SCCM Deployments With Maintenance Windows : Part II

Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2007 provides a very powerful means of deployment in an enterprise environment. One of the canned tools that has made my deployment experience in SCCM 2007 worlds easier than in SMS 2003 are Maintenance Windows. In Part I, I gave a brief overview of Maintenance Windows in SCCM. To follow that up, I am providing some of the not-so-obvious pitfalls I've discovered while using them.

Maintenance Window Is Not Defined

In SCCM 2007, if a Maintenance Window is not defined for a particular client, a 24x7 Maintenance Window is inferred. When an Advertisement or Software Updates Deployment is created, if the "Override Maintenance Windows" checkbox is not checked and, assuming there is a "Mandatory Assignment", a client without a Maintenance Window will execute at the Mandatory Assignment Deadline.

Maintenance Window's Are Cummulative

My initial understanding was that if I define a Maintenance Window for a particular collection and advertise to that collection utilizing Maintenance Windows, the Advertisement/Software Updates Deployment would abide by the Maintenance Window defined for that particular collection. This is not necessarily true. In SCCM 2007, Maintenance Windows are cummulative, meaning that if a client is a part of two collections, and each have their own defined Maintenance Window, both windows apply to any Advertisement/Software Updates Deployment to that client. As I stated previously, the only way to avoid this type of behavior is to select the "Override Maintenance Windows" checkbox.

Maintenance Window Duration

By default, all Software Updates are set with a Maximum Runtime of 20 minutes. Anytime I see that a client has downloaded my deployment to its Cache folder and that the ServiceWindowManager.log says "Program can run! Setting *canProgramRun to true", however, my Software Updates are not running, the first thing I check is the Maintenance Window duration and the Maximum Runtime on the Software Updates. Upon creating a Software Updates package, I always try to remember to change the Maximum Runtime to 5 minutes (in the Properties for a particular deployment).