Microsoft Software Inventory Analyzer 5.1 User Guide
Microsoft Software Inventory Analyzer 5.1 User Guide
Analyzer 5.1
User Guide
User Guide
Table of Contents
1.
1.1.
Target Audience.................................................................................3
2.
INTRODUCTION....................................................................................3
3.
MSIA WIZARD.......................................................................................3
3.1.
Step-by-Step Guide............................................................................4
3.1.1.
Welcome Screen...........................................................................4
3.1.2.
Scan Settings...............................................................................4
3.1.3.
Local or Network Scan...................................................................8
3.1.4.
Machine Selection Mode...............................................................11
3.1.5.
Machine Selection.......................................................................13
3.1.6.
Product Selection........................................................................17
3.1.7.
Report Formats...........................................................................17
3.1.8.
Consolidate Reports.....................................................................19
3.1.9.
Confirm Settings.........................................................................20
3.1.10. Scanning....................................................................................21
3.1.11. Rescanning.................................................................................22
3.1.12. Completing the MSIA Wizard........................................................23
3.1.13. License Information.....................................................................25
3.1.14. Provide Feedback or Report a Problem...........................................27
4.
REPORTS.............................................................................................29
4.1.
4.2.
4.3.
4.4.
5.
Summary Report..............................................................................29
Product Details Report.......................................................................31
Detailed Report................................................................................32
Merged MSIA-MLS report...................................................................32
CONSOLIDATION OF REPORTS............................................................33
5.1.
5.2.
6.
WINDOWS 98, WINDOWS MILLENNIUM EDITION NETWORK
SCANNING..................................................................................................34
6.1.
Enabling the Remote Administration Service........................................34
6.2.
Installing the Remote Registry Service................................................34
6.3.
Logon Script for Windows 98, Windows Millennium Edition Systems........35
6.3.1.
Overview...................................................................................35
6.3.2.
Working of Logon Script...............................................................35
6.3.3.
Set up Logon Script Feature on Domain Controller...........................36
7.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS.....................................................................38
8.
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This user guide helps you familiarize with the Microsoft Software Inventory
Analyzer (MSIA 5.1) and tells you how to use the application effectively.
2.Introduction
The Microsoft Software Inventory Analyzer tool (MSIA) scans and analyzes the
inventory of Microsoft software products installed on machines. The results of the
scan are generated in the form of reports.
These reports give details like the names of all the installed Microsoft products, their
type and the number of licenses for every product, link to the list of machines
scanned and link to the error log.
This information is useful for you, if you are taking care of the system administration,
licensing and inventory of Microsoft software products in your organization. This
program can be run on a standalone machine or on the Microsoft Windows
Network. The operating systems supported by this tool are:
Microsoft Windows 98
Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition
Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0
Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0
Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
Windows XP Professional
Windows XP Home Edition
3.MSIA Wizard
Using the MSIA wizard, you can specify the mode of scan, machines to be scanned,
products to scan for, and the kinds of reports to be generated. You can download the
latest version of data files and also specify the path for storing the reports. The tool
lets you save these settings for future use.
The MSIA wizard will guide you through the steps required for scanning.
Note: To avoid frequent input entries, there is a provision to save the current
settings and make use of them in future.
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3.1.1.
Welcome Screen
3.1.2.
Scan Settings
MSIA provides options for specifying the scan settings. MSIA can be executed by the
following ways:
These options allow you to scan using the wizard directly or using the existing
Custom Settings file or by creating a new Custom Settings file that can be used for
scanning in future.
The Scan using Wizard option is selected by default, indicating that you can
proceed with scanning using the wizard.
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The Custom Settings file can be created by selecting the Create Custom settings
option. If you select this option, you will have to specify the folder where the Custom
Settings file has to be created, by browsing for the folder.
The Custom Settings file enables you to scan from the command prompt, without
going through the wizard, as all required inputs are present in the Custom Settings
file. The Custom settings file also helps you in saving and modifying your settings, so
that repetitive scanning of same set of machines and products is faster and easier.
