Notification balloons seem to be a frequent topic of feedback from customers. There may pop up too often, or only certain users should get them, or the timing isn’t configurable enough.

Lately we’ve had multiple customers asking for a very specific feature. The AdminUI for SCCM provides the ability to disable notification balloons for normal Software Distribution packages, but not for Task Sequences.

While there are currently no plans to modify the AdminUI to add this ability, all of the necessary logic is already present in the client code; you just have to go out of your way to enable it. If the ability to disable notification balloons for Task Sequences is something that would be beneficial in your environment then you can use the script below to automate the process.

The example below needs to be run on a site server by a user who has sufficient permissions in SCCM to modify the Task Sequences in question. Running the example with no command line arguments will provide usage instructions.

There is no guarantee or warranty associated with this example. Make sure you test any utility before using it in a production environment; and, as always, make sure that you are running frequent backups and that you test the restoration procedure on a regular basis to ensure that the backups are valid.

========

Option Explicit On

If WScript.Arguments.Count < 1 Then
WScript.Echo “Usage:”
WScript.Echo ”    DisableTSNotification.vbs -all”
WScript.Echo ”    DisableTSNotification.vbs PackageID [PackageID]…”
WScript.Quit
End If

Dim strComputer
Dim siteCode
Dim objWMIService
Dim colItems
Dim objItem
Dim packageID
Dim itemFound
Dim numPackages
Dim numUpdated

strComputer = “.”
siteCode=GetSiteCode()
Set objWMIService = GetObject(“winmgmts://” & strComputer & “/root/sms/site_” & siteCode)

If StrComp(UCase(WScript.Arguments.Item(0)), “-ALL”, 1) = 0 Then
numPackages = 0
numUpdated = 0
Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery(“SELECT * FROM SMS_TaskSequencePackage”, “WQL”, 32)
For Each objItem in colItems
If (objItem.ProgramFlags AND 1024) = 0 Then
objItem.ProgramFlags = objItem.ProgramFlags OR 1024
objItem.Put_
numUpdated = numUpdated + 1
WScript.Echo “Modified package ” & objItem.PackageID
End If
numPackages = numPackages + 1
Next
WScript.Echo “Updated ” & numUpdated & ” of ” & numPackages & ” packages”
Else
For Each packageID in WScript.Arguments
Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery(“SELECT * FROM SMS_TaskSequencePackage WHERE PackageID='” & packageID & “‘”, “WQL”, 32)
itemFound = false
For Each objItem in colItems
If (objItem.ProgramFlags AND 1024) = 0 Then
objItem.ProgramFlags = objItem.ProgramFlags OR 1024
objItem.Put_
WScript.Echo “Modified package ” & objItem.PackageID
Else
WScript.Echo “No need to update package ” & objItem.PackageID
End If
itemFound = true
Next
If itemFound = false Then
WScript.Echo “ERROR: Package ” & packageID & ” was not found on this server”
End If
Next
End If

Function GetSiteCode()
Dim objSWbemLocator
Dim objSWbemServices
Dim ProviderLocation
Dim Location
Dim strSiteCode

objSWbemLocator = CreateObject(“WbemScripting.SWbemLocator”)
objSWbemServices = objSWbemLocator.ConnectServer(“.”, “rootsms”)
ProviderLocation = objSWbemServices.InstancesOf(“SMS_ProviderLocation”)

For Each Location In ProviderLocation
If Location.ProviderForLocalSite = True Then
strSiteCode = Location.SiteCode
End If
Next

GetSiteCode = strSiteCode
End Function

========