stopping inventories on remote PCs

[influent]

Is there any way to stop remote PCs from running the hardware and software inventories? The laptops that dial in at my work have slow processors and connect at slow speeds, so it would be nice if stuff only ran while they were in the office.

 

[hseeger]

This is for stopping the software inventory:
Never checked this, but it's worth a try...

To turn off Software Inventory on a single computer create a dummy file with a hidden (H) attribute and name it Skpswi.dat Place this file in the root of each installed drive letter. Software Inventory will not run on this computer until the files are removed.

 

[snyderj]

The software and hardware inventories will take just as much time in the office as on the field. Whether or not the device is connected to a network, the inventories will automatically run (aside from specifically causing them not to run). When a network connection of sufficient speed is detected SMS will pass up its latest inventory, typically a small delta file but it could be a full inventory.

Is it safe to assume that what you're trying to do is have the device not send up its inventory file while connected at slow speeds? If this is the case then adding switches to the slownet.exe command may work for you. By default this command checks for a 40,000 bps connection minimum before SMS sends files. You can add switches to check for a higher speed, for example 60,000 bps, by using the command:
SLOWNET 60000

Slownet.exe is found at %windir%\ms\sms\core\bin

 

[influent]

Thanks, I believe the slownet switch might be just what I'm looking for. I don't understand though. Do I add the switch to one of the SMS batch files, or do I use it at the Run prompt somehow, or something else?
Just to verify, this will make it so that the inventories are collected still by the PC, but the PC won't transfer the data to the SMS server until it is connected at greater than 60 kbps, correct?

 

[influent]

According to

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q224/3/88.ASP

the speed in smsls.bat cannot exceed 40 kpbs. Have you successfully done what you said? Also, the client is already installed, and I'd like to remove smsls from the login script at some point. The client doesn't need smsls.bat after it is installed, does it? I guess I don't see how slownet relates to pulling inventories instead of doing client installation.

 

[snyderj]

Yes, inventories will still occur, but no transfer to the CAP will take place until a connection is present and the speed is 40K bps or greater. (I skipped over the "this value can be any value less than 40,000" line, so the 60K setting won't work. Sorry about that. Well, at least that means that only 56K modems on a good connections will get through.)

Smsls.bat is where the setting is made from my experience, but you may be able to do it elsewhere. The client doesn't really need smsls.bat once it is installed, but it doesn't hurt to leave it and it may be helpful in the future, such as if new clients are added or existing clients break in some way.

The slownet in smsls.bat relates to the sms client communication in general, not specifically pushing inventory. I not familiar with how the slownet setting gets propagated to the client (through the domain \smslogon\config\*.tcf and configured through SMS admin?).

The SMS client is a semi-independent entity once loaded. It checks its CAP for changes periodically and adjusts or fixes itself accordingly. Slownet is run on the client and tells the client whether the network connection (if any) is fast enough to transfer collected data. The small file copies over a 56K modem connection are generally fast enough that the user does not notice. Loading a new client over a 56K dial up, or copying full inventories, or doing a software distribution might cause some issues, though.

(I'm getting a step away from my experience, though; second opinions are welcome.)