SMS
Software Distribution
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10003 Error on Windows 95 Client |
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Contributed By: Cliff Hobbs [MVP SMS] |
'A data integrity error was detected for advertisement ...' |
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Is this a common error during a heavy logon
time? The OFR file looks OK, but I still got this error....
A data integrity error was detected for
advertisement 'P0120013' (P0120013.ofr). The operating system reported
error 8: Not enough storage is available to process this command. Possible
cause: The advertisement (.ofr) file on this Client Access Point (CAP) is
missing, corrupt, or lacking data. The advertisement will not be run or
displayed to users. I have found that usually the client doesn't have enough
disk space. |
A non-zero exit code of 3010 was returned |
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I'm trying to distribute IE5.5, although I continually get the error below,
once the package has been advertised and executed. Any ideas?
A non-zero exit code of 3010 was returned. This error code is actually a GOOD error code.
I'm guessing you ran the install quietly. Error32.exe in the Resource Kit says 'Error 3010 - The requested operation is successful. Changes will not be
effective until the system is rebooted.' |
Advertised Programs Picked Up by ODP But Never Execute |
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I have a problem
where my programs are being picked up by ODP, but the programs (assigned) never
execute. I have followed the distribution process and can't work out what
is wrong. I advertised a job called Test (Package ID 0010006F,Advertisement
ID001200A0, Collection ID 00100071). I've also noticed a Database Maintenance SQL command I had set up to discover Duplicate GUIDs has stopped working giving an error - SMS SQL Monitor failed to execute database maintenance SQL command "Duplicate Query" - preceded by Failed to open file \\El03155\Intel\DuplicateQuery (El03155 being my machine). This command was running weekly with no problems then stopped. Could this be related? If not any ideas?
Contributed
By: Gary Black |
Advertisement fails on a large number of clients returning an error 10003 |
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I have had a recurring problem with Software Distribution when advertising to
a large number of systems (we have about 2700 clients (mostly 9x boxes) in a
single site in a single domain). The advertisement is a mandatory assignment
with a set start time. The program command line points to a share on a member
server where all users have read access. A little more than half of the
clients fail to run the advertisement, returning an error code of 10003. The
other half run fine. I have tried making the assignment 'as soon as possible' but the package takes too long to deploy (like days). I was hopeful that SP2 would solve this problem 10003 is a general code and can be caused by a variety of problems such as:
Check:
Experience the field suggests not using \\UNC names
in batch files to install program on Windows 9x clients. |
Advertisement popup message |
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I noticed something strange with
software distribution and I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong or if it's a
bug. When a package/program is configured to run 'whether or not a
user is logged on' and is send to a computer collection a pop-up message,
stating that a new advertisement is available, shows up for each user logging on
to the targeted computer even when the first user executes the program
successfully. In the program configuration, you don't have the option to specify that this program should only run once. It's greyed-out and the SMS help-file specifies that 'run only once' is the default setting but still it's advertised to each user that logs on. This is happening with all the packages I have tested so far. These packages just simply install and don't require any reboot and are configured accordingly. Has anyone seen this? This is the default setting when you send out an advertisement that does not have a mandatory assignment. You can get around this in one of two ways.
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Advertisement sent with the wrong priority |
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When I create an Advertisement with a sending priority of high it seems to take forever to reach the client? This is a known bug that is fixed in SP2. In versions of
SMS prior to SP2, when you create an advert with a sending priority of high it
is actually sent as low and vice versa. If you are still running SMS pre-SP2
either upgrade to SP2, or send you adverts with the opposite priority (for
example if you need to send an advert with a high priority, set it with a low
priority and vice versa). Knowledge Base article
237330
'Advertisements Are Sent
with Wrong Priority' details this problem. |
Advertisement status and reporting |
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To help you monitor and report the status of advertisements Microsoft has created the AdvertView tool that ships with SP2. Using AdvertView you can:
To install AdvertView and the other SMS Support Tools, you
need to run the SUPPORT.EXE file located in the
\SUPPORT directory on the SMS
SP2 CD (the tools are compressed into this self-extracting executable to save
space on the CD). |
Advertisement status is 'none' on some clients and 'received' on others |
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When sending out an advertisement the status of some clients shows 'none' while others show as 'received'? Make sure the clients with the problem meet all of the
requirements to get the advertisement. Look in the 'ODPSYS32.LOG' and
'SMSAPM32.LOG'
files to help you troubleshoot this problem. |
Advertisements Arrive At Clients But Do Not Execute |
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Contributed
By: Cliff Hobbs [MVP SMS] |
Advertisements assigned on logoff to Win9x clients |
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Is it possible to schedule a
mandatory assignment to run on next logoff for Win9x clients? I have been
advertising these packages, and the clients receive them, but they never run.
