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Using Software Inventory Collection or Scripts to Find Data on Local Machines

Answered Using Software Inventory Collection or Scripts to Find Data on Local Machines

  • Wednesday, November 14, 2012 8:53 PM
     
     
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    My company is looking for a way to get data up and off our desktops in the field. As a first step, we need to know which clients have local data saved and where that data resides. The next step will be to move that data up and off the desktops, but I am concerned with the first step here.

    What would be the best method to use SCCM to capture where local user data might reside? Keep in mind that we have over 10,000 clients in our environment.

    We have thought about using the Inventory Collection cycle in SCCM by adding various document types to the list of scanned for files (Under Software Inventory Client Agent Properties > Inventory Collection). By default, only *.exe is collected, but we have since added *.pst to the list so that we could pinpoint the location of PSTs. Has anyone else tried adding all Office types to the list of inventoried files (e.g. *.doc, *.docx, *.xls, etc.)? If so, are there any problems or limitations that might be encountered by enabling all of this in inventory collection? I am mainly concerned about bogging down our SCCM environment and database by enabling too much in the inventory process.

    As a second option, we are considering running scripts that might scan the drives on the local machine and then create a report in CSV format that might include the location of any Office or PDF documents on the system. Of course, we would look at pushing out this script via SCCM. Are there any scripts out there that might already exists so I don't have to reinvent the wheel?

    Of the two approaches, which would be the best, most efficient way to accomplish these goals? Or, if we are looking at the wrong tool to accomplish this task, I am also open to hearing what tools others are using to accomplish this sort of thing.

    Thanks,

    Sean

     

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  • Wednesday, November 14, 2012 9:09 PM
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    Jason Sandy's help me create a way to run a script that does a USMT estimate pass, stores that in WMI which is then collected into SCCM inventory. It's just an estimate of how much data would be gathered on each box if you were to run USMT on it. That may help you but I've not had time to get it working 100% yet.

    http://blog.configmgrftw.com/?p=521

    John Marcum | http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/jmarcum/|

     
  • Thursday, November 15, 2012 1:07 PM
     
     
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    John, thanks so much for your suggestion. I will take a look at that article and see what USMT might be able to do. As you mention, this would only give me an estimate of the total amount of data, which would be something, but I am also looking for the path to the files as well (the detail).

    Thanks again,

    Sean

     
  • Thursday, November 15, 2012 3:25 PM
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    USMT can probably write out a file with that info in it. You'd just have to grab all the files and dig through them.

    John Marcum | http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/jmarcum/|

     
  • Thursday, November 15, 2012 10:33 PM
     
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    You can maybe write a script which generate informations that you want and create an noidmif file,  this file will gather by  hw inventory. You will get data in sccm database.
     
  • Friday, November 16, 2012 2:52 PM
     
     
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    Thanks again for the ideas.

    Any thoughts on adding the file extensions for all office programs to the Software Inventory collection? In other words, can you think of any reasons that would be a bad idea?


     
  • Friday, November 16, 2012 3:07 PM
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    It would likely cause atabase bloat and possibly spike the CPU on the clients during at least during the first run.

    John Marcum | http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/jmarcum/|

     
  • Saturday, November 17, 2012 8:29 PM
     
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    I personally avoid SW inventory like the plague. The main reason why is that end client always know exactly when they are doing SW inv due to the say a PC will slow down, even with SSD drivers client will know when it is happening.

    http://www.enhansoft.com/