Resolving MAPS’

WMI Error Messages

The 100th anniversary of Canada’ Census bureau (‘Statistics Canada’) was celebrated with a stamp in 1971 featuring ‘hi-tech’ data
elements - ticker tape and tape reels - to create the ‘100’ and to celebrate the modernization of data analysis.

Despite the ‘automation’, the actual country-wide data collection was completed by hand (legally required for all Canadian
households) for the next 40 years 2011. Why? In rural areas, questionnaires were personally dropped off and picked up. In remote
northern regions, the census was done via face-to-face interviews for aboriginals who did not read nor speak English or French.

History repeats itself with collecting device inventory across a corporation; the difficulty is in collecting the data across remote
areas where communication is difficult. Analysis is the easy part.
About WMI
WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) is a management framework found in all Windows based devices which allows
for administrator­based remote management and data collection. This interface was first introduced in Windows XP.

WMI is agentless, many commercial products use WMI, including Dell Kace, Spiceworks, Lansweeper and of course
Microsoft Map.

In almost all cases, WMI errors are a result of:

1) lack of proper credentials to the targeted device

2) Firewall in the way
3) corrupted WMI on the target device
4) The machine being absent or turned off

Each of the 5 significant ‘FAILED’ message types have a flowchart that suggests processes and resources to increase
inventory fidelity.

About WMI
Retrieving the WMI Error Messages

ERROR MESSAGES and RESPONSES

Failed ­ Machine not found

Failed ­ Connection Timed out
Failed ­ RPC Server Unavailable
Failed ­ Access Denied
FAILED ­ Other Reasons

RESOURCES and FIXES

Review Group Policy/Firewall
Throttling MAP’s bandwidth
Test WMI of a device

Resolving MAPS’ WMI Error Messages. June 06, 2015

© 2015 AssetLabs, Inc. All rights reserved

www.AssetLabs.com
​
Retrieving the WMI Error Messages

AssetLabs’ clients can use the ECHO utility to review WMI Error messages by clicking on the big red box for each of Server
and Desktop devices (Server example seen below)

Users of MAP (9.x) can generate an Error report XLS file from the Inventory Results box, though there is no filtering on
device type nor AD age.

Resolving MAPS’ WMI Error Messages. June 06, 2015

© 2015 AssetLabs, Inc. All rights reserved

www.AssetLabs.com
​
Failed - Machine not found
This is not typically a WMI issue, but a network issue.There are three scenarios:

1) Your ActiveDirectory (AD) contains old entries of devices

MAP collects a list of device names from your Active Directory. If you do not actively manage your AD, then you likely have
old device entries of devices that have been re­imaged or retired.

The AssetLabs ‘Echo’ utility limits devices to having an AD ‘update age’ of 45 days or less, so any ‘Machine Not Found’
devices may have been recently retired or re­imaged.

2​
) Your Device is not on the Network at time of MAP inventory.
If the device is a laptop or a desktop; it’s likely off or off­site at the time you ran the inventory. Re­run MAP at a later date
and MAP will attempt to inventory only the devices that it missed previously.

3) Your device *is* there, but the DNS server timed­out

If the device is a server that is typically running 24/7, you might have experienced a network ‘timeout’ or a failed connection.
Since collecting server inventory is more important than desktop, we suggest running a WBEMTEST for that server and/or
modifying MAP configuration to lower its network bandwidth.

Resolving MAPS’ WMI Error Messages. June 06, 2015

© 2015 AssetLabs, Inc. All rights reserved

www.AssetLabs.com
​
Failed - Connection Timed out
This is typically not a WMI issue, but a network issue. In this scenario, the device was successfully found, and MAP
attempted to open port 135 ( in order to invoke the WMI inventory command), but the the device took too long to respond.

If you are receiving this error message from a significant number of devices, ​
throttle down MAP’s connection count

If you are receiving this error message from a few devices, those devices may require 1) another inventory attempt at a later
date, 2) a re­boot or 3) WMI regeneration

WMI Regeneration

Before attempting to regenerate a devices WMI, confirm its WMI viability using WBEMTEST

If the device can not be accessed via WBEMTEST, then the WMI layer may be corrupt. This can be fixed by rebooting the
device or running the script to regenerate the WMI later.

