SMS: Remote Control Doesn't Connect to 16-Bit SMS Clients

• Microsoft Systems Management Server versions 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2

SYMPTOMS

Remote Control utilities and Remote Diagnostics will fail to connect to 16- bit SMS clients if the machine name contains extended characters. Extended characters are those beyond the first 127 in the ASCII character set.

NOTE: This problem does not occur on Windows NT clients.

CAUSE

When a client has extended characters in its name, it registers the name on the network as an OEM string. The Windows NT NetBIOS interface expects an ANSI string, and Sightnt.dll uses ANSI strings for remote control.

WORKAROUND

Change the machine name. NetBIOS names can contain characters between ASCII 33 and 126 inclusive except for the MS-DOS reserved characters such as the backward and forward slashes, braces ({}), the greater than and less than signs, and so forth.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Systems Management Server versions 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.