W2K clients run them fine. I was hoping that the 9x boxes would run them last
thing *before* logoff, but it doesn't seem to work that way.
Once a client logs off of a Win9x PC, network authentication is lost and SMS
can't get back to the 'PKG'
share to run the package. NT and Win2K are able to do this because the NT SMS
services are in control of software distribution after the client logs off. |
Advertisements over dialup links |
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I am looking for any feedback on
stopping advertisements from being offered to NT SMS 2.0 client computers who
are connected via a dial in session. I know about the 'Assignments are not
mandatory over slow links' option within the creation of the advertisement,
and this seems to work - the advertisement does not appear once it meets the
mandatory period (over dial in). What I would like to eliminate is the offering
of an advertisement to dial in clients during the optional period. One theory I
have is to have the logon script determine the connection type - if dial in then
kill the APM process. Joelle Booher's solution to this problem is to design packages in a way that allows a check to be made for dial-up before the 'real' package kicks off. For example, when deploying IE501, the advertisement program executes DialUpCheckIE501.Exe. This EXE (built in SMS Installer) looks for dialup (using the RASCheck utility from the NT resource kit). If the user is dialed in, a Status MIF is written (because the machine needs to be re-targeted at a later date), and the package ends. If the user is not dialed in, the much larger IE501.Exe is then kicked off. Copies of Joelle's scripts can be found at http://www.myitforum.com/articles/1/view.asp?id=4774 The other alternative submitted by Marc Philips is to use SLOWNET.EXE from SMSLS.BAT since in SP2 you can configure the settings. The following is from Marc's loadbalancing script he uses when deploying SMS. REM freedisk.exe comes from the resource kit. More info on SLOWNET.EXE can be found at: |
Adverts not being processed at clients |
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I've noticed on some of my clients that the Advert status messages to say a client had successfully run an Advert weren't being returned. On closer inspection I found that although the clients had received the Adverts they weren't actually running them as the adverts were queued up in the '\MS\SMS\Clicomp\APA\DataJobs' directory. I don't know what caused this problem but to resolve it I did the following:
The clients then polled the CAP, pulled the adverts down
and run them. |
AdvertView displays "/sms:property=401,WHQ2000" and other errors |
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I'm using AdvertView (v1.1.1484)
to troubleshoot a newly installed site's Software Distribution process. In doing
so I'm using a feature I hadn't used before: 'SMS Status Message Viewer
Queries' and any of its available sub-choices, and any combination of
starting and ending times. When I execute this on any object (Advert; Package, or Collection) I get this type of error message:
Selecting 'OK' then displays the status message pane with zero returned messages. I can retrieve data through Status Message Queries, however. AdvertView has an option setting to display or
modify the query before running. What you are seeing is the actual Status
Message Query before it runs. Select 'View | Options'
and deselect 'Modify
Query before running'. |
AdvertView displays incorrect status if Machine Name is in lower case |
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This is a bug that is recorded for
the next full version of SMS (codename: Topaz), so someday it will get fixed.
The actual problem is as follows:
If I go in (via ISQL) and change the
Name0 value to upper
case in System_Disc, update the advertisement targeted collection membership,
and refresh the collection, AdvertView now reports correctly. |
An easy way of identifying the status of a job without viewing all the specific details |
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In SMS 1.2 it so easy to see if a client
successfully received a job or not. I am perplexed by 2.0 is there an easy way
of identifying the status of a job without viewing all the specific details? In short I just want to know out of the 4000 clients who got it and who didn't not all the detail right now. Run the Advertisement Status Query for that Advertisement
then filter for event 10009. That will show you all of the successful installs. |
'An error occurred while preparing to run the program for advertisement' |
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We have multiple DP's running in the same
site (under Central Site). We have created multiple packages and have
successfully deployed them out to the DP's (verified that it's in
\\SERVERNAME\SMSPKGx$
directory). When we try to send out advertisements for these packages under
certain DP's, we get errors like the following: 'An error occurred while preparing to
run the program for advertisement 'CT120031' ('Nav5 (logged
on)' - 'Nav 5 (logged on)'). The operating system reported error
53: The network path was not found. Additional program properties: We have also seen this on some packages here -
where the successful installs contain a full path to the \\server\share\dir\exe,
and the failures only contain the exe name. We have found a greater percentage
of success when configuring packages to Windows 95 if you set the 'Start
In' field of the program to something local on the PC. We use c:\temp. If
