SCCM ConfigMgr FIX Removing computers from a collection may cause an Unexpected Reboot

SCCM ConfigMgr FIX Removing computers from a collection may cause an unexpected reboot. Please refer to the Original Post and KB article link here.

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SCCM ConfigMgr FIX Removing computers from a collection may cause an unexpected reboot

Symptoms

Some computers may reboot unexpectedly after they are removed from a collection in System Center Configuration Manager 2007
(ConfigMgr 2007) when that collection has a maintenance window.

Cause

The problem occurs because the maintenance window is removed after the computers are removed from the collection.

If the assignment was downloaded successfully and triggered, once the maintenance window was removed before the policy of assignment was deleted, the assignment will still be installed. It means that 2 important policies arrived at the ConfigMgr 2007 client in this issue after removing the computers from the collection:

(1) Maintenance Window delete

(2) Assignment policy delete

The reason why the issue occurred is that policy 1 arrived before policy 2. Based on the current ConfigMgr 2007 design, the program policy deletion is not prioritized over maintenance window policy deletion because the policies were evaluated and applied one by one. There is no priority flag in the policies. SCCM ConfigMgr FIX Removing computers from a collection may cause an unexpected reboot.

Resolution

This is by design behavior in ConfigMgr 2007.

More Information

In the current version of ConfigMgr 2007, we need to pay attention when moving computers between collections with a maintenance window setting because the maintenance window setting means that the computers cannot perform changes outside of the maintenance window.

It is recommended that administrators follow the best practice of naming the collections specifically (such as “MW-“). The administrator knows the collections with a maintenance window and thus will not remove operations outside the Maintenance window.

Best Practice Recommendations

Maintenance windows are not intended to function as a primary scheduling method for programs. Instead, they are designed to limit the interference of software deployments or changes with critical system functions. SCCM ConfigMgr FIX Removing computers from a collection may cause an unexpected reboot.

For example, one possible use of a maintenance window would be to specifically restrict system changes on a collection of client computers to the period between midnight and 2:00 a.m., when network traffic is at a minimum or when those computers are not engaged in other activities.

It is recommended that if you use maintenance windows to restrict system changes, you should create specific collections for this purpose rather than use the default collections. Additionally, naming these new collections in a particular manner (such as “MW-“) can be helpful. One or both of these methods will help you manage your collections more easily and effectively.

Author

Anoop is Microsoft MVP! He is a Solution Architect in enterprise client management with more than 20 years of experience (calculation done in 2021) in IT. He is a logger, Speaker, and Local User Group HTMD Community leader. His main focus is on Device Management technologies like SCCM 2012, Current Branch, and Intune. He writes about ConfigMgr, Windows 11, Windows 10, Azure AD, Microsoft Intune, Windows 365, AVD, etc…