SCCM Technical Preview 2106 New Features

The SCCM technical preview 2106 version is released with new features and improvements. ConfigMgr technical preview 2106 has many new features and new improvements.

This is the 7th ConfigMgr technical preview release of year 2021, and you can see new features added to every release. You can expect some of these new features in upcoming version of current branch.

I usually publish a post whenever there is a new technical preview release. I love to test the new features and publish them. Read my post on technical preview build numbers to find build numbers and new features of every technical preview release.

So first I will cover the SCCM Technical Preview 2106 installation and then the new features. You can always refer to the technical preview 2106 notes by Microsoft.

Install ConfigMgr Technical Preview 2106

To install ConfigMgr Technical Preview 2106 update.

• In the ConfigMgr console, go to Administration > Updates and Servicing.
• Right click Configuration Manager Technical Preview 2106 update and click Install Update Pack.

On the General window, you can ignore prerequisite check warnings and click Next. I will cover about a new prerequisite warning in later section.

Accept the license terms and click Next.

On the Completion window, click Close.

While the ConfigMgr Technical Preview 2106 installs, you can review cmupdate.log for installation progress. You can also go to Monitoring workspace and right the update and view the install progress.

Once the installation is complete, you will be prompted for console upgrade. Perform the SCCM Technical Preview 2106 console upgrade. The new version of the console after the upgrade will be 5.2107.1057.1000.

That completes the installation of SCCM Technical Preview 2106. Next you must upgrade the clients to the latest version. The ConfigMgr Technical Preview 2106 client version is 5.00.9056.1000. Use the client upgrade option under Site Hierarchy settings to upgrade the client agents to the latest version.

SCCM Technical Preview 2106 New Features

Let’s look at some new features included in SCCM technical preview 2106 version.

.NET version 4.8 Prerequisite Feature Warning

Starting with technical preview version 2016, ConfigMgr requires .NET Framework version 4.6.2 for site servers, specific site systems, clients, and the console. Before you run setup to install or update the site, first update .NET and restart the system. You can also install the latest version of .NET version 4.8 manually.

For now, ConfigMgr only reports the absence of .NET version 4.8 during prerequisite check step. You can actually install the update by ignoring this warning. However, in coming days, if you want to avoid seeing this prerequisite check warning, better install the .NET version 4.8.

New SCCM third-party updates catalogs Link

We know that SCCM allows you to import third-party update catalogs to deploy updates. To help you find custom catalogs that you can import for third-party software updates, there’s now a documentation page with links to catalog providers.

In the ConfigMgr 2106 console, Go to Software Library > Software Updates > Third-Party Software Update Catalogs. Choose More Catalogs from the ribbon in the Third-party software update catalogs node. This opens the documentation page that contains links to catalog providers.

New Audit Mode for potentially unwanted applications

We have a new audit mode for PUA in the Antimalware policy settings. When you enable Audit mode it detects potentially unwanted applications without blocking them. PUA protection in audit mode is useful if your company is conducting an internal software security compliance check, and you’d like to avoid any false positives.

You can enable this feature by going to Assets and Compliance > Endpoint Protection > Antimalware policy. You can either create a new Antimalware policy or edit an existing one. Select the Real-time protection settings. Look for Configure detection for potentially unwanted applications and select Audit.

Co-management node renamed to Cloud Attach

In SCCM technical preview 2106, the co-management node has been renamed to cloud attach. This makes more sense and the ribbon button has been renamed to Configure Cloud Attach. In addition, the Co-management Configuration Wizard has been renamed to Cloud Attach Configuration Wizard.

New prerequisite check for SQL Server 2012

If you are installed SQL Server 2012 for ConfigMgr, when you install or update the site, it now warns for the presence of SQL Server 2012. The support lifecycle for SQL Server 2012 ends on July 12, 2022. You must plan to upgrade database servers in your environment, including SQL Server Express at secondary sites.

New Maintenance window column

You can now add a maintenance window column to the device collection node. This will let you view the maintenance windows for individual devices. If you haven’t configured any MNW, it shows No under Maintenance window column.

AES-256 Client encryption

Starting with ConfigMgr technical preview 2106, when you enable the site to Use encryption, the client uses the AES-256 algorithm. This setting requires clients to encrypt inventory data and state messages before it sends to the management point.

Intune role-based access control for tenant attach

With this new feature, you can use the Intune role-based access control (RBAC) when displaying the Client details page for tenant attached devices MEM admin center.

If you already have tenant attach enabled, open the properties for CoMgmtSettingsProd. You can enable the Intune role-based access control for tenant attach.

If you don’t have tenant attach enabled, select Configure Cloud Attach to open the Cloud Attach Configuration wizard. On the Configure Upload page, you can enable the Intune role-based access control for tenant attach.