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The Load existing Custom settings option enables you to specify the Custom
settings file that was created earlier for scanning. This file will have information
about the machines and products to be scanned. This option also enables scanning
without going through the entire wizard, as all the information required for scanning
is present in the Custom settings file you selected.
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3.1.3.
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MSIA provides the option for scanning either the local machine or the Microsoft
Windows Network. Using Report Consolidation, you can consolidate all existing
reports as required.
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If you select Network as the mode of scan, the screen will appear as shown.
If you want to select Network as scan mode, you must have administrative rights
over the network you chose to scan. MSIA will use the user name and password used
to log on to the current machine as the default setting.
Note: While creating Custom settings, the Network Configurations settings are
disabled, as the logon credentials are not stored in the Custom settings file. Also
when scanned using Custom settings file, network errors and insufficient user
privileges are ignored and consequently corresponding machines are not scanned.
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If you do not have administrative rights and would like to log in under a different
name, click Login As. The Login As dialog box appears.
Additionally, you must specify what action is to be taken, if a network error occurs.
The options available are:
If you do not have sufficient user privileges on a machine, you must specify the
action to be taken from the following options:
Ignoreto ignore the error, log it, and continue without required
input.
Promptto prompt for input and wait for response.
If you select Report Consolidation, MSIA will not scan any machines. Instead, it
allows you to consolidate the existing reports.
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3.1.4.
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For a Network scan, MSIA provides options for specifying machines using various
machine selection modes as shown in the following figure:
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Choose Select machine(s) from the domain tree to specify machines by selecting
machines from the domain tree as shown in next step.
Choose Specify the machine name(s) to specify the machine/domain names in a
text field for scanning.
Choose Specify the range of IP addresses to specify a range of IP addresses in
case the machine names are not known. This option should be used for machines in
a large IP address range, as resolving the IP address range can take considerable
amount of time.
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3.1.5.
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Machine Selection
3.1.5.1.
If you select a domain, the system includes all the machines in the domain along
with the child domain's machines for scanning, if any.
Note: You need to select at least one machine for scanning.
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3.1.5.2.
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This is another method of specifying machines for scanning. In this mode, the
machine/domain names or even IP addresses can be specified in the text field. This
mode is especially useful when some machines that are hidden and not visible in the
domain tree mode are to be scanned.
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3.1.5.3.
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IP Range mode
This is another method of specifying machines for scanning. This mode is used for
specifying machines that fall in a large range of IP addresses. It is suggested that
you need not use this mode for scanning, if the range is small, because validating IP
addresses can take considerable amount of time.
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3.1.6.
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Product Selection
Using this screen, you can select the products for scanning. Selecting Scan for
Service Packs also option will also scan for the Service Packs for the products
selected.
3.1.7.
Report Formats
Using this screen, you can specify the formats in which you want to view the reports.
You can generate reports in one of the following formats:
HTML
Excel
Text
You can also specify the path for storing the reports in the Select the output
location for saving reports text box.
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Note: The applications required for generating and viewing the reports need to be
present on your machine. For instance, Microsoft Excel 97 or above should be
installed on the machine to generate and view reports in Excel format.
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3.1.8.
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Consolidate Reports
Following is the screen where you specify the option to consolidate reports.
Consolidate Report screen is modified with additional option for MLS report
merging.
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machines option, by default, will be selected and disabled. If the machine selected
for scanning does not have any reports to consolidate, the Consolidate summary
report with previous report option is disabled.
3.1.9.
Confirm Settings
3.1.9.1.
Before scanning
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3.1.9.2.
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Use this screen to verify the settings for creating the Custom settings file.
Click Create to generate the Custom settings file.
3.1.10.
Scanning
This screen displays the approximate percentage of progress with regard to the
scanning process.
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Machines Processed displays either the number machines scanned or the number
of machines selected for consolidating reports.
