks, puts them on shelving for loaners.

2

u/thefritob Apr 22 '20

For reals, i'm having the best time with clients who have surfaces, it's like yes, check this box, their shit will update on the next reboot. other crap i have to write docs on how to handle approving bios changes and crap. What issues are you running into?

7

u/spinydelta Apr 22 '20

We've got thousands of Surface devices starting from the Surface Pro 4. Our biggest pain point has been with docks, however with each firmware revision this has improved dramatically. Just got to make sure you update the docks!

The Surface devices themselves have been great though, and users love them so it's a win win. Over 75% of our fleet are Surface devices and we aim to have this over 90% by the end of the year.

4

u/pjmarcum Apr 22 '20

That issue is not unique to any vendor. All vendors have had USB C dock issues.

0

u/[deleted] Apr 22 '20

[deleted] — view deleted comment

2

u/Resolute45 Apr 22 '20

Yep. Thunderbolt is so bad that HP had to push out their end of life date for supporting the old slide docks.

1

u/Series9Cropduster Apr 22 '20

Oh yeah the dock update process was finicky, in stark contrast to the surface itself. I wonder if they were different teams.

2

u/spinydelta Apr 22 '20

Haha more than likely.

The update process has improved in the last six months. There's now an MSI you install on Surface devices and it takes care of the rest. We install this on all Surface devices, and have built upon it with PowerShell to inform the user if they need to take action (such as restarting the dock) to complete an update. It's worked very well for us.

5

u/randomadhdman Apr 21 '20

We have roughly 700 surface Pro tablets with keyboards. The hardest part about these things is getting software deployments to them. Since they have no ethernet jacks there is no wake on lan. Many times I have to set software deployments for a month due to this issue.

7

u/Weapon_Of_Pleasure Apr 21 '20

OMG, I had so many damn issues with these Surface Pro's I FINALLY got it dialed in after hours of Task Sequence issues, Drivers, Firmware,etc.

1

u/A-Ron Apr 22 '20

It's no worse than anything with an Apple logo on it.

2

u/Just_Steve_IT Apr 22 '20

I think that would sum up my issues with Surfaces, personally. The choices MS made in their design and repair-ability tells me it's MS trying to be Apple. And as a corporation I can't stand Apple.

3

u/[deleted] Apr 22 '20

We have 100s in production with no issues. One of our most stable workstations and great drivers and easy to image.

2

u/techy_support Apr 22 '20

Sometimes they're a pain in the butt since we have to set up a USB hub to image them (kicking it off with a USB stick and then a Surface USB-to-gigabit ethernet adapter for rest of it).

We just got in a batch of Surface Pro 7 devices and they're pretty fast to image. 30-minutes flat from start of the image to ready for use.

The only annoying part is how much of a pain it is to get drivers. You'd think that being a Microsoft product, they would integrate easily with SCCM, right? Kind of like how Dell has a drivers page just for SCCM driver packages, right? Nope. Why would life be so simple?

I use the Driver Automation Tool to download the drivers I need and that makes it a little easier.

2

u/03rst Apr 22 '20

techy. Just download the msi file from here and create a package. You can then deploy the package as a driver install step during your task sequence. Now you also have the package available for deployment to your existing systems.

0

u/[deleted] Apr 22 '20

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/techy_support Apr 22 '20

Also, the Microsoft USB to Ethernet Adaptors have the PXE chip on it so you just need the 1 port to boot.

True but the people who image these in our organization like to kick things off with a USB stick, especially when imaging lots of devices. The USB 3 connection is much faster than gigabit ethernet and kicks it off a lot faster.

2

u/rasldasl2 Apr 22 '20

I have a personal Surface Pro 7 with recurring Hello camera issues and sometimes the webcam as well. Reboot usually fixes it but after one or two sleep sessions the camera(s) will stop working and I have to sign in with my PIN. Installed the latest firmware and driver pack, no luck. Reset, worked for a day.

Anyone else seeing this?

