The Custom Registry Key Software Update information is added to the client system during the installation of SMS scripts because we edited the .mof file. The SMS installer program lets you encapsulate an executable into an SMS script. You can choose the option to install the SMS Installer program during a custom installation of the SMS 2.0 software. The SMS Installer can repackage a program after it's installed so that the system can advertise it to an SMS collection.
My company's SMS test lab has client systems that represent our current production client configuration. This configuration is known as our standard build, and the company maintains a build version number (e.g., 2.00.2). The SMS installer program runs on one of these client systems; it takes a snapshot of the configuration, and the SMS installer pauses. During this paused state, we install a new application (e.g., Visio) on our client system. At the end of that installation, we let the SMS installer program complete its processes by creating a file that has identified all the changes made to the client system after we installed the application. The resulting file is in a format that we can push to SMS clients and provides more detailed information about the software installed on each SMS client. The SMS installer program lets you add lines of software code or a script to the file. To help identify custom applications or standard client build information, we add a small amount of information to the client registry for each SMS script we install. We then test this new installation program on client computers for interoperability, and after it passes all our criteria checks, we can add it to the SMS packages that we might push to a collection of client systems. We also increase the company's standard build version number (e.g., 2.00.3) and record the changes we made to our production systems.
Reporting Client Registry Information
We've followed all the steps to update the registry for every SMS package that we pushed to our client computers. Wouldn't it make sense to edit the sms_def.mof one more time so that SMS can report on this data? This process is similar to the process of editing the managed object file to report on the Add/Remove Programs data. Listing 2 shows the changes needed to report on the installed SMS packages. You can add the script to the sms_def.mof file in your lab for testing.
By default, the system will report sms_def.mof file changes to the SMS database during the next hardware inventory cycle in 7 days or during the next client reboot. In the meantime, you can open the SMS Administration Console to create an SMS query that reports the changes to the database. Listing 3 shows a sample SMS query that counts all the programs listed in the Add/Remove Program tables in the SQL Server database. The query that Listing 3 shows is for my company's operations; specific registry data is similar.
Powerful Tools
SMS 2.0 is a scalable platform that can help you manage your Windows infrastructure. Using the new tools that are freely available in the program's Administration Feature Pack, SMS administrators can increase efficiency, identify security vulnerabilities, distribute client updates, and improve corporate network-reporting capabilities. Whether you're a senior SMS administrator who wants to more easily use and enhance your SMS infrastructure or a technical manager who's reviewing SMS features for deployment in a corporate enterprise, you're going to want these tools in your SMS infrastructure.
End of Article
Prev. page
1
2
3
[4]
next page -->
