Symantec Management Platform (Notification Server)

OK. I'm using NS 6.0.6074 (SP 3 + R8) which I know is old. We're going to NS7 or SCCM some time this year, but for now, I'm stuck with what we've got and need to push out SEP11 to replace SAV 10 in the next week or so.

My problem is that I just can't get the inventory updated, so my report on machines with SAV10 isn't working on my test machine (on which I have had SEP11, but which now has SAV10 again). I keep clicking "Update Configuration" and "Send Basic Inventory" on the client, but my collection is still returning true for a query of machines with SEP11 when my machine most definitely no longer has it. The resource manager for the machine showing up in the results has the following under Altiris Agent Details:

First Discovered:	22/01/2009 12:24:21 PM
Last Configuration Request:	18/02/2010 1:21:28 PM
Last Inventory Received:	18/02/2010 1:19:07 PM
Last Event Received:	18/02/2010 1:19:07 PM

But it's still showing old software. What do I need to do to get it to update? I've also tried a query using the Inv_AeX_OS_Add_Remove_Programs table, which I've ready might be more current, but it doesn't even show ANY version of Symantec products whatsoever, even though the client PC itself would like to disagree!

it is reported by the inventory scan for software, or the full inventory scan (both from inventory solution). The Operating System (including add\remove programs) is reported by the hardware scan, again part of inventory solution. So, what is your schedule set for inventory solution?

You might want to add a periodic /cleanbeforerun switch on one of your scans.

Sometimes an inventory gets sent by the PC, but for whatever reason, gets kicked by the NS.  Unfortunately, the PC never finds out that the data was rejected.  Thereafter, each scan compares its results to the last data sent (which had been rejected), and if there is no change, it does not resend.

The /cleanbeforerun cleans out the "old" data that the PC has already sent, forcing it to send all data.  The nice thing is, if you run a monthly hardware scan and a weekly SW Audit, then if you put the /cleanbeforerun on the hardware, the next time the SWAudit runs after the hardware, it will send (because it cleans out without regard to which scan generated the historical data).

When you go into the "Invnetory" tab on Resource Explorer, and drill into the A/RP data, hit the "Status" tab above the data table.  It will show when data was first received, last received, and last changed for that data table specifically.

by the 'full' inventory scan. There have been some known issues, depending on what version of Inventory Solution that you are running, on reporting correct versions of anti-virus. This was fixed in SP3 of Inventory 6.1 (see Altiris KB34199) and also affected the 6.5 webpart (see Altiris KB45469). However, you may need to still modify the reports as listed to properly report versions you don't see.

One thing we have implemented in most of our packages is a VBScript "wrapper" (a basic version I posted here) that allows you to run an inventory task after the job completes.  You could modify this to explicitly delete the C:\Program Files\Altiris\eXpress\Inventory\AeX OS Add Remove Programs.bak file, then execute one of the software inventory tasks (we have a fully customized inventory, so I'm not sure which of the defaults would be most appropriate without running a full software audit with AuditPlus).  To achieve this, we have a "Sub" procedure in each VBScript that we call right before the script exits which triggers our "Daily Hardware Inventory (WKS)" task:

Sub RunDailyMachineInventory
     On Error Resume Next
     ' First try to delete the old A/RP inventory file
     oFSO.DeleteFile " C:\Program Files\Altiris\eXpress\Inventory\AeX OS Add Remove Programs.bak", True
     Dim oAltiris, oAeXSWDAgent
     Set oAltiris = CreateObject("Altiris.AeXNSClient")
     Set oAeXSWDAgent = oAltiris.ClientPolicyMgr.ClientAgent("Altiris.SWD")
     oAeXSWDAgent.RunAdvertisement "{3F32516F-1B80-4689-998F-827DC3FB653D}", 0
     oAltiris.SendBasicInventory True, True
     oAltiris.UpdatePolicies True
     Set oAeXSWDAgent = Nothing
     Set oAltiris = Nothing
End Sub

You would need to substitute the appropriate Advertisement GUID for the one in my example since it is unique to our environment.  What will happen then is as soon as the machine finishes the SEP install task, it will kick off that inventory job.

Hmm. thanks all for the responses. I'll look into it now then come back and mark the appropriate solution.

Seems we have quite a few tasks underneath Tasks, Assets and Inventory. I found an Inventory Agent Package that's doing the following every 15 days:

AeXInvSoln.exe /cleanbeforerun /hidden /s AeXInvSolnAdm2.ini

the INI file contains:

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

What I've done is create another SWD to run this job on my testing machine At Logon so that I can at least get somewhere before pushing things out further. I'll probably tell my SEP11 install task to run every 20 days, so that successful installs have time to disappear out of the collection before any retries (if there are some failures).

Thanks.

Hi KSchroeder, do you know how to do this in Altiris Agent 7?

A. Sun:
No, I don't.  My usage of NS7 has been quite limited so far.  I suggest opening a new thread to address your issue, and I would advise you to link back to this thread.  I think you would want to create a custom Inventory Task and run that against the machines you're interested in.  I would expect that the same "RunAdvertisement" method used in the NS6 agent could work in the NS7 agent (given the proper advertisement GUID), but I haven't tried it.