Total machines displays the sum of machines chosen for scanning and the number
of machines scanned earlier for consolidating the reports from the system from
which you are running the present scan.
3.1.11.
Rescanning
For any reason, if MSIA fails to scan one or more machines, then you will see the
following Rescan screen.
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This screen lists the machines that were not scanned and provides the reasons for
failure. You can rescan these machines now by selecting them, and clicking Rescan.
Otherwise click Next to go to the Finish screen.
If you want MSIA to remember the machines, which are not scanned, select
Remember the machine(s) for next scan. This option allows you to scan the
selected machines the next time you run the application.
3.1.12.
This screen appears at the end of the scanning process. If the View reports now
check box is selected, the chosen reports will be displayed after clicking Finish.
At this time, you can click the License button, to provide information about the
number of licenses you have purchased for the products installed. See License
Information for more details.
Note: The settings you selected using the wizard will not be saved if you do not
click Finish. The Back and Cancel buttons are disabled in this screen.
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3.1.13.
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License Information
This dialog box enables you to manually enter or update license information for all
the products scanned by the tool. The information provided will be maintained for
future use and will be available the next time you use MSIA.
This license information input step is completely voluntary and confidential. The
information will be shared with no one. The information provided here is for your own
license reconciliation needs and is meant to help you understand your license
position. The information submitted to MSIA is not transmitted to Microsoft
Corporation or available to anyone except the MSIA user. The information you input
is used to compare the licenses installed (as detected by MSIA) with the licenses you
have purchased. The result of this comparison is displayed in the Summary Report
(see section 4.1).
If you choose not to enter license information at this step, license information will not
be displayed in the License Purchase Summary section of the Summary Report.
The list of products found by MSIA will be displayed in the Products list. When a
product is selected, its current license details will be displayed in the corresponding
edit box to its right. Users can view and modify them as appropriate. The total
license for a particular product will be displayed in the Total box.
To help you complete the License Information step, below is a description of each
license type:
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OEM licenses are already pre-installed on new PCs when you purchase the PC.
Typically, Windows operating systems are pre-installed on new PCs. Office and other
applications may also be pre-installed on your new PCs.
Retail licenses are purchased from a retail store in a shrink-wrapped box. Typically,
these are licenses that you have installed yourself, or have had a service provider
install for you.
Open licenses are acquired by small and medium businesses via the Open License
Programs.
Select licenses are acquired by medium and large businesses via the Select License
Program.
Enterprise licenses are acquired by large businesses via an Enterprise Agreement.
The Other license category would be used to capture any license not acquired from
the options listed above.
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3.1.14.
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You can report a problem or provide feedback on MSIA using the provide feedback
or report a problem link on the MSIA HTML summary report.
When you click on this link, the Provide Feedback wizard will appear allowing you
to enter the details of your feedback or issue. This wizard can also be invoked by
clicking the Feedback.dlg file in the reports folder. In addition, you can provide
feedback or report a problem by sending e-mail to [email protected].
This screen allows you to provide your company/contact information.
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The following screen allows you to attach error information file MSIADetailedLog.txt
that are generated during scanning. This file contains the detailed log information
that is generated with scanning. This log contains an error/status update
information, especially errors that occurred due to network failure or remote registry
access failure, which are usually the common scenarios where scanning could not be
completed successfully. This information helps the support personnel to analyze the
errors easily and accurately, and reply to the queries faster.
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A text box is provided to describe the issue or the exact scenario in detail so that the
support personnel can reply to queries faster.
4.Reports
4.1. Summary Report
Following is an example of the summary report generated in HTML format.
The summary report provides links to various information like number of machines
scanned, error log, and list of machines.
Apart from this, an HTML summary report has the following links:
Each product serves as a link to the Detailed Product Report, which provides a list
of machines on which the product was scanned and detected. Each machine is a link
to the Detailed Report, which provides a detailed report of all the products that
were scanned and detected on that system.
