TSBackground Mark II - ConfigMgr Task sequence background application.

Hi Johan,

i just tried to use TSBackground within a task sequence that is started by a logged in user via Software Center and contains only applications and other scripts. Since some applications are not allowed to have a user logged in during installation, I wanted to use TSBackground so that after the user is logged out, the progress of the installation is displayed the same way like on OSD. Unfortunately my attempts did not lead to my desired behavior.
As soon as the TSBackground.exe is started, the tool deletes itself. I assume that this is desired. (Cleanup)
Is there any way to use TSBackground within non OS task sequences? I have also seen the upgrade tools (UPGBackground and TSLaunch) but I don't want to introduce another tool if possible.

I would be very happy about a small explanation if my behaviour is "as design" or not.

Hello I have the same Problem. We do only the Poststaging Part with SCCM. 
I have a Package, copy this to the Workload and then start tsbackground.exe

The first line in the description says "Configuration manager OSD Task sequences" - the application is highly adapted for its usage and can not be used for custom TS's like in this attempts...

I followed your guide and was able to get TSBackground working easily. However, after the Apply Operating System step, the computer reboots and doesn't reload TSBackground. Any suggestions?

Disregard. I realized the issue is caused by not using the proper unattend.xml file.

What method is TSBackground.exe using to copy itself to %systemdrive%\Windows\Temp?

With the latest version of TSBackground.exe, I'm still running into this problem occasionally.


OSD Error:
"Windows could not parse or process the unattended answer file for pass [specialize]. The settings specified in the answer file cannot be applied. The error was detected while processing settings for component [Microsoft-Windows-Deployment]."

Unattend.xml:
                <RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
                    <Description>TSBackground</Description>
                    <Order>1</Order>
                    <Path>%OSDTargetSystemDrive%\windows\temp\TSBackground\TSBackground.exe UNATTEND</Path>
                </RunSynchronousCommand>



SMSTS.log:
-Found Drive: D:
-Property OSDTargetDriveCache is now = D:
-Property OSDisk is now = D:
~
-Successfully copied configuration file D:\_SMSTaskSequence\Packages\00XXXXX\Unattend_1809_20190825.xml to D:\Windows\panther\unattend\unattend.xml


Booting back up from WinPE after error:
"D:\Windows\Temp\TSBackground" does not exist. (or on any other local drive)

X:\sms\PKG\SMS10000\TSBackground\TSBackground.exe file version = 1.0.19228.01

FYI, this was on an VMware ESXi VM through vSphere (6.5.0.13x).

Just reproduced it on 2 laptops as well.  All installing Win10x64 1809.

The ones this is predominately failing on, are those started from Software Center.  

I haven't been able to run all tests on all models yet, but it looks like when started from boot media, it works as expected.  And when started from Software Center it fails to copy to %windir%\Temp.

I'm testing with a Package instead now, because when this fails the USMT hard-linked data is lost.

Had some thoughts, but either me or my phone messed it up, see Patrstro's post.

Same problem here, same error. Happens sometimes, but thats a lot when deploying 100 machines one day.
I opened taskmgr and TSBackground was using 3-4 GB of RAM, and the client only had 4GB..Could that be the same as you other guys?

Look at this Johan!!!!
https://ibb.co/HC3bLHf
TSBackground is using  ~ 2GB of RAM. This may be the cause?
It went from ~80MB to 2GB in seconds when downloading the files for the "Setup Windows and ConfigMgr" step.

I found this when getting the "Windows could not parse or process the unattended answer file for pass [specialize]-error.

Panther folder:

diagerr.xml:

<rs:data>
<z:row Cls="D" Sev="33554432" Maj="Def" Min="Def" LN="470" Fil="" Fun="UnattendLogWV" Uid="33554432" Msg="[SETUPUGC.EXE] Hit an error (hr = 0x80070002) while running [C:\windows\temp\TSBackground\TSBackground.exe UNATTEND]" PID="2316" TID="444" Con="" Exe="C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\SETUPUGC.EXE" Mod="SETUPUGC.EXE" Err="0" MD="" DT="2019-11-06T02:27:05"/>
<z:row Cls="D" Sev="33554432" Maj="Def" Min="Def" LN="470" Fil="" Fun="UnattendLogWV" Uid="33554432" Msg="[windeploy.exe] Setup.exe failed, returning exit code [0x1f]" PID="1080" TID="1084" Con="" Exe="C:\WINDOWS\system32\oobe\windeploy.exe" Mod="windeploy.exe" Err="0" MD="" DT="2019-11-06T02:28:28"/>
<z:row Cls="D" Sev="33554432" Maj="Def" Min="Def" LN="470" Fil="" Fun="UnattendLogWV" Uid="33554432" Msg="[windeploy.exe] Failure occured during online installation.  Online installation cannot complete at this time.; hr = 0x80004005" PID="1080" TID="1084" Con="" Exe="C:\WINDOWS\system32\oobe\windeploy.exe" Mod="windeploy.exe" Err="0" MD="" DT="2019-11-06T02:28:28"/>
</rs:data>