If the devices *does* respond to WBEMTEST, then throttle MAP down by modifying MAP’s configuration file

Resolving MAPS’ WMI Error Messages. June 06, 2015

© 2015 AssetLabs, Inc. All rights reserved

www.AssetLabs.com
​
Failed - RPC Server Unavailable
In order for a WMI inventory to happen, a devices’ RPC (Remote Procedure Call) must be running to get the port number for
the WMI inventory call. If there’s no RPC, there’s no WMI

The most common problem is that port 135 is blocked by either Windows Firewall or a 3rd party firewall

Resolving MAPS’ WMI Error Messages. June 06, 2015

© 2015 AssetLabs, Inc. All rights reserved

www.AssetLabs.com
​
Failed - Access Denied
WMI is working well, but refuses to offer inventory because your admin rights are not sufficient to allow
for ‘remote management’ for that device. If you receive MANY ‘Failed -Access denied’ messages, the issue
is likely your currents rights.

Suggestion 1​
:​Run as Admin
When launching MAP, right click on the ICON and use ‘Run as Admin’

Suggestion 2: Don’t confuse MAPs ​

AD Credentials​
with ​
ALL Computers Credentials

AD Credentials Screen ( 3rd screen in) ALL Computers Credentials ( 6th screen in)
Used to simply gain ‘read-only’ access to your AD.
Used to assign ‘ADMIN’ rights when using a WMI
Any user credential will work here, but this is not
call.
for WMI AD Rights must be high enough to allow Remote
Management

Resolving MAPS’ WMI Error Messages. June 06, 2015

© 2015 AssetLabs, Inc. All rights reserved

www.AssetLabs.com
​
Resolving MAPS’ WMI Error Messages. June 06, 2015
© 2015 AssetLabs, Inc. All rights reserved

www.AssetLabs.com
​
FAILED - Other Reasons

This is not a WMI error, but an error specific to MAP that involve a series of WMI failures (which is why it
doesn’t show up well on google searches). This is a catch-all where MAP tried 5 different ways of getting a
WMI response from a device, but failed.

If given a chance for a re-inventory, MAP will ‘shuffle’ the order of the WMI methods at attempt to
re-inventory the device (up to 4 different attempts) until MAP gives up and labels the device as FAILED.

There is no shared ‘root-cause’ reason for ‘Failed - Other Reasons’ other than being a WMI ‘non-response’

Assetlabs suggests the following:

1. Try the inventory again the next day. When MAP is used for a subsequent inventory, there’s a
smaller number of targeted devices involved and this may eliminate a ‘drop’ due to network traffic.

2. Run a WMI test on any of the ‘failed’ devices to see if the device will properly respond to a WMI
call.

3. Consider rebooting the device, or reviewing ‘process load’ on that device

Resolving MAPS’ WMI Error Messages. June 06, 2015

© 2015 AssetLabs, Inc. All rights reserved

www.AssetLabs.com
​
Review Group Policy/Firewall
From your Group Policy editor open your Firewall Profile (Administrative Templates =>
Network=>Network Connections=>Windows Firewall)

Double click on
Windows Firewall:
Allow remote
administration
exception​
.

In the ​
Windows Firewall: Allow remote
administration exception properties​
dialog box, on
the ​
Settings​
tab, click ​
Enabled​
or ​
Disabled​
.

Alternately, you can modify the device’s firewall setting from a NETSH command:

netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group="remote

administration" new enable=Yes

Then ­ for good measure ­ ensure that WMI is also

running:

netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group="windows

management instrumentation (WMI)" new enable=Yes

Resolving MAPS’ WMI Error Messages. June 06, 2015

© 2015 AssetLabs, Inc. All rights reserved

www.AssetLabs.com
​
Throttling MAP’s bandwidth
It’s possible that MAP may be saturating your network and causing a data ‘pocket drop’
If you have taken measures to ensure that WMI is functioning properly, then you may want to modify MAP to lower its
‘bandwidth’ within your network.

