What started as an idea on an email thread only a few days ago has blossomed into a full tool developed by ECM MVP Robert Marshall. He’s beavered away to produce an App Store for all your favourite ConfigMgr tools, scripts and downloads and he’s developed this thing at rapid speed.
I’m proud enough to say I have been beta testing the product for Robert, along with fellow WMUG friend David Scambler.
CMStore can be downloaded from the Technet Galleries here.
It’s Goodbye USB stick
ConfigMgr Store collects ConfigMgr and related downloads into one interface, removing the need for that frantic Google search into the depths of the ether to find the thing you want. A USB stick isn’t needed any more because you can download everything quickly using the customers Internet link, customers scan software and therefore your downloads are safe.
Plenty of apps, tools and scripts are presented here for you and if they are not here then let Robert know via Twitter or the email address on the About page of the app.
How does it work?
It’s a simple concept. You have the Store front end which you use to download the apps, and an XML manifest file that resides on a secure web server hosted by SMS Marshall Ltd. The tool will download an updated manifest if new apps are added to the Store (simply with a close and open of the CMStore application), this ensures you have the latest downloads available to you.
At the time of writing the blog I have version 4 of the manifest file CMSTORE.XML.
but version 5 of the manifest has been released. It’s simply a case of opening CMStore.exe and ensuring the ‘Update on Startup’ checkbox is selected.
Hey presto! Version 5 of the manifest is now resident on my device and I’m fully up-to-date with the downloads that are available to me.
ConfigMgr Store Interface
As you can see CMStore gives you the application name, description, homepage, class, source details for each tool along with a checkbox to download. You can download one app at a time or select multiple.
The homepage link will open up IE and take you to the web page for the tool, in case you need further information on how to use the app. Here’s a good example!
You can select your downloads by Class and/or Source filtering down to the ones you need. Note that the Bundle feature is not currently available but look out for this the next release.
Enter a Download location for your apps and you’re good to go.
Click Download, sit back, grab a coffee if you want and the downloads will be available for you shortly. Note the red bar in the status box indicates things are downloading.
When it’s all done the status bar will return to normal with a ‘Downloading Completed’ message.
A quick click of the ‘Open Download Location’ button…
and Voilà! My downloads are available to me. Awesome!
SCCMentor - Paul Winstanley 
Reblogged this on Alan Doran IT Ramblings.