Setuperr.log:

2019-11-06 02:27:05, Error                        [SETUPUGC.EXE] Hit an error (hr = 0x80070002) while running [C:\windows\temp\TSBackground\TSBackground.exe UNATTEND]
2019-11-06 02:28:28, Error                        [windeploy.exe] Setup.exe failed, returning exit code [0x1f]
2019-11-06 02:28:28, Error                        [windeploy.exe] Failure occured during online installation.  Online installation cannot complete at this time.; hr = 0x80004005

Setupact.log:


2019-11-06 02:27:05, Info                         [SETUPUGC.EXE] Found run command in registry: description = [TSBackground]
2019-11-06 02:27:05, Info                         [SETUPUGC.EXE] Found run command in registry: credentials = { domain is not specified, username is not specified, password info not logged }
2019-11-06 02:27:05, Info                         [SETUPUGC.EXE] Found run command in registry: will continue execution without examining exit code
2019-11-06 02:27:05, Info                         [SETUPUGC.EXE] Found run command in registry: path = [C:\windows\temp\TSBackground\TSBackground.exe UNATTEND]
2019-11-06 02:27:05, Info                         [SETUPUGC.EXE] Found RunSynchronous command: [C:\windows\temp\TSBackground\TSBackground.exe UNATTEND]
2019-11-06 02:27:05, Info                         [SETUPUGC.EXE] Found run command in registry: description = [disable user account page]
2019-11-06 02:27:05, Info                         [SETUPUGC.EXE] Found run command in registry: credentials = { domain is not specified, username is not specified, password info not logged }
2019-11-06 02:27:05, Info                         [SETUPUGC.EXE] Found run command in registry: will continue execution without examining exit code
2019-11-06 02:27:05, Info                         [SETUPUGC.EXE] Found run command in registry: path = [reg add HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\OOBE /v UnattendCreatedUser /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f]
2019-11-06 02:27:05, Info                         [SETUPUGC.EXE] Found RunSynchronous command: [reg add HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\OOBE /v UnattendCreatedUser /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f]
2019-11-06 02:27:05, Info                         [SETUPUGC.EXE] Finished executing [cmd /c net user Administrator /active:yes] synchronously
2019-11-06 02:27:05, Info                         [SETUPUGC.EXE] Process returned with exit code 0x0

2019-11-06 02:27:05, Info                         [SETUPUGC.EXE] Finished executing [cmd /c reg add HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v FilterAdministratorToken /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f] synchronously
2019-11-06 02:27:05, Info                         [SETUPUGC.EXE] Process returned with exit code 0x0
2019-11-06 02:27:05, Info                         [SETUPUGC.EXE] Finished executing [reg add HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\OOBE /v UnattendCreatedUser /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f] synchronously
2019-11-06 02:27:05, Info                         [SETUPUGC.EXE] Process returned with exit code 0x0
2019-11-06 02:27:05, Info                         [SETUPUGC.EXE] Finished executing [reg add HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer /v AsyncRunOnce /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f] synchronously
2019-11-06 02:27:05, Info                         [SETUPUGC.EXE] Process returned with exit code 0x0
2019-11-06 02:27:05, Error                        [SETUPUGC.EXE] Hit an error (hr = 0x80070002) while running [C:\windows\temp\TSBackground\TSBackground.exe UNATTEND]
2019-11-06 02:27:05, Info       [0x090009] PANTHR CBlackboard::Close: c:\windows\panther\commandexec\commandexec.
2019-11-06 02:27:05, Info                         [SETUPUGC.EXE] SetupUGC returning with exit code [4]
2019-11-06 02:28:28, Info                         [windeploy.exe] Process exited with exit code [0x1f]
2019-11-06 02:28:28, Error                        [windeploy.exe] Setup.exe failed, returning exit code [0x1f]
2019-11-06 02:28:28, Error                        [windeploy.exe] Failure occured during online installation.  Online installation cannot complete at this time.; hr = 0x80004005
2019-11-06 02:28:28, Info                         [windeploy.exe] Windeploy: Executing OnError commands
2019-11-06 02:28:28, Info                         [windeploy.exe] FbeExecuteExtensions: Processing callbacks in additive mode                       

2019-11-06 02:28:28, Info                         [windeploy.exe] FbeExecuteExtensions: Processed 0 extensions
2019-11-06 02:28:28, Info                         [windeploy.exe] Flushing registry to disk...
2019-11-06 02:28:28, Info                         [windeploy.exe] Flush took 0 ms.
2019-11-06 02:28:28, Info                         [windeploy.exe] WinDeploy.exe exiting with code [0x80004005]




Sorry for spamming....