NOTE: Our experience here at AssetLabs suggest that, most networks can certainly handle MAPs network activity.
Networks connected to remote branches via a WAN or a thin ‘DSL’ may benefit from this modification to slow MAP

http://blogs.technet.com/b/mapblog/archive/2012/01/11/map­toolkit­may­cause­network­saturation­or­machine­to­reboot.aspx

1. Shutdown MAP if it is running

2. Edit the %Program Files%\Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit\bin\​
Microsoft.MapToolkit.exe.config
file and add the following lines into the “<appSettings>” section.
<add key="Microsoft.AssessmentPlatform.InventoryEngine.InventoryService.DefaultMaxThreadsX86" value="52" />
<add key="Microsoft.AssessmentPlatform.InventoryEngine.InventoryService.DefaultMaxThreads" value="52" />
<add key="Microsoft.AssessmentPlatform.InventoryEngine.InventoryService.DefaultMinThreads" value="3" />
<add key="Microsoft.AssessmentPlatform.InventoryEngine.InventoryService.MaxThreadsLowerBound" value="2" />

(These values in the first and second lines can be adjusted up or down as needed to maximize the performance while
maintaining system stability, but these values must be greater than 3.)

CAUTION:
● The first two lines will set the maximum number of machines to inventory at the same time. ​
You can adjust
the maximum value up or down as needed to maximize the performance while maintaining system stability,
but these values must be greater than 3. ​Changing these values may increase the inventory time.

● The third line sets the minimum number of threads that MAP will use, ​
changing this value is NOT
recommended.

Resolving MAPS’ WMI Error Messages. June 06, 2015

© 2015 AssetLabs, Inc. All rights reserved

www.AssetLabs.com
​
Test WMI of a device
1. Microsoft WMI Diagnosis Utility

Microsoft has a WMI diagnosis Utility ( a VBscript) that will help you ascertain the current state of the wmi service on
a computer

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=7684

2. WBEMTEST

WBEMTEST is an exe that is found on All Windows devices

Microsoft has produced a youtube video that explains how to use WBEMTEST to probe a remote device and determine
if WMI is operating properly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqyhu2HtSmw

3. Rebuilding the WMI Repository

Step 1: verify WMI ‘consistency’

from CMD, use ​

winmgmt /verifyrepository​
to determine consistency.

If ‘consistent’, then all is good.

If ‘INCONSISTENT’, then run ​

winmgmt /salvagerepository

If still ‘INCONSISTENT’, then run ​

winmgmt /resetrepository

NOTE​ : Microsoft has declared an potential issue for Windows Server 2012 where Cluster namespaces could re
removed when attempting to resetrepository.
Review: ​ http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2014/08/08/wmi-repository-corruption-or-not.aspx​for further
details

Lastly:

Microsoft has noted that Anti-Virus scanning might be a root cause to recurring WMI corruption. If this is the case,
Microsoft suggests exempting the WBEM folder ( and child folders) from AV scanning.
Review: ​http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2014/08/08/wmi-repository-corruption-or-not.aspx​for further
details

Resolving MAPS’ WMI Error Messages. June 06, 2015

© 2015 AssetLabs, Inc. All rights reserved

www.AssetLabs.com
​
About AssetLabs
AssetLabs is a license portfolio (SAM) & Audit preparedness solution, available through selected partners in North
America and Europe.

As a web service, all licensing analysis is determined with the need to install a proprietary inventory agent. AssetLabs
uses data from leading solutions such as Microsoft SCCM, MAP, Altiris Landesk and other leading solutions that offer
device inventory.

AssetLabs helps corporations determine their Microsoft and Adobe license position in a matter of mere days, and
assists in the installation and operation of tools - such as Microsoft MAP - in order to complete an audit.

AssetLabs is a participant in ISO-19770 efforts to standardize

inventory, licensing and SAM activities.
We encourage interested parties to visit ​
www.19770.org​ - or
contact your ISO National body - to learn more about SAM
processes & protocols.

AssetLabs offers 3 different SAM solutions

Engage​ is 90 day service to determine your complete license position -

​
including SQLServer - for Microsoft. ‘ELP’ reports from Engage are
accepted by Microsoft’s SAM Engagement team.

Continuum ​ is a 1 year SAM ‘concierge’ service that offers monthly

reconciliation on your significant vendor licensing requirements. Licensing
experts - your ‘SAM Wingman Team’ - maintain a constant vigil on your
account, identifying licensing, & productivity and security risks

Streamline ​ ( in both 90 & 365 day subscriptions) is your data

normalization service, converting your raw software titles into
ISO-19970 compliant ‘tags’ . Streamline data can be used for enhanced
reporting in your ITIL ServiceDesk and Network Management solution, as
well as online reports for identifying security & productivity risks. StreamLine is included -at no extra charge - in
Continuum.

Resolving MAPS’ WMI Error Messages. June 06, 2015

© 2015 AssetLabs, Inc. All rights reserved

www.AssetLabs.com
​