Client Management Suite

First of all yes I know its bad we're still using XP machines but thats out of my control.  I'm wandering is it possible to not use a patch mgmt license for XP machines since they don't get patches anymore?  Its a waste of a licenses and I could use them for other machines.  I don't want to uninstall the Altiris agent, just not use the patch mgmt peice of it.  Is that possible?

Thanks!

Hi,

of course this is possible. The patch management agent is just a plugin and can be uninstalled separately. Just create an uninstallation policy with the XP machines as a target.

Have a look for the default policies in Settings --> All Settings --> Agents/Plug-ins --> Software --> Patch Management --> Windows

Just make a clone of the existing policy and customize it for your needs.

Regards

MD

Thanks for the reply.  You're talking about the software update plug-in then?  Thats exactly what I was thinking.  However I tried and it didn't uninstall.  I've got an uninstall policy just targeted at XP machines.  The target is correct as I see the right count of XP machines.  However it doesn't seem to uninstall.  I've turned off the software install and upgrade plugins so its not that.  I'm going to give it another try and see what happens.  If you have an ideas why it may not be working let me know.

Thanks!

Hi,

are the clients receiving the new policy? What is the schedule for this policy? Implement a repeating schedule and not only let it run once asap. Did you cloned the default one?

Regards

MD

Ok, I believe I've got the uninstall policy working now.  I see 100+ machines showing they don't have the software plugin installed.  Must have been a schedule issue.  However when I go look the licensing for the Altiris Patch mgmt solution that number has not went down one bit.  That was my main goal to recoup those licenses.  Any ideas there?

Thanks!

Hi,

please refer to the following article for this issue: https://support.symantec.com/en_US/article.HOWTO59456.html

Regards

MD

Here are some reports to verify the numbers if you need: https://support.symantec.com/en_US/article.TECH13965.html

Do you need the history of those machines? If not just delete or retire them, run the task 'NS.Internal Licensing Refresh Item' before they start checking back in, then allow them to trickle back in or unretire them.

Ok so even though I have uninstalled the software agent that alone will not recoupe the license.  History don't matter to me so I will go ahead and delete those machines and allow them to check back in.  Hopefully that will be the final step.

Thanks.

Just an FYI to you or anyone else that may trying to do this.  You'll have to enter a support ticket to do this period.  Basically we found that it is a bug.  Altiris does not release these licenses as it should when deleted or retired.  Its crazy complicated!  Just to summarize, along with deleting the machines you must also prevent the software update plug-in from deploying back to those machines.  You must also make sure the assesment scan does not run on those machines anymore.  They also had to run various custom SQL queries to delete licensing records for these machines.  As you can see it took over a month working with support to finally get this done so I can't even begin to explain everything we did!  But at least they should now have record of what needs to be done to fix it.