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5.Consolidation of Reports
5.1. Consolidation of Summary Reports
MSIA 2.1 or higher versions let you merge/consolidate summary reports. Briefly, it
works like this:
1. You create a Summary Report by running a Network or a Local scan.
2. You then run a scan of additional machines that are not included in the earlier
scan from the same machine.
3. You consolidate the latter with the previous one.
4. You should not delete or move any MSIA report related files manually.
MSIA 3.1 or above allows you to consolidate reports from multiple machines.
Consolidation of multiple reports works as follows:
1. You create summary reports in different machines, say in machine A and
machine B.
2. You then run MSIA in Machine C.
3. You choose Report Consolidation in Local or Network Mode screen.
4. In Consolidate Report screen of the wizard, enter machine A and B,
separated by semicolon.
5. The resultant summary report will be the consolidated report of machine A
and B.
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6.3.1.
Overview
MSIA is used for obtaining an inventory of Microsoft products on local and remote
systems on a network. MSIA runs on the audit system and obtains inventory
information of remote systems by connecting to them. This requires proper privileges
and configuration for accessing the remote system.
The remote registry and remote administration services are by default enabled on
Windows NT and Windows 2000 systems. For Windows 98 and Windows Millennium
Edition systems, they are not enabled by default and have to be enabled manually.
This process was done manually in MSIA 2.0. The process of enabling Remote
Registry and Remote Administration services has been automated in MSIA 3.0 and
later, by using a logon script that could be run on target (Windows 98) systems.
6.3.2.
To enable the remote registry and remote administration services, you need to create
some registry entries by copying necessary files to the target (Windows 98) system.
This is achieved by executing a logon script on Win98 systems. It requires a domain
user to log on to the target (Windows 98) system. The logon script is a batch file that
resides in the NETLOGON path on the domain controller. This is executed on the
target (Windows 98) system whenever a domain user logs on to the domain on the
target system, for whom the logon script has been set by the domain administrator.
To set up the logon script on the domain controller, the necessary files have to be
copied to the NETLOGON shared folder in the domain controller. To perform this
operation, a batch file DCLogonScriptSetup.bat has been provided, which can be
located in the ForWin98 folder under the installation directory of MSIA. This batch
file requires two parameters, NETLOGON shared folder path and the Domain
controller machine name. This batch file will put all the necessary files in the
NETLOGON shared folder.
The Domain Admin has to specify the logon script in the properties of each individual
user. This has to be done on the domain controller machine using Administrative
Tools. Then, once the user logs on from a Windows 98 machine to the domain, the
batch file will be executed on the target (Windows 98) machine and all the necessary
registry entries will be created and necessary files will be copied to the target
(Windows 98) system.
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6.3.3.
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2. Select the user for whom you want to enable the logon script from the list of
users.
3. Go to the User menu and select Properties.
4. Click Profile on the Properties window.
5. Enter the Logon Script file name as "MSIALogon98.bat" in the Logon script
Name text box.
6. Click OK to save the settings.
7. Close the User Manager for Domain console window.
7.System Requirements
1. Your computer(s) must meet the following minimum system requirements for
MSIA to work effectively.
Operating
System
Windows 98 or later
CPU
Processor
RAM
64 MB (128 MB recommended)
Storage
space
Browser
2. If attempting to scan a network using the Network Scan mode, the user
must have administrative rights over the network chosen to scan.
If you are attempting to scan a network which contains PCs with
Windows 98 or Windows Millennium Edition operating systems you must
enable the Remote Administration Service and Install Remote Registry
Service for each PC to be scanned.
Note: If you do not perform these functions, you will receive an error message when
attempting to scan Windows 98 or Windows Millennium Edition machines. See
Windows 98, Windows Millennium Edition - Network Scanning for details.
We want to hear from you! To submit questions or feedback about the Microsoft
Software Inventory Analyzer, send e-mail to [email protected].
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