Client Management Suite

*** I'm very new to Altiris.  SP2 was what we stood up initially in my environment.  ***

I recently upgraded my NS (and child NS) to NS7SP2MR1.  Since then, it seems that the software update tab has been blank on all the clients.  Everything appears normal on the client on the NS itself.  I'm not really sure how to troubleshoot this and can only find KB articles regarding NS6.  Any ideas where I can start to troubleshoot this?

Hi Zac!
To start trouleshooting please make sure yiou get ANY policies for the Software Update Agent at all.
Please follow the following steps in cmd to verify that
1) cd "c:\Program Files\Altiris\Altiris Agent"
2) regsvr32 AeXAgentDiagnostics.dll

After running 1& 2 you'll see the "Diagnostics" entry on the context menu (right click) of the Altiris Agent icon in the system tray
Select Diagnostics-> Policy Viewer. Then choose "Altiris Software Update Agent" in the "Agent " dropdown list
Do you see any policies there.? If "yes" then what are their names?
Depending on the answer we will troubleshoot further
Good luck!

P.S.
I am wondering whether you observe the same phenomena on ALL client machines in your environment or only on concrete clients

Okay, first a newbie moment...

I have the systray icon disabled, so I'm not sure how I can get to the diagnostics screen.  Is there some easy trick to unhide the icon?

And I just spot checked a few more workstations.  Every machine I checked had Software Updates blank, except for one.  So it isn't EVERY machine.  Not sure if that's good or bad...

Hi Zac,

You can use the vbscript described in KB 3661 (https://kb.altiris.com/article.asp?article=3661&p=1) to access the diagnostics screen when the agent icon is hidden.

For convenience, here is a copy / paste of the script:

dim client
set client = CreateObject ( "Altiris.AeXClient" )

dim sessmgr
set sessmgr = client.SessionManager

'Client Diagnostics
sessmgr.ActivateObject ( "{E8B8B9D4-A461-4E19-9F14-B72E5110F631}" )

'Network Diagnostics
sessmgr.ActivateObject ( "{1D588FDC-D1DA-40DD-99F7-D43D161F043E}" )

'Power Management
sessmgr.ActivateObject ( "{2C71C589-25C8-4D5B-8FD2-68B376566601}" )

Hi Zac,

Please check that all of your Software Update Plug-ins are also upgraded to the MR1 version (4210). If not this is probably the reason why the policies are not delivered to the client. Software Update Plug-in Upgrade policy is located under Settings -> Agents/Plug-ins -> Software -> Patch Management -> Windows.

I hope that will resolve your problem.