System Center Essentials provides several ways to remotely manage computers, including:

• Computer Management MMC
• Remote Desktop
• Remote Assistance
• Tasks to show current information, such as process usage

Sometimes though what is wanted is just a remote command window without the overhead of opening a full remote desktop session.

The PsExec tool which is one of the SysInternals tools provides a way to open a remote command window without needing to install anything on the remote computer.

You can find out more about PsExec from:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897553.aspx

With psExec installed you can open a remote command prompt by calling it as follows:

If you have psExec installed on your computer with the Essentials console you can create a task in Essentials to open a remote command window from within Essentials.

To create this task:

1. Go to the Authoring workspace
2. In the navigation pane on the left hand side, expand Management Pack Objects and select Tasks
3. From the Tasks pane, select Create a New Task
4. Select Command Line from the Console Tasks folder and click Next
5. In the Task Name field, type "Remote Command Window"
6. In the Description type "Use the SysInternals PsExec tool to open a remote command window for the selected computer. PsExec must be installed on the computer with the Essentials console."
7. In the Task Target, click Select and then choose Windows Computer and click OK
8. Click Next
9. In the Application field, type the full path the psexec.exe on the Essentials console (e.g. C:\pstools\psexec.exe). If you have the console on multiple computers you will need psExec installed in the same location on each of them.
10. Enter \\ then Click the arrow at the end of the Parameters field and select Net BIOS Computer Name, then add a space and enter cmd
11. Uncheck the Display output when this task is run box
12. Click Create

In the Computers workspace, with a computer selected there is now a "Remote Command Window" task that is available. Selecting this task will open a remote command window for the selected computer.

Sorry about the long title, but I wanted to help you find this article if you’re searching for assistance with a common environment issue that affects your ability to manage computers with System Center Essentials Essentials.

If while looking at computers in the Computers workspace in the Essentials console, if you notice a managed computer with any of these symptoms:

• Hardware and software inventory is displayed as ‘Unknown’
• Software and Update status is ‘Unknown’
• Last Contacted is ‘Not yet contacted’

the managed computer is not being fully managed by Essentials. Essentials uses the Operations Manager agent to provide monitoring and remote task execution on managed computers, and the Windows Update agent to provide software distribution, update management and inventory collection on managed computers.  In this case, the Windows Update agent on the managed computer is not properly reporting to the Essentials server, which is why the status for these areas is ‘Unknown’.

We’ve added monitoring in Essentials 2010 to alert you when managed computer are affected by this issue, but it also can be easily detected by looking at managed computers in the Computers workspace.  Here are screenshots of how this issue is displayed in both Essentials 2007 and Essentials 2010.

Essentials 2007

Essentials 2010

Note:  The description, asset tag and BIOS serial number properties are collected via the Ops Mgr attribute discovery process instead of via Windows Update agent inventory collection.

Troubleshooting Configuration: Group Policy

Essentials uses group policy to configure the Windows Update agent on the managed computer to report to the Essentials server.  The first area to investigate is whether the managed computer is receiving and applying this policy.

Troubleshooting Steps

1. On the managed computer that is not reporting to the Essentials server, open Registry Editor and navigate to:
   
   HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate
   
   and verify that the WUServer and WUStatusServer values are set to:
   
   https://<FQDN of your Essentials server>:8531
   
   If its set to the Essentials server, jump to Windows Update log section, else continue to step 2.
   
   
   
2. If you have configured the Essentials server to use domain group policy, verify that the managed computer is a member of the ‘SCE Managed Computer <management group name>’ Security Group located in the Users container in your Active Directory domain.  If the computer is not a member, add the computer object to the security group, and restart the managed computer. 
3. If you have configured the Essentials server to use domain group policy, run ‘gpresult.exe /v’ on the managed computer to determine if the computer is receiving the ‘SCE Managed Computer <management group name>’ group policy.  If the computer is not applying the policy, use the Troubleshooting Group Policy in Microsoft Windows Server guide to assist you: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=b24bf2d5-0d7a-4fc5-a14d-e91d211c21b2&displaylang=en
4. If you have configured Essentials to use local policy, a scheduled task runs once per day that configures the local group policy object on the managed computer.  Use Resultant Set of Policy (rsop.msc) to investigate if there is an Active Directory group policy (which has a higher order of precedence) that is overriding the Windows Update agent configuration in the local group policy object.

