After countless hours and many days of scratching my head and getting very little help from any forum, I decided to write this article about an error I had with the HP Client Manager implementation in my organization. My hope is to compile a troubleshooting guide that everyone can use to resolve various issues that they may encounter with the HP Client Manager.
All who use the Altiris-HP Client Management tool can see its great benefits. The problem I notice is that the documentation is lacking at best, and it is fairly difficult to find anyone to answer any support questions (without paying at least).
This document will explain an issue that came up in my environment after implementing the HP Client Agent onto my computer, and I hope to show the logic behind the solution and the ultimate resolution to the problem. You may not have experienced this problem, and you should count yourself fortunate for that. The problem seems to appear when using the HP Tool Update feature.
In our situation, the problem was first noticeable when users started receiving an HPAsset.exe error message when they first logged into their computers each day. I noticed that the HP Instant Support System Health Scan was running at 1:30AM every morning. I looked through the event viewer on the affected computers and noticed that the HPAsset.exe application errors were being logged at 1:32AM every morning. I temporarily turned off the scheduled HP Instant Support System Health Scan, and the errors in event viewer stopped.
I looked online for information that would cause this particular HPAsset.exe error, but I could not find any information that addressed the resolution, just some people that had received the error. Next, I decided to run the HP Tool Update Wizard to see if perhaps an HP Instant Support System Health Scan update was available that would eliminate this problem. I clicked on the wizard and received the following screen:
Once I selected the appropriate HP Tools to update (there are only two: HP Instant Support System Health Scan and HP System Software Manager (SSM)), I clicked "Next" and "Update" to download the updates for the tools I had selected.
Unfortunately, at 78% the download froze and I was unable to complete the install. I tried various things at this point to reset the Update Wizard but did not have any luck. I noticed in one of the Altiris forums that some other people were having a similar problem, but I did not see a resolution posted. I queried on the forum if anyone had any luck in resolving this issue. The response I received sent shivers down my spine. The person stated that he had uninstalled the Notification Server and Deployment Server from his server and rebuilt it from scratch. As much as I enjoy installing Altiris I decided that there had to be a better way.
To say that the documentation provided by the HP-Altiris alliance is lacking would be an understatement. There is absolutely no troubleshooting information whatsoever that could help you in resolving some of these issues. I went to several different Altiris sites (not all affiliated with Altiris) to look for information on where these temporary files are stored. I again had no luck in finding any more information on the HP Tool Update Wizard and where it stores its temporary files. I am sure there are people out there that know this information but unfortunately I do not. I was facing the reality that perhaps I would have to uninstall the Altiris Notification Server and reinstall.
I decided to uninstall the HP Client Manager first to see if this freed the HP Tool Update Wizard up so that it could continue downloading the required updates.
After I removed the HP Client Manager I then went through and reinstalled the HP Client Manager. (Note: Any configuration changes you make to the HP Client Manager will be reset back to the default installation settings after you do this!)
I then went through and configured my HP Client settings again and went back to the HP Tool Update Wizard. After uttering some prayers I clicked once again on the wizard and made my selections. This time to much delight the update went through fine, and time will tell if the HPAsset.exe error is gone for good.
I encourage everyone out there who encounters problems with their Altiris configuration to post their fixes on a site such as Juice. Altiris is an excellent product and is extensible and easy to use but the documentation for certain solutions definitely needs some work. I will hopefully be able to post more solutions to the HP-Altiris side of the house to allow others to benefit from this information.