Sunday, June 8, 2008

Right click Tool: Status Messages

This will work for both SMS or SCCM. This is a neat trick. We will use the status message viewer from Microsoft to look at a computer but with a right click. No longer do you need to run through the MMC.

<ActionGroups>
<actiondescription class="Executable" displayname="Status Messages" mnemonicdisplayname="Status Messages" description="Display machine status messages">
</executable> <filepath>D:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\bin\i386\statusmessages.exe <parameters>##SUB:Name## </actiongroups>

D:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\AdminUI\XmlStorage\Extensions\Actions\7ba8bf44-2344-4035-bdb4-16630291dcf6\Tools.xml

This needs to go into your XML file in the previous folder. Please consult the MS documentation. This is only the inset not the whole file. You will need to change the location of the file path to C, E, or whatever your drive it.

To make this work in SMS see my section on SMS tools and the MMC registry. You only need to add the path and sub:netbiosname to the script. Now you can right click on a client and get the status messages very easily now. Be aware that this will pull in ALL messages so you will need to click stop or you will be there all day.

If the application has problem the first time you run it then you need to just double click on StatusMessages.exe and type in your server name and ok. Then the tool will work correctly the next time for you.

[Update June 2009]
Well I created this back in 2005 when I first started working with SMS. Well Robert Mitsch has an update which I think is great

The changes are as follows
<FilePath>C:\xxxxxxx\AdminUI\bin\i386\statview.exe</FilePath>
<Parameters>/SMS:Server=\\##SUB:__Server## /SMS:Path=##SUB:__Namespace## /SMS:System=##SUB:Name##</Parameters>

update blog entry: http://sms-hints-tricks.blogspot.com/2009/06/right-click-status-messages.html