Michael Mott @ myITforum.com

Notes from the MVP Summit on WMI

Well 99% of the info we got at the MVP summit was NDA, meaning we cant blog about it, but one of the sessions we got brought in on, was issues around WMI and repository corruption. 

Alain Lissor the Program Manager for WMI, gave us a quick down and dirty for troubleshooting and fixing WMI issues.  The commands below are fixes for XP SP2 and W2K Server 2003, but the trouble shooting tips could apply for Windows 2000.  The underlying theme Alain gave to us is, don't just kill the repository to resolve the issue!  The slide from his PPT is inserted below.

• Firewall issues - Common port blockage can do this, so double check your client side settings
• DCOM security - http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/wmisdk/wmi/wmi_troubleshooting.asp
• Logging Activity (Core and Providers) - Client side wbemcore and provider logs have a good deal info check this link for starters http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/wmisdk/wmi/wmi_log_files.asp
• MSFT_WMISelfEvent to track WMI internal events - Check this Tech Net link for more details http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/wmisdk/wmi/wmi_troubleshooting_classes.asp

• CIM repository corruptions
  • Even if you have a WMI error or issue, it is not proven that it is a WMI repository corruption.
  • XP SP2:
    • rundll32 wbemupgd, UpgradeRepository
  • 2003 SP1:
    • rundll32 wbemupgd, CheckWMISetup
    • rundll32 wbemupgd, RepairWMISetup
  • In case of WMI issues, it is not always proven that it is a corruption:
    • Don’t delete the repository right away:
      • Are you getting invalid class/instance or class/instance not found messages?
        1. Use RUNDLL commands above.
        2. In 2000, save a copy, delete, restart, and try. Then, restore the copy and try again. If it works, the repository was not corrupted and your SMS data are not lost.
        3. If only solution is to delete, then make sure all MOF files are recompiled (autorecover registry versus MOFs existing on the disks).
        4. Let us know:
           OS?, SP Level?, Client or Server?, Hardware used (IDE, SCSI)?
           You can let us know this via http://blogs.msdn.com/wmi/default.aspx

Alain indicated that they are currently looking into WMI corruption issues so use the Blog link above to check and post some of your findings.