Looks like TSBackground folder was missing, that's why it failed.
Sometimes it seems that it's not copying it self to osdisk. Maybe because of the Memory leak?

Any update on the memory leak and/or the copy step Johan?

I added ( Copy-Item -Path "X:\sms\PKG\SMS10000\TSBackground" -Destination "%OSDisk%\windows\temp\TSBackground\" -Recurse -Force ) as a "Run PowerShell Script"-step before "Setup Windows and ConfigMgr" and that seems to have fixed the problem when tsbackground does not copy itself to os-disk.

I'm also experiencing this issue. The latest update (2019-08-16: v. 1.0.19228.1) did solve this issue most of the time and it doesn't occur that often, but it does happend unfortunatly. As a workaround i'm doing something similar to MokiTa with a custom PS1-Script.

@MokiTa

Did you or anyone else manage to find a solution to this?  Mine is copying to %OSDisk%\Windows\Temp already but getting the same error?

I would like to avoid taking shortcuts, such as including powershell scripts before SEtup ConfigMgr because this was working great for all my previous companies until current company.

Hi Johan,
Thanks for this great job !
I've just an issue with SCCM Standalone Media deployment. TSBackground is still running at the first login.
Can I use a final step to stop process and delete sources files ? like :

Get-Process TSBackground | Stop-Process
Remove-Item 'C:\Windows\Temp\TSBackground' -Recurse

Thank you !

Hi Johan,
Have some issues with TSBackground included in your Windows 20 Upgrade Tools but can't fing/get any help on that page. Should/could this be used by TSLaunch insted of the one included in that package? Maybe that would solve som of the issues:)

Are you planing to upgrade the "Windows 10 Upgrade Tools" package:
https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Windows-10-Upgrade-Tools-431094ca/

TSBackground is not included in the upgrade tools. You must be referring to UPGBackground, a completely different application. They are not interchangeable to answer that question.

Is there a way to pass the connection password to TSBClient.exe? i.e TSBClient.exe /Client:<ip> /Password:<password>

Hi, why do you have to execute PrepareDisk.ps1? What happens if you skip this step?

Anyone?

That script is mainly (even though it works) added as en example of how you can facilitate prestart commands with RunSilent.exe (.ini) - you don't have to use it. WinPeshl.ini is the recommended way to launch TSBackground, please use that method?

OK, thanks Johan!

Quick question, I've added TSBackground to a task sequence, followed the guide, and used preferred method etc, and everything seems to be working well, except the display of the success message.  The percentage for installation reaches 100%, General is not displayed, percentage is display, and status is displayed, then the device pauses for a short time, and reboots.  I used your zip file to import the steps, the only thing I changed was to move to 6 steps, not 7, I updated the xaml file to remove one of the steps, updated the boot wim as needed, but still... Can't get it to display success, though everything seems to be working.  Any suggestions?

Never mind, figured it out.  The example steps that imported leave off at status 07, the variable needs to be set to "success".  Makes sense looking back at it...

Hi Johan,

I started implementing the TSBackground in our Tasksequences, first this looks pretty need and works very smooth. I only have one problem, when booted into PE CursorSuppresion is enabled by default after adding the run silent command to the boot image. Is there away to get the cursor back?

BR Sascha

You've probably already found the fix for this, but for anyone else reading this who may not have, here's the fix (from Microsoft):

https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/4494800/no-mouse-cursor-during-configuration-manager-osd-task-sequence

Hi Johan,

is there a command that you could run in a Commandline step in an OSD task sequence, that remove all traces of TsBackground, and switch back to the standard Configmr ProgressUI on the fly, without the use of SMSTSPostAction for cleanup? I do have a specific OS scenario, Deployed with ConfigMgr, but Configmgr client is removed at the end of the TS, but Tsbackground.exe keeps running, so if I could just switch it off before the uninstall of the ConfigMgr kick-in that would be easier to control.
Kind Regards,


Kind Regards,

Jakob

Could you use CMD /c TASKKILL /IM TSBACKGROUND.EXE /F as your SMSTSPostAction command instead of the reboot?

Hi Marc,

Yes that would properly work, if you did a bit more cleanup, so it wouldn't start up at the next reboot. I was mainly interested to know, if you could set the TSBstatus to a value that would make TSBackGround "Selfdestruct"
Jakob