Clean Software Inventory - Page 2

Nick · 03-25-2005, 02:36 PM

Outstanding!

Thanks for sharing your documentation.

Lumpy · 03-25-2005, 02:39 PM

Glad I can give something back. If people use this please let me know if it works or if there are any problems. I still have some tweaking to do, but I'm getting closer.

jdean · 03-25-2005, 03:40 PM

Let me know if you need help with scripting it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lumpy

Ok. First off... Thank you to every one for pointing me down the correct road. I think I have a viable solution, but it needs to go through some more testing before I do this in production.

Use at your own risk.

That being said this did work in my test environment and I was hoping other people could test this and let me know their results. I have attached a Word document with the steps that I did. I'm looking into making a script that could automate this process.

Option 2: Create a custom .NSE file that can be edited and uploaded to the server.

1. Create a custom AuditPls.ini file that excludes all hard drives from the search. By adding the following: (screen shot)

2. Create a Temp folder to collect all of the information. i.e. c:\altiris

3. Copy aexauditpls.exe, aexnsinvcollector.exe, and your custom auditpls.ini file to that directory.

4. Run the following two commands (screen shot)
a. C:\altiris aexauditpls /output xml /o c:\altiris
b. C:\altiris aexnsinvcollector /s c:\altiris /o c:\altiris

The first command will run the software inventory on your machine and return that there are no software products installed. When it’s done it will deposit the .NSI files in your c:\altiris directory.

The second command will collect all of the .NSI files and create a .NSE file in the same c:\altiris directory.

Open the .NSE file with notepad and change the value to whatever computer you would like to clean the inventory on. (screenshot)

Save the file and copy it to the \\NSServer\NSCap\EvtInbox folder and your inventory will be scrubbed.

knwilson · 09-07-2005, 06:09 PM

Anyone script this all out yet? Seems like something my company could benefit from as well, but it is ain't automated, it ain't getting done!!

Thanks,
Kevin

aka · 08-29-2008, 08:32 AM

Hi,

I'm a little bit scared reading this, I think I should have missed a parameter...

if you run an aexauditpls while filtering some folder, altiris simply deletes all that has been scanned previously on those folder????

I explain : I'm working on a simple system which will, after each software delivery job, do a quick scan of the folder of the newly installed program.

reading this thread, I'm wondering if doing so will delete in altiris DB the content of all filtered folders.

If somebody could tell me that it's not the case, it could be extremely relieving.

just for not being totally out of the thread, is it stupid to do this directly from an SQL request, deleting the content of the software inventory tables?

andykn · 08-29-2008, 11:51 AM

The short answer is Yes. If you have no Special Groups, aexauditpls will create Auditpls.nsi on the local machine and post those results back.

The only way the NS has of deciding if software has been removed is by using the entire contents of auditpls.nsi as the list of all software current on the machine. So if it isn't in auditpls.nsi the NS will assume it isn't installed on the PC.

You shouldn't edit Altiris SQL tables directly.

You also shouldn't need to run a software audit after every install. The OS inventory is normally run daily and will report Add/Remove programs info.

aka · 09-01-2008, 06:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andykn

The short answer is Yes. If you have no Special Groups, aexauditpls will create Auditpls.nsi on the local machine and post those results back.

The only way the NS has of deciding if software has been removed is by using the entire contents of auditpls.nsi as the list of all software current on the machine. So if it isn't in auditpls.nsi the NS will assume it isn't installed on the PC.

You shouldn't edit Altiris SQL tables directly.

You also shouldn't need to run a software audit after every install. The OS inventory is normally run daily and will report Add/Remove programs info.

I haven't think about requesting on this field.

thanks for the trick, i'll try out asap.