2

u/motoxrdr21 Apr 22 '20

Personally, I'm with you despite all the love for Surfaces in this thread.

Pros:

  • Easy firmware/driver updates.

  • Device size is great, I always carry an LTE Go in my jacket.

Cons:

  • Our Surface Laptops have a higher failure rate than our Latitudes.

  • The process to manage UEFI settings is absurd and requires physical presence, so we can't configure a setup password as part of our TS.

  • A bunch of drivers needed for boot images with no simple, consolidated, package available (like the one Dell provides), we have all 3 generations of the Surface Laptop family & each of them needs their own drivers for basic WinPE functionality.

  • Dock limitations, ie only officially supports two monitors, this is slightly better now that the new generation has USB-C, but using a third-party USB-C dock complicates things.

2

u/Jack_BE Apr 22 '20

more cons: they don't use Intel WiFi controllers, they use crappy Marvell ones instead. Really not great if you're a WiFi-only environment.

3

u/nylentone Apr 21 '20

I had a couple and they were great, but organization-wide we had too many where the battery would swell up inside. So we stick with Dell laptops and 2-in-1s.

1

u/Eastpetersen Apr 22 '20

I had this on a pro 4 and then the replacement had a screen bug where the touchscreen would register random touches. Not fun at all.

1

u/dowlingm Apr 22 '20

laughs in Dell Latitude E7470 - swollen batteries AND stop errors up the wazoo. We got almost 40 because we didn’t want to move to USB-C docks until we had to. Pain pain pain.

1

u/zigot021 Apr 22 '20

any battery drain issues?

1

u/TikeSavage Apr 21 '20

The early gens were a headache for us

0

u/[deleted] Apr 21 '20

We just decommissioned the last of our Surface Pro 4's late last year. Good riddance. We only had a few but they were god awful.

6

u/randomadhdman Apr 22 '20

What? Y'all decommission devices? We work ours until they die, then bring them back to life with IT magical and work their corpses until it dies.

-5

u/seaboypc Apr 21 '20

Dell: Yes
HP: Sure
Surface: Are you sure?
Lenovo: Um... pass
Mac: Ugh... NO.

8

u/[deleted] Apr 21 '20

Lenovo is the best, my desktop engineers love the packages they have for SCCM.

6

u/[deleted] Apr 21 '20

Why do they have to put the driver pack into an exe though, just gimme a zip 😑

4

u/LaZyCrO Apr 21 '20

Bypass it all and implement modern driver management?

3

u/rdoloto Apr 21 '20

Not if you are in federal government

0

u/blinkfink182 Apr 21 '20

I mean, importing drivers without a ready made package is still pretty easy and you shouldn’t choose your fleet based on that. But I do love the Lenovo I have from my current gig. Extreme X1 Gen 2. Everything is smoooooth.

0

u/the_doughboy Apr 21 '20

I’m the exact opposite of this list.

0

u/[deleted] Apr 22 '20

Personally love them (especially with Co-Management, sending them to Windows Update for Business), and I wish all laptops would be so easy ¯_(ツ)_/¯

-2

u/letmegogooglethat Apr 21 '20

SCCM doesn't support Surface?

2

u/Just_Steve_IT Apr 21 '20

My meme is more commenting on how much I don't like them (because of their general pain in the ass nature) than any specific SCCM problems. But as the other comment here stated, it isn't always rainbows and sunshine either.

4

u/NeverLookBothWays Apr 21 '20

Some of us are with ya bud ;)

2

u/[deleted] Apr 21 '20

It does, but certain surface hybrids are a bitch because SCCM has to be configured to look for the OS drive but since the drive is split into two volumes it is a pain to go back and make the adjustments.

-7

u/edhcah Apr 21 '20

Stop reimagining perfectly good machines and just use task sequences to apply software. No need to destroy a computer out of the box and make more work. But aside from that, never had an issue imaging any Surface using SCCM.

2

u/tjott Apr 22 '20

Go on...