Filtering AeXSNPlus Serial Numbers

It has been found that, on occassion, AeXSNPlus can return more than one serial number. One such case is when a laptop is plugged into a docking station and snplus captures one serial number for the laptop and a second for the docking station. It is possible for the docking station serial number to be incorrectly reported as the laptop's serial number.

A filter for aexsnplus.exe can be created to ensure the docking station serial number is excluded.

Suppose that the docking serial number begins with "00C0".

1. Create an ini file with the following contents and place it in the Inventory Solution package directory. By default, this is: C:\Program Files\Altiris\Notification Server\NSCap\Bin\Win32\X86\Inventory Solution. We'll assume that the ini file is named 'exclude_dockingstation.ini'.
   

   [VERSION INFO]
   Version=1
   [SNPatterns]
   DisallowedPattern1=00C0*
   
   

2. Modify the aexinvsoln*.ini file(s) that contains the applicable aexsnplus.exe command line.

   Before:

   aexauditpls.exe /hidden /output xml
   aexmachinv.exe
   aexcustinv.exe /in .\AeXCustInvStd.cit /out AeXCustInvStd.nsi
   aexsnplus.exe /output xml
   aexnsinvcollector.exe /hidden /nsctransport /v default /useguid
   
   

   After:

   aexauditpls.exe /hidden /output xml
   aexmachinv.exe
   aexcustinv.exe /in .\AeXCustInvStd.cit /out AeXCustInvStd.nsi
   aexsnplus.exe /output xml /ini exclude_dockingstation.ini
   aexnsinvcollector.exe /hidden /nsctransport /v default /useguid
   
   

3. Update package distribution points and allow client computers to update configuration. If aexsnplus.exe finds a serial number beginning with '00C0', it will be skipped. An attempt will be made to use an alternate serial number, if available.

Note the use of wildcards in the pattern match.

Note that multiple entries can be added to the snplus exclusion ini file:

[VERSION INFO]
Version=1
[SNPatterns]
DisallowedPattern1=00C0*
DisallowedPattern2=00D1*
DisallowedPattern3=00E2*
DisallowedPattern4=00F3*