it is left blank, the PC will assume that the start in directory is the UNC back
to the pkg share, and it cannot resolve that location. Another change we have
made is to set all programs to 'Requires Drive Letter' in the Drive
mode on the Environment tab. These should improve your success rate. |
APM options not updating on Clients |
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Changes made to the APM client agent settings through the MMC (such as enabling the 'Display a notification message' when a new program is available), aren't being picked up by the clients at all. Make sure the CAPs are getting the update by checking the
'\SMS\Inboxes\Clicfg.src\Swdist.cfg' file for the change then make sure all of the
CAPs have the same file. |
Assigned programs don't show up on Advertised Programs |
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I have created a security patch for Windows 2000 machines. I assigned it to install on 6/22/00 at 5pm. All clients received the package, but it won't show up on the Advertised Programs. It shows up on the Advertised Programs Monitor, but it won't let users to install it. On the monitor, it show up as scheduled to run on the 6/22/00 5PM. What I wanted to do was have it available for users to install it if they want to before 6/22/00 5pm, but install it if they didn't. The way I did was available after 12pm on 6/19/00, assign after 6/22/00 5pm and never expired. What did I do wrong? Go to the Schedule tab in the Advertisement
properties and make sure that the 'Allow users to run the program independently of
assignments' box is checked. |
Auto Login for NT 4 Workstations to a NetWare server |
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I'm trying to setup Auto Logon to coincide
with an SMS package I'm trying advertise. I can't seem to get the Autologin to
work with the NetWare 4.6 SP2 client. Has anybody successfully set this up? I
have the Novell TID#10052847. Doesn't seem to help. You have to set: |
Batch file keeps running |
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I am testing a distribution using a batch
file that copies files to the local pc and then runs them. I use a mapped drive
in the batch, not a UNC, and close with an exit command. In all of my tests,
however, the batch file never closes, and on the pc, the advertised program
monitor shows that it is still running. The Advertisement Status never receives
a program complete message, only Advertisement Received and Program Started
messages. Is there anything I can do to get the batches to close out and give a
status of complete? To close a DOS box launched by a bat file include this at the end
Seems a DOS box needs a clear screen to close on 9x. |
Can I Control the Order in which SMS Installs Software? |
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Contributed By: Steven Rachui
[MSFT] If you want to be able to distribute multiple Packages to a Collection with them running in a set order here is some advice… [Go to article] |
Can I control which drive a DP is created on? |
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Does anyone know of a way to control the
drive a DP is created on other than using an NT Share in Site Systems? For example if you stop sharing the Administrative shares for the drives you don't want a CAP to be created on, when you create the CAP SMS doesn't 'see' these drives and uses the one you want it to use. The same cannot be said about DPs. I've tried experimenting with what it says in the SMS Administrator's Companion where you create the SMSPKG<drive_letter>$ share on the drive you want to create the DP on and SMS SHOULD see this and use it. Oh no it doesn't - SMS seems to ignore this, sees the drive with the most space on it (which I don't want it to use) and creates the DP. I mentioned this in passing to the PSS guys in the UK as part my site rebuild process and they said the only way they know how to do this is to create the SMSPKG<drive_letter>$ folder, then share it with the same name, and then create a new NT Share in the Admin console.
Contributed
By: Cliff Hobbs [MVP SMS] |
Can I suppress the Advertised Program window for a specific advert? |
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How do you go about suppressing the
advertised program window for a specific advert. We've been trying '/q'
and '\q'
and
neither worked. We also tried '/s'
but had no luck as well. We just sent the
package anyway. You can't suppress the Advertised Program window on an
individual basis - it's a site wide setting. |
Can I tell which Adverts are pointing at a client? |
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Is there a way to tell what Collections a
client is part of? For example run a query on a specific machine to tell what
collections it is part of? What I want to do is find out if there are any
advertisements attempting to advertise to one specific machine. You can find out what adverts are pointed at a
box by double-clicking its icon in the 'All Systems'
collection and going to the 'Advertisements' Tab. |
Can I Use Wake-On-LAN with SMS? |
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Contributed By: Cliff Hobbs [MVP SMS] |
Can I Use XCOPY in an SMS Package to Copy Files Around? |
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Contributed By:
Wally Mead [MS] |
Can't delete adverts imported from a different server using SMSSPMAN |
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I can't delete several SMS advertisements
that were created by using the SMS Properties Exporter (& Importer) program.
