Update 1712 for Configuration Manager Technical Preview Branch – Available Now!

First published on CloudBlogs on Dec 16, 2017
Hello everyone! We are happy to let you know that update 1712 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. We had the opportunity to do a joint MVP and Product Team engagement last month.  We are always grateful for our EMM MVPs, and their incredible contributions to the community. And with this technical preview, we are very excited to ship some features we designed and built together with the MVPs. This month’s new preview features include:

• Surface Device dashboard improvements - The Surface dashboard now displays firmware version for Surface devices rather than operating system version.
• Improvements to Office 365 client management dashboard - The Office 365 client management dashboard now displays a list of relevant devices when graph sections are selected.
• Install multiple applications in Software Center - Click the multi-select icon on the Applications tab in Software Center. In this mode, select multiple applications and then install all together using the Install Selected button.
• Client-based PXE - Configure clients to respond to PXE requests without adding the distribution point role.

This release also includes the following improvements based on your feedback from UserVoice :

• Renamed collections display in existing collection membership rules - When a collection is a member of another collection and it is renamed, the new name is updated under membership rules.
• Allow user interaction when installing applications as system - Now users can interact with an application installation user interface in system context even during a task sequence.
• Do not automatically upgrade superseded applications - In this release you have the option to configure an application deployment to not automatically upgrade any superseded version.
• Device list displays primary user - Device lists under Assets and Compliance, Devices, now display the primary user by default. The last logged on user can also be added as an optional column.

Update 1712 for Technical Preview Branch is available in the Configuration Manager console. For new installations please use the recently updated 1711 baseline version of Configuration Manager Technical Preview Branch available on the TechNet Evaluation Center . We would love to hear your thoughts about the latest Technical Preview! We're now enabling Configuration Manager feedback through the Feedback Hub app built into Windows 10. When you Add new feedback be sure to select the Enterprise Management category and then choose from one of the following subcategories:

• Configuration Manager Client
• Configuration Manager Console
• Configuration Manager OS Deployment
• Configuration Manager Server

Continue to use our UserVoice site to share and vote on ideas about new features in Configuration Manager. We will be back with more enhancements for Configuration Manager in 2018. Happy holidays! 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 System Center Configuration Manager Support Download the Configuration Manager Support Center