Repairing WMI Errors on Windows systems with IBM Endpoint Manager

One of the issues that I have seen on customer sites are problems with WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation). One of the (many) good things about IEM is that it really does not need WMI to function as IBM uses custom built inspectors to do almost everything. The only issues are mainly around some data collection points (some hardware information for example), but this does not cause the agent to fail and still allows for actions to be taken on the targets. This is a huge advantage for IEM, as other vendor products will not even function if WMI is broken.

To identify systems with WMI issues is pretty simple with a Web Report:
1. In Web Reports go to Explore Data
2. Click the Edit Columns and add the column "Computer Model - Windows" (part of the hardware analysis)
3. Add the filter "Computer" "Computer - Model - Windows (Hardware Information (Windows))" "contains" "Windows Error"

This will show all systems with errors which should be ones with WMI issues. The thing to note is that there are different error codes and some are easier to fix than others.

Now to repair the WMI issues, I created a fixlet that can be used. This seems to address some of the errors that I have seen, but not all. Some systems are so far gone, that it will require manual intervention or even a rebuild of the OS.

I have made this available on the BigFix.me site for downloading and comments:
http://bigfix.me/fixlet/details/3652?force=true

Please note that this has been tested but only in a limited amount as I do not have many systems available to me and I could not simulate all the possible WMI errors.

Let me know how this works for you and we will see if we can get this to fix all errors.

Martin