Here's what I did: 1. Used the SMS Properties Exporter program to export package and advertisement data from one of my SMS servers (Server 1). 2. Used SMS Properties Exporter to import package and adv. data from step 1 to a different SMS server (Server 2). Now when I use the SMS admin console (for
Server 2) and click on Advertisements, the three advertisements that were
imported have a little lock key on them. When I right click I do not have the
option to delete them. And if I right click and choose Properties, all options
are greyed out. And the NT account I'm using DOES have all rights to everything. If your servers aren't in a hierarchy (i.e.Server1 isn't
the parent site for Server2) you can remove the locks on Server2 by editing the
'ProgramOffers' table in the SQL database. Change 'SourceSite' on all
three advertisements you imported from Server1 to the Site code on Server2. |
'CAP offer inbox is not accessible or is locked' errors appearing in SMSAPM32.LOG |
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I've noticed that Software Distribution has ground to a halt on some of my clients. When I look in the SMSAPM32.LOG I see the following errors:
In SP2, Inbox Manager can create an 'Inboxlck.tok'
file that effectively locks a CAP from being accessed by clients whilst Inbox
Manager updates it. There are occasions where Inbox Manager doesn't remove this
lock file if it is unable to complete a file copy operation. This causes the CAP
to remain locked and clients cannot access it (hence the error message). |
Client hard drives run out of disk space when distributing Norton definition updates |
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I've been distributing Norton definition
updates using SMS for 5 months, always the same procedure. Today I have this
problem at only one of my child sites and on only a few PC's. 1500 ran, 9 at
this one site had a temp folder created at time of the advert called
'viruscan.zip' and the size grew till the drive ran out of space. I can't dream up any scenario where SMS would actually do this. The program was the '0926i32.exe' shipped by Symantec, it's only about 4.5 meg total when its unzipped. I'm thinking the sarc Updater for some reason when it started extracting the .DAT files just went out to lunch. Rebooting the workstation seemed to stop this. Once we saw
the zip continue to grow we just killed the SMS Client service, and deleted the
file. Made sure the disk space went back to free, reset the service to automatic
and rebooted. I then ran the same SMS package from the DP manually and it ran
fine. 'Situation: You are running one of the Virus Definition Update
Installers from a network location. The updater never seems to stop running and
eventually you start seeing messages that the hard drive is out of space.
Eventually the system stops responding, and you must reboot. You find a
Virscan.zip file in the 'Temp' folder that has grown to fill what was formerly
free disk space.' |
Clients outside of a Collection receive an Advertised Program |
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I have problems with SP1 clients receiving advertisements that aren't in the targeted Collection? In SP1 clients may receive advertisements not intended for them as the instruction file on the CAP is re-used and the local lookup file on the client still has a reference to that same instruction file from the previous advertisement. The workaround is to delete that lookup file via the login script, so that it takes an up-to-date one from the CAP every time the user logs on. This problem is resolved in SP2. Details of this problem can be found in
Knowledge Base article
243171
'SMS:
Advertisements Are Received by Clients Outside the Targeted Collection'. |
Corrupt SYSTEM.LKP file |
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Does anyone know from where the
data in
'<site_code>SYSTEM.LKP'
is obtained? I have a corrupt lookup file having duplicate
'.INS'
values for distinct GUID's resulting in
offers going to clients outside the targeted collection. I'm hoping someone can
tell me the details on the populating of the
'.LKP'
(where does Offer Manager obtain info as
to '.INS' file?) and generation of
'.OFR'
and
'.INS'
files. The Software Distribution flowchart
in BORK is good but too general.
Offer manager does indeed create that file and administer it. The
'.LKP' file is the lookup file. Offer data
providers on the client check that file for their respective GUIDs. If they see
it, they are pointed to an INS file that should instruct them on software to
install. INS files should indeed be unique for each client. I had mine get all
hosed once too, I remember deleting it was a bad thing - renaming it is probably
a better idea then hopefully it will recreate itself. |
'Could not write value key' error when running Visio2000.msi |
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I am trying to write an unattended install
for Visio 2000 sr1 (Select CD October 2000) on Win 95 devices and keep receiving
the following error when I run the Visio2000.msi file: Error 1406: Could not write value to key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Visio\6.0\Registration\ You need to elevate the privilege. If you're using a Windows Installer scripting product (like Wise), there is an option built in to do this. Otherwise, you'll need to elevate the privileges before-hand. Here's something that will do it: |
Creating a Package to add all Local Admins to the SMS database |
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I would like to create a package that
places all the Local admins in the SMSdatabase. How about using: NET VIEW LOCALGROUP Administrators This will give you miscellaneous information on the local
Administrators group, part of which is the membership. Pipe the output to a text
file, pull the data into SMS Installer to parse it, and then dump it into a
NOIDMIF file. |
Disabling the countdown message when SMS installs software |
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I am distributing software and would like to
not get the count down message when it installs software. To eliminate the countdown dialog go into the
site's 'Site Settings | Client Agents | Advertised Programs Client Agent |
Notification' tab. Most of us turn off all except
the very bottom setting 'Show status icon on taskbar or desktop for all system
activity'. |
Distributing WinInstall packages with SMS |
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There are a number of different ways to achieve this:
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DP Permissions in a Single Master Domain |
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I know (as finally documented in the Security
Essentials white paper on SP2 CD), that if I setup a CAP in the Resource
Domain, I need to give my Accounts Domain\Domain Users group access to
the CAP.
