SMS: Resource Explorer Does Not Show Readable Format of Inventory Values

ID: Q200879

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Systems Management Server version 2.0

SYMPTOMS

Resource Explorer does not show text values of various inventory information on clients recorded by the Hardware Inventory agents.

For example, run Resource Explorer on Systems Management Server 2.0 Administrator console by expanding the Collections node, highlight any populated collection and right-click (or Action menu) on a client:

Go to the Hardware Inventory folder and double-click the Keyboard subfolder. The layout value displays as "00000409" instead of "English (United States)."

Go to the Hardware Inventory folder and double-click the Disk Partitions subfolder. The Bootable and Boot Partition values display as either "1" or "0" instead of Yes or No.

Systems Management Server providers should replace the results with the equivalent enumerated values. To do this, however, the server Managed Object Format (MOF) would have to be updated to include the various enumerations, and the Provider would have to make the relevant substitutions when passing this information to the Resource Explorer to be displayed.

These changes require additional infrastructure modifications which will not be provided in the initial release of Systems Management Server version 2.0. Support for this type of enumeration will be available in a future release.

MORE INFORMATION

Here's an example from the CIMWin32.mof :


class CIM_PointingDevice:CIM_UserDevice
{

        [read,
        Values {"Unknown", "Not Applicable", "Right Handed Operation",
        "Left Handed Operation"} ]
    uint16 Handedness;
        [read]
    uint8 NumberOfButtons;
        [read, ValueMap {"1", "2", "3",
        "4", "5", "6", "7", "8"} , Values {"Other", "Unknown", "Mouse",
        "Track Ball", "Track Point", "Glide Point", "Touch Pad", "Touch          Screen"
        } , MappingStrings {"MIF.DMTF|Pointing Device|001.1"} ]
    uint16 PointingType;
        [read]
    uint32 Resolution;

};

In this example, the integer values 0-3 reported for CIM_PointingDevice::Handedness by the hardware inventory agent, need to be substituted with "Unknown", "Not Applicable", "Right Handed Operation", or "Left Handed Operation" by the Systems Management Server Provider.

There is currently no mechanism for transferring the qualifiers in the CIMWin32.mof to the class definitions exposed in the Systems Management Server provider hence the Resource Explorer has no way of getting this information. If we added these qualifiers to the Sms_defs.mof file, it would then be possible to do this kind of transfer. Furthermore, changes are needed in the Systems Management Server to provide this type of transfer along with changes to the Resource Explorer to translate the qualifiers listed above in a way to turn integers into strings.

Additional query words: prodsms smsui SDK res expl RE

Keywords : kbSMS200 kbSMS200bug
Version : winnt:2.0
Platform : winnt
Issue type : kbprb