Symantec Management Platform (Notification Server)

I have what appear to be "abandoned" package directories on my clients.  A few weeks ago I installed a HP PSP on several of my servers.  I used a collection based on their current PSP version.  After the PSP is installed the machine is no longer a member of the collection, so the PSP install task is disabled.  In the package I set it to delete after 1 week.  It has now been over 2 weeks and the package is not deleted.  Normally I would not care, but the PSP package is rather large.  After investigating, it appears that there are several other "abandoned" packages.

I downloaded the VBScript that is found in AKB41600.  I then executed it and the script removed some directories, but not all (and not the PSP directory).

I also reviewed AKB45917 and it appears that some package advertisements do not have all of the entries.

Is there another method to remove unused package directories?

Also in AKB45917 there is an item called "cleanupAfter" with a value of 10080.  This translates to 7 days shown in minutes.  Is that a valid translation?

Thanks for the help.

If so, do you have the option checked "user can run"?

Some tasks are enabled.  In the case of the PSP, there are 2 tasks, the first is a "manual" task that allows manual install.  The second task is a scheduled task.  The first task is always enabled and the 2nd is enabled on Friday night and disabled on Saturday night.

I know this sounds weird, but our management requires any task that has a scheduled time and a reboot to be disabled until our maintenace window begins on Friday night.

On most of our tasks we do have the user can run option.

I know that if "user can run" is checked, the package is always considered 'in use' and will not be deleted on the 7th day, or whatever you have it set to. The disabled\enabling adds a bit of wrinkle to that line of thinking, but I think you'll find that is what it boils down to.

It is easy to disable that option.  Will it influence a machine that is no longer part of a collection that uses that package?

What about packages that might be associated with deleted tasks?  Could they hang around?

it's config file should be updated during it's next client update configuration, at which point it should become aware that it no longer needs that package. Now, if the task is deleted before a machine becomes aware, then you run into the messy situation of the 'item not found' errors. Additonally, in that situation, the clients 'may' indeed hold onto those package cache files, the same time they are screaming about the item not found.

I am not a big fan of having to enable/disable my tasks, but need to prevent accidental reboots during production caused by misconfigured tasks.

I look forward to Altiris 7.0's maintenace window option to help prevent that issue in the future.

the machine won't be out of the collection until the next inventory.  if I understand things correctly, it will then disable the job, because it no longer meets the criteria.  I use this type of critera often as it effective as it allows for things to come in and out of collections as they meet certain critera.

once it drops out of the collection, the machine still has to update it's configuration to know it no longer needs the task. However, I agree with  your assessment, and it certainly is way to address one of the shortcomings of v6 software delivery.

I agree that the machine needs to update to know about dropping out of the collection.

Once the collection changes and the machine updates, the task will be disabled.  It seems like this would match all of the criteria in AKB45917 and AKB41600.  However, the package is not deleted.  Since it is not being deleted, there must be something missing.  I have no idea what.

I know that I can setup a batch file to delete the PSP directory as this is the main culprit.  However, I am looking for something more elegant that will remove all of the dead directories, that the script in AKB41600 does not get.