My
experience has been that you need to use the Access Accounts within the packages
themselves, and add 'domain\everyone' or
'domain\domain users' or whatever group
with read permissions. If you apply
permissions to the DP subdirectories, the individual package subdirectories are still
pushed with the specific permissions from the Access Accounts section. If you rely on the NT client software
account, it works just fine for NT users (when packages are configured to use
that account), but it doesn't work for Win9x users - they seem to access the
package shares using their own account. |
Error - Cannot connect to the Advertised Program Server |
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When a client tries to run the the Advertised programs from Control Panel they get the above error message. Two things to look at:
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Exception error raised in 'Available Programs Manager' |
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I've been receiving an error, 'An
exception was raised in the application 'Available Programs Manager (APM)',
thread 0x291 (Listen Thread)~' in the
SMSAPM32.LOG in certain clients.
These clients have not been installing any advertised packages for the past few
weeks. They receive the advertisements, but do not get to execute them. The only
common thread among these clients is that they all have DB2 installed. I've tried de-installing & re-installing the client, and re-installing NT4 SP6A, but neither helps in getting the client to execute advertised packages. The same error keeps occurring in SMSAPM32.LOG. It's a known problem as
documented in Microsoft Knowledge
Base article
271556 'SMS: Advertisements to Users or Groups Are Not Sent If IBM DB2 Is
Installed'. If you disable the DB2 perfcounters via
'db2perfi.exe -U' it will solve the problem, although there will of course be no
DB2 perf counters. The problem itself is something to do with how the DB2
perfcounters are implemented. |
'Failed to connect to the Advertised Program Server' |
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Out of 10 Advertisements today, three failed
with this error. The advertisement has reached the client PC and can be seen in
the APM, but the AP icon in control panel is ran, it reports the error 'Failed to connect to the Advertised Program Server.' We run SP2,
clients are on the latest version. If you look at the 'SMSMON32.LOG', it will probably show the same basic error. Here's what is supposed to happen for an NT workstation client:
So, you should be able to check a machine and see these four processes executing (when a client is logged on and everything is working): CLISVCL, SMSAPM32, LAUNCH32, and SMSMON32. To troubleshoot the error, you need to figure out what is wrong with SMSAPM32:
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GUID error - 'machine xxxxxxxx doesn't have a GUID or SMSID, it won't get any offers' |
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Uninstalling/ re-installing the client doesn't resolve this problem. Try removing/ re-adding the computer to the domain. |
How can I easily tell which package corresponds to which package ID? |
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Is there an easy way to find out which package corresponds to which package ID? Two ways to do this: i) Using SQL Query Analyzer run the following command against the 'sms_<site_code>' database:
The results are displayed in the following format:
ii) Using SMS Site Properties Manager (SMSSPMAN.EXE)
connect to the relevant Site Server and expand the 'Packages' tree item. A list of Package
Names and Package IDs is then displayed. |
How can I run a Package again? |
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Several options here:
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How stealthily can adverts be to a Win 9x client? |
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Just how little user awareness can there be with an assigned program to a WIN9x client? That would depend on what you are trying to accomplish, I
have sent out totally silent packages that have done things from changing where
a shortcut points to registry changes. As far as awareness, that would depend
how your Advertised Programs Client is configured. For example, if you turned
off all notification items, the only indication anyone would have would be hard
drive activity. |
How to Handle Non-Zero Exit Codes |
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From the microsoft.public.sms.admin
newsgroup |
Installation Aborts with Error /sms Switch is Not Supported |
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Contributed
By: Cliff Hobbs [MVP SMS] |
Is it possible to write a query to show machines that have received an Advertisement but haven't started it? |
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I would like to write a query to build a
collection of machines that have received an Advertisement, but have not started
it. Can anyone help with this. I cannot seem to find a table in the SMS database
with the information I am looking for. I'm obviously looking in the wrong place.
I recall this was easier to accomplish in SMS 1.2, but I'm still trying to learn
about 2.0. A couple of options here:
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Is it True that it Can Take up to 24 Hours Just to Advertise a Package? |
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Contributed By: Charles Clarke [MVP SMS] |
Is there a quick way to 'ping' the members of a Collection to make sure they're on? |
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We have collections setup corresponding with
areas covered by certain support tech's. They manage their distribution needs
and days, etc. we run our distributions at night and therefore we need all the
systems in a particular collection to be turned on and accessible when the time
comes. I am looking for some utility (or do up my own) that will ping all collection members to see if they are available. Anyone seen something like this? Several options here:
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Is there a quick way to refresh a DP? |
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One of my servers had the drive that hosted
the DP replaced over the weekend. Does anyone know of a quick way of telling SMS
to Refresh the DP with all of the packages that should be on that drive?