Troubleshooting Connectivity: Windows Update log

Now that you’ve verified that the Windows Agent is configured to report to the Essentials server, the next step is to check out the Windows Update log on the managed computer to verify its attempting to contact the Essentials server and is successful.

1. Open the Windows Update log on the managed computer; the log can be found at %windir%\windowsupdate.log.
2. Scroll to the bottom of the log file and look for the last attempt to contact.  A successful communication will look like this:

2010-02-24    08:13:04:445    1076    2450    PT    +++++++++++  PT: Synchronizing server updates  +++++++++++
2010-02-24    08:13:04:547    1076    2450    PT      + ServiceId = {3DA21691-E39D-4DA6-8A4B-B43877BCB1B7}, Server URL = https://sceserver.contoso.com:8531/ClientWebService/client.asmx
2010-02-24    08:13:35:580    1076    2450    PT    WARNING: Cached cookie has expired or new PID is available
2010-02-24    08:13:35:587    1076    2450    PT    Initializing simple targeting cookie, clientId = 897ad25c-b27c-4124-a938-c3d609793c6c, target group = , DNS name = myclient.contoso.com
2010-02-24    08:13:35:587    1076    2450    PT      Server URL = https://sceserver.contoso.com:8531/ClientWebService/client.asmx
2010-02-24    08:13:41:980    1076    2450    PT    +++++++++++  PT: Synchronizing extended update info  +++++++++++
2010-02-24    08:13:41:980    1076    2450    PT      + ServiceId = {3DA21691-E39D-4DA6-8A4B-B43877BCB1B7}, Server URL = https://sceserver.contoso.com:8531/ClientWebService/client.asmx
2010-02-24    08:13:42:280    1076    2450    Agent      * Found 0 updates and 53 categories in search; evaluated appl. rules of 437 out of 560 deployed entities
2010-02-24    08:13:42:357    1076    2450    Agent    *********
2010-02-24    08:13:42:357    1076    2450    Agent    **  END  **  Agent: Finding updates [CallerId = AutomaticUpdates]
2010-02-24    08:13:42:357    1076    2450    Agent    *************

An unsuccessful attempt will look like this:

2010-03-29    09:23:57:662    1132    1f80    Agent    *************
2010-03-29    09:23:57:662    1132    1f80    Agent    ** START **  Agent: Finding updates [CallerId = Windows System Health Agent Search]
2010-03-29    09:23:57:662    1132    1f80    Agent    *********
2010-03-29    09:23:57:662    1132    1f80    Agent      * Include potentially superseded updates
2010-03-29    09:23:57:662    1132    1f80    Agent      * Online = Yes; Ignore download priority = No
2010-03-29    09:23:57:662    1132    1f80    Agent      * Criteria = "IsInstalled=0 and CategoryIDs contains '0fa1201d-4330-4fa8-8ae9-b877473b6441'"
2010-03-29    09:23:57:662    1132    1f80    Agent      * ServiceID = {3DA21691-E39D-4DA6-8A4B-B43877BCB1B7} Managed
2010-03-29    09:23:57:662    1132    1f80    Agent      * Search Scope = {Machine}
2010-03-29    09:23:57:834    1132    1f80    PT    +++++++++++  PT: Starting category scan  +++++++++++
2010-03-29    09:23:57:834    1132    1f80    PT      + ServiceId = {3DA21691-E39D-4DA6-8A4B-B43877BCB1B7}, Server URL = https://sceserver.contoso.com:8531/ClientWebService/client.asmx
2010-03-29    09:24:18:958    1132    1f80    Misc    WARNING: Send failed with hr = 80072ee2.
2010-03-29    09:24:18:958    1132    1f80    Misc    WARNING: SendRequest failed with hr = 80072ee2. Proxy List used: <(null)> Bypass List used : <(null)> Auth Schemes used : <>
2010-03-29    09:24:18:958    1132    1f80    PT      + Last proxy send request failed with hr = 0x80072EE2, HTTP status code = 0
2010-03-29    09:24:18:958    1132    1f80    PT      + Caller provided credentials = No
2010-03-29    09:24:18:958    1132    1f80    PT      + Impersonate flags = 0
2010-03-29    09:24:18:958    1132    1f80    PT      + Possible authorization schemes used =
2010-03-29    09:24:18:958    1132    1f80    PT    WARNING: StartCategoryScan failure, error = 0x80072EE2, soap client error = 5, soap error code = 0,

