High priority SCCM applications

This post is about getting all high priority SCCM applications using PowerShell. Today I had to check our server how many applications are set to High (Distribution Priority). The customer has a total of 40 distribution points (pull and push) all over the world and configured sophisticated BITS rules and schedules. Therefore, ConfigMgr only replicates high priority applications using higher bandwidth.

How to get the application properties

Now, to get information about SCCM applications, there’s a simple cmdlet available: “Get-CMApplication“. But the result is rather disappointing if you’re looking for advanced properties like “InstallCommandLine”, “DetectAction” or “Priority”.

ConfigMgr stores all those properties in an XML string “SDMPackageXML”.

Get-CMApplication -Name "UltraEdit 24.20.44"

We need to first deserialize this string and filter the results to match the xml tag “HighPriority”. Therefore assign a variable to the Get-CMApplication so that you can access the SDMPackageXML property and send the value to a text file.

$Prio = Get-CMApplication -Name "UltraEdit 24.20.44"
$Prio.SDMPackageXML | Out-File C:\temp\SDMPackageXML.txt

Open up the TXT file and copy-paste the contents to one of the XML beautifiers out there. As a result the XML code is much easier to read. Disassembling the structure is a piece of cake now.

Type accelerators (like [version]) come in very handy. [xml] helps accessing a specific tag within any XML string. You can use the XML hierarchy like a method or a property on an object. Enclose the whole variable in parenthesis and put the [xml] in front. Then use the structure we just found out to grab the appropriate value, which results in HighPriority = 1 in this example.

([xml]$Prio.SDMPackageXML).AppMgmtDigest.Application.HighPriority

The final script to find high priority sccm applications

The final script to find all high priority sccm applications and more looks like this:

Function Get-ITBApplicationDistributionPriority {
    <#
    .SYNOPSIS
        This script gets information about the priority of applications.
    .DESCRIPTION
        This script gets information about the priority of applications. Use this script on any machine having
        ConfigMgr Console installed. The result will be 3 different txt files for each priority type in the current
        directory. You could use those files later to set the priority to your liking. Omitting the parameters
        uses Site "CM1" and application "7-Zip*" as an example.
    .PARAMETER SiteCode
        Specify the SiteCode of your ConfigMgr Site.
    .PARAMETER Name
        Specify the name or part of the name of an application (wildcard *).
    .PARAMETER All
        Specify this parameter to query ALL applications. Parameter 'Name' will be ignored.
    .EXAMPLE
        Get-ITBApplicationDistributionPriority -SiteCode "CM3" -Name "Ultra*"
        Gets the priority of CM3 site applications using the name filter "ultra*".
    .EXAMPLE
        Get-ITBApplicationDistributionPriority -SiteCode "CM3" -All
        Gets the priority of ALL CM3 site applications.
    .LINK
        
High priority SCCM applications

    .NOTES
        Author:     Fabian Szalatnay
        Date:       April 23, 2019
        Ver. 1.0:   Initial release
        Update 1.1: Added PowerShell header and documentation. Made it dynamic using parameters.
    #>

    param(
        [string]$SiteCode = "CM1",
        [string]$Name = "7-Zip*",
        [switch]$All
    )

    # Import SCCM module
    Write-Output "Importing SCCM module..."
    # Import the ConfigurationManager.psd1 module
    Import-Module "$($ENV:SMS_ADMIN_UI_PATH)\..\ConfigurationManager.psd1"

    if ($All -eq $True) {
        # Cleanup first
        Remove-Item -Path ".\HighPriority_All.txt" -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
        Remove-Item -Path ".\LowPriority_All.txt" -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
        Remove-Item -Path ".\MediumPriority_All.txt" -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
        # Get all SCCM applications
        Write-Output "Getting all SCCM applications..."
        Push-Location "${SiteCode}:"
        Get-CMApplication | Sort-Object -Property LocalizedDisplayName | ForEach-Object {
            $AppFullName = $_.LocalizedDisplayName
            $Prio = ([xml]$_.SDMPackageXML).AppMgmtDigest.Application.HighPriority
            Switch($Prio) {
                1 {
                    Write-Output "$AppFullName is HighPriority."
                    Pop-Location
                    $AppFullName | Out-File -FilePath ".\HighPriority_All.txt" -Append
                }
                3 {
                    Write-Output "$AppFullName is LowPriority."
                    Pop-Location
                    $AppFullName | Out-File -FilePath ".\LowPriority_All.txt" -Append
                }
                default {
                    Write-Output "$AppFullName is MediumPriority."
                    Pop-Location
                    $AppFullName | Out-File -FilePath ".\MediumPriority_All.txt" -Append
                }
            }
        }
        # Go to original location in case query returns no apps
        Pop-Location
    }
    else {
        # Cleanup first
        Remove-Item -Path ".\HighPriority_Single.txt" -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
        Remove-Item -Path ".\LowPriority_Single.txt" -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
        Remove-Item -Path ".\MediumPriority_Single.txt" -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
        # Get single SCCM application
        Write-Output "Getting SCCM application ""$Name""..."
        Push-Location "${SiteCode}:"
        Get-CMApplication -Name $Name | Sort-Object -Property LocalizedDisplayName | ForEach-Object {
            $AppFullName = $_.LocalizedDisplayName
            $Prio = ([xml]$_.SDMPackageXML).AppMgmtDigest.Application.HighPriority
            Switch($Prio) {
                1 {
                    Write-Output "$AppFullName is HighPriority."
                    Pop-Location
                    $AppFullName | Out-File -FilePath ".\HighPriority_Single.txt" -Append
                }
                3 {
                    Write-Output "$AppFullName is LowPriority."
                    Pop-Location
                    $AppFullName | Out-File -FilePath ".\LowPriority_Single.txt" -Append
                }
                default {
                    Write-Output "$AppFullName is MediumPriority."
                    Pop-Location
                    $AppFullName | Out-File -FilePath ".\MediumPriority_Single.txt" -Append
                }
            }
        }
        # Go to original location in case query returns no apps
        Pop-Location
    }
}

Save the code to a file called “Get-ITBApplicationDistributionPriority.ps1” and use dot sourcing to make the function available to your session. After that use the function like any other cmdlet.

Example:

. .\Get-ITBApplicationDistributionPriority.ps1
Get-ITBApplicationDistributionPriority -SiteCode "CM1" -Name "Ultra*"

This will create text files for each priority type containing the application names of all “Ultra*” apps on CM1. I chose text files because it’s simple and allows me to process them later easily.

Maybe I will blog part 2 on how to set all high priority apps to medium.