Contributed
By: Cliff Hobbs [MVP SMS] |
Kicking off APM from a script |
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I need to kick off the SMS component that
goes and checks for programs advertised to the USER. I believe it is
ODPUSER32.exe. How can I kick this off? Through SMSAPM32? I am supporting a
desktop rollout, and as the techs logon the 98 machine (after the user logs on
and gets their software pushed to them), it is sometimes taking up to the 60
minute time set in advertised programs before they can access the list of all
the software that is advertised to their user group. Often I can have them
reboot the machine and when it comes up it will go out and check, but this does
not always seem to work. I need to create a script that they can run when they
log on that will force SMS to go out and check for software advertised to them. Would either: setevnt /q SMSAPM32_STARTCYCLE or setevnt /q SMSMON32_STARTCYCLE do this? or should I try: cliutils /start SMSAPM32 or cliutils /start SMSMON32 (I get an error #1011 when I try the cliutils command - any ideas?)
Contributed
By: Phil Wilcock
/KICK
<Registered Name>. KICK signals the STARTCYCLE event for the client
component. Components used with KICK are client processes that run on a
schedule. Registered Names:
Certain SMS components only accept certain commands for
example to get CCIM (Client Configuration Installation Manager) to wake up and
check its configuration, you would use:
The registered name of components are stored in the
registry under: |
Kill.exe for Windows 95 clients |
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I am using Kill.exe to terminate an app through my installer script, prior to upgrading it on the clients. I used '%INST%\kill.exe -f (process name)'. It works great on NT and 2000 but 9x bombs about failing on a to lower function within 'NTDLL.DLL'. I have used four different versions of 'Kill.exe' and it's the same with each. Anyone know how to get this to work with 9x, I figured if I used the one from the 'Clicln.bat' it would work but it just errors? You can use the version available in the Windows 98 Resource Kit or use 'Kill95.exe' available from: |
Load balancing Distribution Points |
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If I have 3 Distribution Points in one site
and send an Advertisement to 100 clients, does SMS automatically balance the
load on the servers? Does anyone know of any documentation on this topic? SMS does not load balance between DPs. In a test, 10 out of 11 clients went to the same DP. Clients use the UNC paths to resolve the DPs in a 'first response' act sort of like DHCP. You will need to use a tool such as PrefServ or SetSMSVR to control which DP a client uses. You could create Collections to advertise software and make sure the only DPs with the software are the ones you want those clients to install from. To specify a preferred server on a client computer, follow these steps:
The following Q articles provide more information on this subject: |
Load balancing Software Distributions |
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Has anyone implemented any kind of
'load
balancing' scheme when distributing software? We do a lot of our pushes
overnight and have noticed that the clients are installing software at the exact
same time. We only have one distribution point per site and some sites
have 200 clients. We are going to be pushing IE 5 and I don't want 200 machines
connecting to the only distribution point and pulling 40MB each. We have a very
small time slot overnight so we offer the advertisement and make it mandatory
for the same time. (so the user doesn't even see the icon in the sys tray) This
causes all installs to happen exactly at the mandatory time. By default all SMS clients access Distribution Point(s) at the same time, which can flood the network and cause the advert to fail on some clients. You have a couple of options:
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Mandatory Program showing as Received by Clients but not Running |
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I have just finished completing the roll-out
of SMS 2.0 SP 2 for a network of about 200 remotely located and geographically
widespread Windows NT 4 workstations. They are all on the same NT domain and are
all part of a single SMS Site. I have just begun the first package creation and
advertisement to collections of workstations in several offices. In one particular office the advertised program shows that it has been received by all machines in that collection but the program (which is advertised as AUTOMATED and Assigned as mandatory) is not running. I checked two of the machines at the remote office by using remote control via PC Anywhere and the program does not show up in the Advertised Program Manager or Monitor. I have made sure that the local time settings are correct and that the program being advertised is not DISABLED. I am at a complete loss to figure out why the advertisement is showing it has been received by all workstations in the collection by their NetBIOS Name but the program does not show up on the client to be run. Any ideas? It turns out that if you have an advertisement
set as ASSIGNED and you have the check box selected for the program that reads 'Assigned programs not mandatory on Slow Network Links' checked, and
the WAN link from the Site Server to the collection of machines is a slow
network link, then the programs will not show up in the Advertised Programs
Manager. Obviously the network link I have to that particular office is slower
than the other two that did work. |
Message ID 10003 with an SMS 170 error message when Distributing a Package |
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Can someone lend some insight as to why I
would get a message ID 10003 with an SMS 170 error message when distributing a
package and how to resolve it? I'm distributing an IE package (using a UNC to
the distribution point) and 50% of the systems in an advertisement get the
message, while the others install the package successfully. On the systems that
fail, there is an entry in 'c:\winnt\ms\sms\clicomp\apa\data\complete'
for the
failed advertisement. First check the SMS user
accounts to make sure they aren't locked out. In one particular case stopping the McAfee services,
setting them to manual, sending the Advert and then re-starting the McAfee
services cured this problem. |
Package doesn't arrive at Distribution Point |
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After running through the 'Distribute Software Wizard' and specifying the distribution servers to put the packages on, the package never gets there. However, the .PKN file does gets created in:
But the compression doesn't take place and no status messages are generated? Try stopping and starting the 'SMS_Executive'
service. If this doesn't work and the package status is showing as 'Pending' try a
reboot. Page 561 onwards in the
SMS Resource Guide should help in
troubleshooting this problem. |
Package doesn't run for all users that logon |
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We have several machines that are used by many users. I'm finding that some packages only run for the first user that logs onto the machine and not all users. Anyone know why? This is a setting from the 'Advanced'
tab of the 'Properties'
tab for the Program that makes up your package. By default the setting is 'Run once for first user who logs on'
- the first person to logon onto the computer runs the program. Change this
setting to 'Run once for every user who logs on' if you want to run the program
for every user that logs onto the computer. |
Package Share changes drive |
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The default package share 'SMSPKGD$' on two of
our servers has switched to the C: drive automatically creating a
'SMSPKGC$'
share. This happened with over 2.5 GBs still free on a 9 GB D: drive. Can anyone
tell me the cutoff for free space that a Site Server will use to change drives?
