After XP OS deployment command "wmic exit" hangs

Created: 03 Jan 2013 | Updated: 07 Jan 2013

After OS deployment with Altiris I run some batch files one of the batch file has to do some wmic commands and I run:

WMIC EXIT

in order to start the wmic install before executing the commands.

If I deploy with my old setup Remote Installation Services this runs just fine if I deploy with Altiris using deployanywhere it hangs at this command.

Does anyone know why or what I can do about this?

Update: (moved from deployment solution forum to SMP because this is an issue with the Agent)

I have found that this issue happens because the altiris agent is installed during deployment. If I stop deployment prevent altiris agent from installing I do not have this problem. If I uninstall the altiris agent I do not have this problem. It is not related to any of the plugins as I have tested this also. This started after MP1 update I believe.

Comments

Jan

2013

Ok found the real issue with

Ok found the real issue with tons of testing and help from Thomas Baird (Thanks Tom):

ok I take back what I said it is not the agent itself but a line of code I ran before the wmic commands.

This query fails the wmic commands later on:
SC query AeXNSClient | FIND "STATE" | FIND "RUNNING" >> c:\RISlog\Deployment.log 2>&1

When I Uninstalled the agent a precheck for the agent prevents the above command from running. Running the command against a different service produces the same hanging result. So what we found is it is due to the logging of that command.

remove "2>&1" from the SC command and wmic does not hang later.

So here is test code that fails:

SC query AeXNSClient | FIND "STATE" | FIND "RUNNING" >> c:\RISlog\Deployment.log 2>&1
WMIC EXIT >> c:\RISlog\Deployment.log 2>&1
wmic ComputerSystem Get model >> c:\RISlog\Deployment.log
end

This commands works:

SC query AeXNSClient | FIND "STATE" | FIND "RUNNING" >> c:\RISlog\Deployment.log
WMIC EXIT >> c:\RISlog\Deployment.log 2>&1
wmic ComputerSystem Get model >> c:\RISlog\Deployment.log
end

Hopefully this can help someone else!!! If anyone has an explanation I would sure be interested!