Notice the WARNING and error codes I’ve bolded in the log excerpt.  These are issues that are preventing the Windows Update agent from communicating with the Essential server.  Check out these article for specific guidance on how to troubleshoot these errors and warnings:

How to read the Windowsupdate.log file
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/902093

Windows Update Agent Result Codes
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc720442(WS.10).aspx

How the Windows Update client determines which proxy server to use to connect to the Windows Update Web site
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/900935

If you use image-based OS deployment: Troubleshooting duplicate SUSClient ID

If you have many managed computers that are not reporting to the Essentials server, and you use an image to install the operating system on computers, the most likely cause of this issue is that the managed computers are sharing the same SUSClientID.  The WSUS technology in Essentials uses the SUSClientID to uniquely identify each managed computer that contacts the Essentials server.  If more than one computer is using the same duplicate SUSClientID, only the first computer that reports to the Essentials server will be fully managed.

If this is the case in your environment, check out these articles for cleaning up this issue, and also fix your image so that you do not have to deal with this issue in the future.

A Windows 2000-based, Windows Server 2003-based, or Windows XP-based computer that was set up by using a Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, or Windows XP image does not appear in the WSUS console
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/903262

Resolving the duplicate SUSClientID issue, or “Why don’t all my clients show up in the WSUS console?”
http://blogs.technet.com/sus/archive/2009/05/05/resolving-the-duplicate-susclientid-issue-or-why-don-t-all-my-clients-show-up-in-the-wsus-console.aspx

We’d appreciate your feedback on this article or your experiences troubleshooting this issue:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/systemcenteressentials/thread/75ee711f-3de1-4719-aa11-082b7db142e3

The monitoring capability within Essentials comes from Management Packs, and the majority Management Packs that work with Operations Manager also work with Essentials. This is great, because it means there is a wealth of deep monitoring that is available for Essentials.

During the Beta and RC period we’ve had lots of great feedback (please keep it coming), and some of this feedback has focused on the monitoring capabilities provided by Management Packs. This post covers the common feedback, and configuration changes to improve the monitoring experience for the following management packs:

• Windows Client Operating System
• Exchange 2007
• Exchange 2010
• SQL Server 2008

Windows Client Operating System Management Pack

Alerts

There is an issue with the Windows 7 Client OS MP that will generate errors after the initial import of the management pack. You are likely to see 4 alerts that are very similar. You can dismiss the alerts and they should not reappear. The 4 alerts you are likely to see will all start with:

OleDb Module encountered a failure 0x80040e37 during execution and will post it as output data item. : Invalid object name

and then have one of the following:

• 'Win7.vWin7MemoryHealthAggregationRAM'.
• 'Win7.vWin7ShellPerfAggregationComputer'.
• 'Win7.vWin7DiskFailureAggregationDisk'.
• 'Win7.vWin7DiskFailureAggregationComputer'.

These issues may be fixed in a future release of the Windows 7 Client Operating System Management Pack. When an updated version of a management pack is available you will see a yellow notification bar at the top of the Computers workspace in the Essentials console.

Performance Collection

By default, if you attempt to view CPU Performance, Processor Queue Length or Memory in the Computers workspace for computers running XP, Vista or Windows 7 the graphs will be empty.