Or, how can I tell a Site Server (our Site Servers and DPs are
one and the same), to use a specific drive no matter the available space?
Contributed
By: Cliff Hobbs [MVP SMS] To setup a Distribution Point:
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"Preferred sender for package xxx has a unknown type, cannot convert it to an address type." |
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Contributed By: Carl Sullivan
[MSFT] If you’re seeing this error in Distmgr.log it’s not a major problem... [Go to article] |
Package/Advert never arrives at Clients after upgrade from SMS 1.2 SP4 to SMS 2 SP2 |
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I upgraded from SMS 1.2 SP4 to SMS 2.0 SP2. I enabled Software Distribution to Clients and set up the Remote Tools Client Agent. The problem is Advertisements. When I create a Package and advertise it, it never gets to the client. The package gets successfully created, and I get no errors. With 1.2, we used Package Command Manager as a service. What is the trick to doing unattended packages in 2.0? Sounds like you either didn't specify any Distribution
Points for your package, or the package has not successfully been installed on
any DPs. You may create the advertisement, however SMS will not
create the advertisement files on the CAP until the package has reached at least
one DP.
If these two logs aren't present, look at the
'Clicore.log'
or 'CCIM32.log' to see why those components were not installed properly. |
Problem with the order clients run Mandatory Advertisements |
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I have a problem in the ORDER that my clients
run mandatory advertisements. We need to deploy 2 'largish' packages - IE5 and
SAP (both run in 'Whether or not a user is logged on' mode).
When the advertisements arrive at the client it seems that the SAP one runs
first (even although it was created and submitted later than the IE5 one!) The
problem is that the SAP package cannot run on a non-IE5 machine! Anybody got any ideas how to ensure the IE5 one runs first? I don't want to include a 'Run another program first' object in the SAP package because I need to be able to deploy IE5 and SAP separately? Create a Query for machines with IE5 and then a
Query for
machines without IE5 as a subselect of first. Then create a Collection using the
last Query and defined an Advertisement on this Collection for IE5. Then create
a Query for machines with SAP 46B and then a Query for machines without SAP 46B
as a subselect of first. |
Problems with Courier Sender de-compressing Packages at Grandchild sites |
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Are any of you folks using Courier Sender to
distribute packages? If so, do you send from a Parent site to a Grandchild
site? I can distribute from Parent -> Child in our lab without problems. When I import a package addressed form Parent -> Grandchild site, at the Grandchild site the compressed source file ('.PCK') gets put in the 'SMSPKG' directory but it never gets decompressed to the 'SMSPKGx$' share. PSS has confirmed this behaviour as a bug. Watch this space
for updates on this problem. |
Silent install for MDAC 2.51 |
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I'm trying to work out the silent command line for MDAC 2.51 but am having a problem. I've uncompressed the MDAC_TYP.exe file using \C \T:<pathname>. Now I want to run setup.exe quietly and am trying to use \QNT like I did for MDAC 2.12 but the problem is that a bunch of files get dumped into my installdir instead of using the local client. This can't be correct. Anyone know how to execute setup.exe for this version of MDAC so the files get placed correctly? Even if you run setup without a command line the files get dumped on the installdir. Is there anyway to redirect these files to the clients local tempdir? Run it like this: <-----------cut below here-----------> If you run it like this it will extract itself first and
then automatically install. No need for two different commands. You don't need
to bother with SMS Installer to do this, simply put the parameters into a
program. |
SMS 2.0 Clients Not Getting Advertisements After Being Built |
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Contributed By: Rod Trent [MVP SMS],
Wally Mead [MS] and John
Griffin |
Software Distribution MIF File Format |
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Contributed
By: Cliff Hobbs [MVP SMS] |
Some clients run an advert okay whereas others don't |
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I distribute an Advertisement to a group of 30 clients. All 30 clients receive the Advertisement (10002). Twenty-Five Clients start the program (10005). What would be the most logical reason the 5 clients did not start the program (10005)? Several things to check:
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Tip For Using the Browse Button When Specifying a Collection As The Target for a Software Distribution |
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Contributed
By: Cliff Hobbs [MVP SMS] |
UNC error for advertised program |
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I get the following errors for a lot of
