Seeing that many are goggling on this site for how to troubleshoot Configuration Manager deployment in one or many forms, I decided to write a post of the common toolkit that you can download which can be used in many cases (and make it easier) to troubleshoot within Configuration Manager. Now in many cases there is a log file, which in many cases will tell you what the problem is if you have any, but looking through all the text files is not always as easy.
But always remember that on the Configuration Manager media you have CMtrace. Under SMSSETUP à Tools.
This will be your best friend when troubleshooting in log files (Both on the client and the server)
It updates in real-time therefore it is easy to follow what activities happen on the server. When you choose open log file it will automatically open a network destination to the Configmgr server and the log file.
And it will highlight error and warnings that appear.
In addition, with using filter abilities you can find the data you are looking for, and have multiple log files open at the same time.
However, let us head back to the Toolkit I actually spoke of (Which is a separate download from Microsoft, which can be downloaded here à
http://bit.ly/VBBAIP )
It Contains multiple tools.
System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Toolkit The Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Toolkit contains nine downloadable tools to help you manage and troubleshoot Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager. The following list provides specific information about each tool in the toolkit.
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Client Spy – A tool that helps you troubleshoot issues related to software distribution, inventory, and software metering on System Center 2012 Configuration Manager clients.
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Policy Spy – A policy viewer that helps you review and troubleshoot the policy system on System Center 2012 Configuration Manager clients.
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Security Configuration Wizard Template for Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager – The Security Configuration Wizard (SCW) is an attack-surface reduction tool for the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system. Security Configuration Wizard determines the minimum functionality required for a server’s role or roles, and disables functionality that is not required.
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Send Schedule Tool – A tool used to trigger a schedule on a client or trigger the evaluation of a specified DCM Baseline. You can trigger a schedule either locally or remotely.
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Power Viewer Tool – A tool to view the status of power management feature on System Center 2012 Configuration Manager clients.
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Deployment Monitoring Tool – The Deployment Monitoring Tool is a graphical user interface designed help troubleshoot Applications, Updates, and Baseline deployments on System Center 2012 Configuration Manager clients.
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Run Metering Summarization Tool – The purpose of this tool is to run the metering summarization task to analyze raw metering data
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Role-based Administration Modeling and Auditing Tool – This tool helps administrators to model and audit RBA configurations.
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License Tracking PowerShell Cmdlets – The PowerShell cmdlet “Get-ConfigMgrAccessLicense” is used to get license usage information for all the servers and clients within scope of System Center 2012 Configuration Manager. The cmdlet returns a list of licensable features and a list of unique users and devices per unique licensable feature.
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So let’s take a look.
Client Spy is a tool to check what Software distribution, inventory and metering is running on the client. It will get information from the registry and the local folders on the disk.
(So remember that Remote Registry service needs to run in order for it to function.
For instance, here I can see what Software Metering rules are running on the client. If we click Tools, we can choose from Distribution, Metering or Inventory.
Policy Spy, allows you to see what policies (agent settings) which have been deployed to the client. For instance, we can see what Endpoint protection policies the client currently has.
And we can also see Software Metering rules here as well ( since that is a policy rule )
The Security Configuration Template is for SCW which is a role that is designed to reduce the attack surface on a Windows Server OS. The template is installed in the installation path you choose when installing.
Note that this template does not work in WS2012 yet.
Send Schedule Tool allows to trigger for a specific baseline (DCM on a client) it is run in a cmd window.
Power Viewer Tool allows you to see Power policies on the client.
Deployment Monitoring Tool is another tool to monitor deployments on the clients.
And it shows all the options for the deployment.
Run Metering Summarization is just a command line tool to run summarization task to analyze raw metering data.And the Role Based Administration Modeling and authoring tool is a pretty cool one, it allows you to enumerate what access a user can get in the console.
And last but not least the PowerShell cmdlets, which allows to get license usage for the Configirmgr site (servers and clients)
First we have to import the module, then run the get-configmgraccesslicense command.
In addition, we have other third party tools (Right Click tools) is a popular release (which was recently updated) http://psrightclicktools.codeplex.com/ Which is a add-on that is installed as an add-on on the Console.
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