To show information for Client Computers you will need to enable the following rules for each OS:

• Memory Available Megabytes
• Processor % Processor Time Total
• System Processor Queue Length

To enable collection of these performance counters:

1. Go to the Authoring Workspace
2. Expand Management Pack Objects and select Rules
3. In the Look For box (press Ctrl-F if it is not visible) enter Memory Available and click Find Now
4. Select Memory Available Megabytes for each client operating system to enable
5. Select Overrides -> Override this Rule -> For all objects of class
6. Check the box next to Enabled, change the Override Value to True and click OK
7. Repeat steps 3 to 6, searching for:
   • Processor % Processor
   • Processor Queue

More information is in the Management Pack Guide.

Exchange 2007 Management Pack

By default, the Microsoft Exchange 2007 Management Pack will not automatically discover any Exchange 2007 Server roles, and no monitoring is distributed to Exchange 2007 servers.

Initially, the only discovery that runs automatically is called the Exchange 2007 Discovery Helper Discovery. It is a lightweight registry discovery that runs on all Windows servers. Its only purpose is to discover Exchange 2007 servers in your environment without actually starting monitoring.

To verify that Discovery Helper has discovered your Exchange 2007 servers

1. Ensure that you have not scoped your views.
2. Go to the Discovered Inventory view in the Monitoring section of the Operations console.
3. Right-click and choose Select Target Type.
4. In the Look for field, type Exchange 2007 Discovery Helper, select it, and then click OK. A list of Exchange 2007 servers appears with a status of “Not Monitored.”

If no Exchange 2007 servers are discovered, you might want to make the discovery run more frequently than the default. You can change the frequency of the Exchange 2007 Discovery Helper Discovery in Object Discoveries located under Authoring in the Operations console.

To enable Exchange 2007 Server Role Discovery

1. Go to the Object Discoveries node located under Authoring in the Operations console.
2. In the Look for field, type Exchange 2007 Server Role and click Enter. A list of Exchange 2007 Server Role Discoveries appears. You need to enable Server Role Discoveries of the following discoveries:

For example, to enable discovery of all Hub Transport servers, right-click the Exchange 2007 Hub Transport Role Discovery and select Overrides\Enable the Object Discovery\for all objects of type Exchange 2007 Discovery Helper. If you want, you can choose to discover servers using a group (containing Exchange 2007 Discovery Helper instances) or a single instance of Exchange 2007 Discovery Helper. It is also possible to use a group containing the computer objects of the Exchange servers.

More information is in the Management Pack Guide and also on the Operations Manager blog.

Exchange 2010 Management Pack

Importing the Exchange 2010 Management Pack on the Release Candidate of Essentials 2010 will cause the following alert to be generated:

Critical hotfixes required for reliable operation of the Exchange Server 2010 and other management packs are not installed on this server. Please see the appropriate KB article for more information, and to download the required hotfix.

The hotfixes referred to by this alert are included in the released version of Essentials 2010.

These updates resolve issues affecting state rollup using dependency monitors. These updates allow the Exchange Server 2010 Management Pack to accurately monitor whether Exchange databases are mounted. Without these updates you are also likely to see inaccurate availability reporting.

If desired, you can disable this alert:

1. Go to the Authoring workspace
2. Expand Management Pack Objects and select Rules
3. In the Look For box (press Ctrl-F if it is not visible) enter SCOM and click Find Now
4. Select The required SCOM hotfixes for Exchange MP are not installed.
5. Select Overrides -> Disable the Rule -> For all objects of class

This is only a temporary workaround for use with the RC and should be reverted when upgrading to the RTM version of Essentials 2010.

More information is in the Management Pack Guide

SQL Server 2008 Management Pack

Monitoring SQL 2008

A number of workflows in the SQL Server 2008 Management Pack run scripts, which rely on SQL Data Management Objects (SQL-DMO) to query information from the SQL Server. SQL-DMO is now deprecated and is not shipped as a part of SQL Server 2008. Every system with SQL Server 2008 that will be monitored must have SQL-DMO installed from the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Backward Compatibility Components.