machines when deploying Lotus Notes using their installer. Program started for advertisement "M012011F" ("Notes" - 'Typical'). Command line: C:\WINNT\install.exe /a instnot.rsp Working directory: C:\WINNT\MS\SMS\clicomp\apa\Bin\ An error occurred while preparing to run the program for advertisement "M012011F" ("Notes" - "Typical"). The operating system reported error 2: The system cannot find the file specified. Additional program properties: Command line: install.exe /a instnot.rsp Working directory: C:\WINNT\MS\SMS\clicomp\apa\Bin\ Drive letter (? = any): UNC Possible cause: This message most commonly occurs when the program's command-line executable file could not be found, when a required drive letter connection to a distribution point could not be established, or when the program is configured to use the Windows NT Client Software Installation Account but the account is not specified, could not be found, or does not have the appropriate permissions. Solution: Check each of the items listed above. The package is set to run with the client's account and with user input. The clients have rights to install software on their machines. The problem is that it can't find the install program. Does anyone know why? I set the package to use UNC instead of a drive letter. It works for some machines but fails for many. It works fine if you run it manually from the UNC. Why is it trying to find it in the "WINNT" directory instead of "\\server\smspkg$\"? In this particular case the problem was due to the fact that the package was updated but SMS didn't update
properly because it didn't have access to the share (people were probably using
it). By disconnecting everyone from the distribution servers and forcing another
package refresh things are ok.
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Using NetWare Servers as Package Source Directory |
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We have several packages like PeopleSoft
HR, running in three tier mode from Novell servers. The files are available to
the users and everything is running fine when we run the install manually. We
have created a package to install through SMS and when this package runs on an
NT4 SP6, Client 4.80 Novell client, there is an error 'unable to find the
file'. After two days of troubleshooting, we found the problem but not the solution. It seems when you run a package with admin rights needed, SMS clients execute this package in a command DOS box and this DOS box is not logged into Netware. If we execute login in a DOS box launched by SMS, then close this box and run the package, it's okay. Our configuration is SMS 2,SP2 , 1500 clients, all CAPs, DPs, and sites are on Windows 2000 servers and there is no IPX/SPX loaded on any SMS servers. Finally solved the problem. The programs in the package were selected to 'Run with admin rights' and as this option uses the SMSCliToknAcct& to logon when running, the access to the share on the Novell server was lost. We solved the problem by:
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What's the difference between the SMSPKG and SMSPKG<drive_letter> directories? |
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What's the difference between the
'SMSPKG'
directory that contains the compressed
.PCK
files and the 'SMSPKG <drive_letter>$'
directory that contains the expanded package files? Should I see both on my DPs
or only one or the other? The 'SMSPKG' directory should only exist on your Site
Servers - this is the directory where SMS stores the compressed copy of your
packages. The .PCK file should have a package ID in front of it signifying what
package it is. |
Where can I get a copy of Windows Installer from? |
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Windows Installer, the Microsoft service? Or, Windows
Installer, the Veritas product? Veritas Windows Installer LE comes on the Win2k CD. The Windows Installer service updates are here:
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Which log shows when a client is doing its lookup for a software package? |
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Contributed
By: Cliff Hobbs [MVP SMS] |
Windows 95 clients run Mandatory Advertisements at different times |
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I schedule a mandatory advertisement for 6:00
am. Users log into their PC at 8:00 am. Some of the clients receive the
mandatory assignment right at log in. While others it may take a couple of
minutes - 45 minutes before they see the advertised program. I am running SMS
2.0 SP2 on Novell 3.12 servers with Windows 95 clients. I am using the latest
Novell client. Any ideas? This problem is due to the polling interval of the Offer
Data Providers. This is set by default at 60 minutes. When you advertise a
package overnight a Windows 9x machine that is simply turned on but not logged
in doesn't have network access with no user context, hence the ODPs can't check
the CAP for new advertisements. When your users log in, the ODPs can now check
the CAPs and will check on their next polling cycle. Not all clients poll on the
same cycle, hence your installations are spread out. |
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