WSUS Extension Pack - How to collect registry information during an inventory task EminentWare - How to collect registry information during an inventory task .pdf

WSUS Extension Pack - How to collect registry information during an inventory task

Note: To see this information with screen captures, please reference the attached .PDF document.

Reporting on (for example)  the version of IE installed can be accomplished by a report based upon registry value(s) collected during an inventory task.   The default inventory, however, does not collect Registry information due to the potential overhead to collect all those fields.   One can create an Inventory template that specifies individual registry keys to collect and then report against those once an inventory is performed with that template.

Continuing our example of collecting info on installed IE version, if you are targeting a mix of different machines, you may need to configure your inventory to collect 2 different registry keys – one that will pick it up (if it exists) on 32-bit machines and one that will pick it up (if it exists) for 64-bit machines.

A quick Google search shows I will be looking for these values:

32-bit machines:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer

Look for String value: Version

64-bit machines:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer

Look for String value:  Version

Now that I know what to look for, I can configure an inventory task to gather that information.

General Instructions for configuring an inventory that collects registry information:

1. Go to EminentWare System Configuration -> Management Groups -> Managed Enterprise, then select your domain in the middle pane, and click “Inventory Configuration” in the Actions pane on the right.
2. On the “Datasource Configuration” tab, check the box next to “Registry”:
3. On the “File, Directory and Registry Datasource Configuration” tab, click “Manually Add/Modify” for the Registry section on the bottom.

Note that the other items listed there (the value for Software\Microsoft\Driver Signing\Policy, for example) are collected by default if the Registry checkbox was selected on the other tab.  If you don’t wish to collect these registry values, you can “remove” them from the list before saving the template.

1. Add the registry value you would like to gather from the client(s), then click Save.

Repeat if needed for any additional values you wish to collect.

1. After adding your new values (and removing any non-desired ones from the list), click “Save Template”.
2. Give your new inventory template a name and Save it.
3. Next, browse to and left-click to select the machine (or group) you wish to Inventory, and then right-click that object and select “Inventory”.
4. Select “Inventory – include specific datasources”, and then “Select a pre-defined inventory configuration template”.   Next, choose your saved custom template (the name in the box shown below will be whatever you saved it as in the previous steps)
5. After the inventory is complete,  you can run one of the predefined reports (Basic Registry Information, for example) under the Computer (Registry Information) category to display the value of those keys, or you can create your own custom report under that same category.  That category allows you to pull information from two datasources (Registry and Computers), so you’ll be able to include the Computer Name field from the Computers datasource as well in the report.

Note: If you are collecting several registry key entries, it may be easier to view if you group the results by Registry Path by dragging that column header up to the dark grey area above the other column headers.

Note: Modifying an inventory template will not automatically update any existing Scheduled Tasks you may have.   If you wish to use your newly-created Inventory Configuration template for all of your inventory tasks, you will need to create new Inventory tasks after the template has been modified. 

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(version used to document this process:  1.70.184)

2011-08-01