Hello everyone! We are happy to let you know that update 1705 for the Technical Preview Branch of System Center Configuration Manager has been released. Technical Preview Branch releases give you an opportunity to try out new Configuration Manager features in a test environment before they are made generally available. This month’s new preview features include:
Configuration Manager Console
- High DPI console support – With this release, issues with how the Configuration Manager console scales and displays different parts of the UI when viewed on high DPI devices (like a Surface Book) should be fixed.
Application Lifecycle and Content
- Removing Network Access Account (NAA) requirement for Client Peer Cache – In this release, we are removing the NAA requirement, so that peer cache source computers no longer use the NAA to authenticate download requests from peers.
Clients and User Discovery
- Azure Active Directory (AD) Onboarding – Create a connection between Configuration Manager and Azure AD. Install and register Configuration Manager clients with Azure AD identity. Enable Configuration Manager on-premises services like Management Point or cloud services like Cloud Management Gateway to have the capability to authenticate with devices and user identities in Azure Active Directory. By using Azure AD, devices will not need client authentication certificates for HTTPS.
- Azure Active Directory (AD) User Discovery – Now you can enable user object discovery from Azure AD.
Software Updates and Compliance
- Configure and deploy Windows Defender Application Guard policies – You can now create and deploy Windows Defender Application Guard policies to Windows 10 clients that help protect your users by opening untrusted web sites in a secure container.
- Improved end user experience for Office Updates – Improvements have been made to the end user experience for Office updates which includes improved toast notifications, business bar notifications, and an enhanced countdown experience.
Core Infrastructure
- Configuration Manager Update Reset Tool – We are adding a new tool to reset and restart in-console updates when they have problems downloading or replicating.
- SQL Always On asynchronous-commit mode replica support – Configuration Manager now supports SQL Always On secondary replicas that run under asynchronous-commit mode for disaster recovery scenarios.
- Operations Management Suite (OMS) added to Azure Services Wizard – You can now use Azure Services Wizard to connect Configuration Manager to Log Analytics in OMS to sync device collection data.
Update 1705 for Technical Preview Branch is available in the Configuration Manager console. For new installations please use the 1703 baseline version of Configuration Manager Technical Preview Branch available on TechNet Evaluation Center.
We would love to hear your thoughts about the latest Technical Preview! To provide feedback or report any issues with the functionality included in this Technical Preview, please use Connect. If there’s a new feature or enhancement you want us to consider for future updates, please use the Configuration Manager UserVoice site.
Thanks,
The System Center Configuration Manager team
Configuration Manager Resources:
Documentation for System Center Configuration Manager Technical Previews
Try the System Center Configuration Manager Technical Preview Branch
Documentation for System Center Configuration Manager
System Center Configuration Manager Forums