To install SQL-DMO on computers running SQL Server 2008:

1. On the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Feature Pack, August 2008 download page, in the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Backward Compatibility Components section, download the package that is appropriate for the version of SQL Server.
2. Run the .msi file on the computers running SQL Server 2008 that the SQL Server 2008 Management Pack will monitor.
3. On the Feature Selection screen, ensure that the SQL Distributed Management Objects (SQL-DMO) feature is set to This feature will be installed on local hard drive. None of the other features are required for the SQL Server 2008 Management Pack.
4. Complete the installation wizard to install the SQL-DMO backward compatibility components.

These issues may be fixed in a future release of the SQL Server 2008 Management Pack. When an updated version of a management pack is available you will see a yellow notification bar at the top of the Computers workspace in the Essentials console.

Alerts

If you are using the Express edition of SQL (installed by Essentials) you will see the following errors:

Warning Service Check Data Source Module Failed Execution

Warning Service Check Probe Module Failed Execution

Both errors will mention the following workflow:

Workflow name: Microsoft.SQLServer.2008.DBEngine.FullTextSearchServiceMonitor or

Workflow name: Microsoft.SQLServer.2005.DBEngine.FullTextSearchServiceMonitor

This will happen on any system that has SQL installed without the Full Text Search Engine. You can apply an override on that monitor to disable it for the systems that don't have that service installed.

To disable these monitors, perform the following steps:

1. Go to the Authoring workspace
2. Expand Management Pack Objects and select Monitors
3. In the Look For box (press Ctrl-F if it is not visible) enter Full Text and click Find Now
4. In turn, select each of the SQL Server Full Text Search Service Monitor (one for SQL 2005, and the other for SQL 2008)
5. Select Overrides -> Disable the Monitor -> For all objects of class

More information is in the Management Pack Guide.

A management pack is a definition file (either with an .xml or .mp extension) that contains predefined monitoring settings that enable an agent to monitor a specific service or application in Operations Manager 2007 or Essentials 2007. These predefined settings include discovery information that allows Operations Manager and Essentials to automatically detect and begin monitoring services and applications, and a knowledge base that contains error and troubleshooting information, alerts, and reports to help you correct the problems detected in your environment.  You import a new or updated management pack into Essentials using the Management Pack Import Wizard (found in the Administration space in the Essentials console).

Almost all of the management packs developed for Operations Manager 2007 can also be used in Essentials 2007.  To help you identify these management packs, you can filter the System Center Pack catalog on Essentials:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sce/cc462787.aspx

One management pack that you might want to import into Essentials straight away is the updated Essentials 2007 management pack that resolves an issue that was preventing the Remote Assistance task from running on Windows Vista and Server 2008. You can download this management pack from this location:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=8F74CC26-5E0E-42F1-96CC-7AE064099190&amp;displaylang=en&displaylang=en

As Dustin mentioned in the previous post, we recently released an update to the Microsoft.SystemCenter.Essentials.2007.mp. We have also released KB956890 which provides additional details.

This update resolves an issue where the Remote Assistance task fails to execute if the System Center Essentials console is running on Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008. Without the fix, attempting to run Remote Assistance results in the following error message:

Application: C:\Windows\pchealth\helpsctr\binaries\helpctr.exe

Parameters: -FromStartHelp –url hcp://CN=Microsoft%20Corporation,L=Redmond,S=Washington,C=US/Remote%20Assistance/Escalation/Unsolicited/SCEUnsolicitedRCUI.htm -ExtraArgument NOVICECOMPUTER=<ComputerName>&NOVICEUSERID=

Error Message: The system cannot find the file specified

In Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, Remote Assistance is started from the Help and Support Center (helpctr.exe), while in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, Remote Assistance is started via msra.exe.

This update modifies the Remote Assistance task to call the correct command line based on the operating system that the Essentials console is running on.

You are recommended to install this update if you use the Essentials console on Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 and want to use the Remote Assistance task.

When using Windows Server 2008, please ensure you have the Remote Assistance feature installed. The Remote Assistance feature is not installed by default, but you can use the Add Feature Wizard within Server Manager to enable it.

More information is available in KB956890.

This update is available from the Microsoft Download Center via the following link: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=8F74CC26-5E0E-42F1-96CC-7AE064099190&displaylang=en