Pete Zerger and I collaborated on a guide about Agentless Exception Monitoring (AEM) in Operations Manager 2007. Monitoring desktop client hardware, operating system and application faults can be of great value in terms of reducing total cost of ownership (TCO) through identification of widespread faults in the monitored environment. In Operations Manager 2007, there are actually three components for monitoring the client experience:

• Agentless Exception Monitoring (AEM)
• Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP)
• Management Packs for Windows-based workstation operating systems and applications

In this document, we’ll focus specifically on configuration Agent Exception Monitoring feature.

Download the document here

If you want to do silent AEM reporting you can modify the following regkeys, but before you do that, make sure it approved in your organization.

for XP
HLKM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\PCHealth\ErrorReporting\ShowUI to DWORD 0 HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\PCHealth\ErrorReporting\DW\DWByPassQueue to DWORD 1 HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\PCHealth\ErrorReporting\DW\DWAlwaysReport to DWORD 1 HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\PCHealth\ErrorReporting\DW\DWNeverUpload to DWORD 0

for Vista
Set DontShowUI key and appropriate Consent as per http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb513638(VS.85).aspx

There was a question in a news group about creating a rule to generate an alert if the alert description contains a special word. When you create a new alert generating alert/Event Based/NT Event Log (Alert) rule you can not choose alert descript as a parameter. Instead you will have to input a new parameter name, EventDescription. For example if you want a rule to generate an alert if the word “Pay” is in the alert descript the forumla would look like this ( EventDescription Contains pay ) .

A saw a question in a news group about listing files on agent managed computers from the web console in Ops Mgr 2007. After some thinker and discussion with Mikael Nyström I found the solution. First, it has to be a agent task to show up in the web console. In this example I will list the C:\WINDOWS\win.ini file on the agent managed computer, in the real world it could be for example a logfile from a application. The result will be shown in the task result box.

1. Start the console, click Authoring and then expand Management Pack Objects
2. Right-click Tasks and choose to create a new task
3. In the Create task wizard – Task Type, choose Agent Task and Command line, choose your destination management pack and click Next
4. In the Create task wizard – General Properties, input a task name, a description and choose target, for example Windows Server 2003 Computers as target. Click Next
5. In the Create task wizard – Command Line, input
   Full path to file: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\cmd.exe
   Parameters: /C type %WINDIR%\WIN.INI
   You dont have to input a working directory. Click Create

Now, open the web console (http://servername:51908) and test your new task.

A couple of new management packs has been published. Most of them requires Ops Mgr 2007 MOM 2005 backward compatibility management pack Update 6.0.5000.1 (or higher), download that here.

Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007
Date Published: 6/4/2007
Download here

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007
Date Published: 6/4/2007
Download here

Microsoft Print Service Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007
Date Published: 6/4/2007
Download here

Microsoft Windows File Replication Service 2000/2003 Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007
Date Published: 6/4/2007
Download here

Microsoft Windows Group Policy 2003 Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007
Date Published: 6/4/2007
Download here

Microsoft Windows Server 2000/2003 DHCP Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007
Date Published: 6/4/2007
Download here

…and also a new version of Systems Center Operations Manager 2007 Documentation as been published here

This guide includes an overview, deployment procedures, and monitoring scenarios for the Active Directory Management Packs for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007. Date Published 1-6-2007. Whats new?

• Domain discovery that enables Operations Manager 2007 to automatically discover domains in your Active Directory environment
• New performance and client monitoring views to provide more ways to view your monitoring data
• A new child domain topology view, allowing you to see subdomains of other domains
• New dashboard views that combine multiple views into one view to allow analysis of trends and similarities between related metrics

Download here

Overview Updated MOM 2005 Backwards Compatibility MP (6.0.5000.1) and System Center Internal Library MP (6.0.5000.1).
Update to address fixes and enhancements:
– New Backward Compatibility Threshold monitoring type using in Converted MOM 2005 MPs which exposes Threshold values as overrides.
– Fixes to the Backward Compatibility Cluster discovery to address problem with converted MPs that monitor clustered Applications  Installation: After unpacking of the MSI files import the following MP files:
Folder (default): %ProgramFiles%\System Center Management Packs
– System.Mom.BackwardCompatibility.Library.mp
– Microsoft.SystemCenter.Internal.mp
The MP will replace the existing version of the files

Management Pack Release History:
Initial Release 3/23/2007 Version 6.0.5000.0

Download here

A delta threshold monitor measure the change, for example a change of X GB on a driver during Y minutes or a change of X procent during Y minutes. Here is a short step by step guide

1. In the console, under Authoring, Management Pack Objects, Monitors, create a new monitor
2. Choose to create a new unit monitor, Windows Performance Counters/Static Thresholds/Single Threshold/Delta Threshold, click next
3. Input a rule name and choose rule target, choose Availability as parent monitor, click next
4. Click browse a choose a object, for exampleObject: LogicalDisk
   Counter: Free Megabytes
   Instance: C: 

   Specify the interval and then click next

5. Enter a threshold, for example 100 for 100Mb. Click next
6. On the Configure Health window, click next
7. Check “Generate alert for this monitor”, input a alert description, click Create

This monitor will generate an alert if someone add or remove 100Mb on C: during 15 minutes (default value).

I saw a question about monitoring a logfile with Ops Mgr 2007. Here is a short step by step guide

1. In the console, under Authoring, Management Pack Objects, Rules, create a new rule
2. Choose to create a Alert Generating Rules/Event Based/Generic Text Log (Alert), click next
3. Input a rule name and choose rule target, click next
4. Input a directory, for example C:\, input a pattern, for example logfile.log, click next
5. Input the following expression,
   Parameter Name = Params/Param[1]
   Operator = Matches wildcard
   Value = warning
   click next
6. Configure a suitable alert and then click create

Please note that this rule is case sensitiv, so it will make difference between WARNING and warning.

In MOM 2005 there is a default task to test end-to-end monitoring. In Ops Mgr 2007 this task has been removed. If you want to create one on your own, you can do like this

1. Create a new task in the Console, under Authoring and Management Pack Objects. Configure your new task to run a this
   scriptConst EVENT_SUCCESS = 0
   Set objShell = Wscript.CreateObject(“Wscript.Shell”)
   objShell.LogEvent EVENT_SUCCESS, _
      “Operations Manager 2007 end-to-end test event.”
2. Create a new rule that collect event from the application log, event ID 0 and event source WSH. Configur the new rule to generate an alert with severity Information.

Summary, you have created a task that will run a script on a machine. This script will create a event in the local event viewer. The rule you have created will collect that event and generate an alert. With this alert you can verify that the communication with your agent is working.