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Have Microsoft pulled CMTrace? RRS feed

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    There is a new version of the toolkit available.

    Niall's post about the update

    Which ultimately leads here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=50012

    Logs are very important. https://keithga.wordpress.com/2014/10/24/video-mdt-2013-log-files-basics-bdd-log-and-smsts-log/ Mention any customizations you have made.

    • Marked as answer by Ty Glander Monday, November 30, 2015 9:52 PM
    Monday, November 30, 2015 9:52 PM
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    I am really curious about the licensing.

    In this MDT technet page they say that it is free:
    https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn744297.aspx

    But when you download the Toolkit and read the EULA you can find:
    1.    INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS. You may install and use any number of copies of the software on your devices running validly licensed copies of Microsoft System Center 2012 or later.

    Could anyone clarify on this please?

    Wednesday, December 9, 2015 9:39 PM
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    Hi,

    As far as I know it requires a Configuration Manager license as it is a configuration manager tool and the EULA is correct and the Technet site is wrong. Probably the writer of that Technet article missed that part.

    Regards,
    Jörgen

    -- My System Center blog ccmexec.com -- Twitter @ccmexec

    Wednesday, December 9, 2015 10:14 PM
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    Counter question:
    Why would Microsoft put such a tool on their public website then?

    This looks like a serious licensing trap to me...

    I see so many people using CMTrace in this forums and I can't imagine that the majority of them has an active Configuration Manager license.

    I also write Michael Niehaus an E-Mail, maybe he responds or corrects the technet page then :)

    Thursday, December 10, 2015 7:08 AM
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    I see so many people using CMTrace in this forums and I can't imagine that the majority of them has an active Configuration Manager license.

    Why not? This is a ConfigMgr forum so chances are high that the product is licensed.

    Torsten Meringer | http://www.mssccmfaq.de

    Thursday, December 10, 2015 7:40 AM
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    Hi Torsten,

    this thread has moved from the MDT forum to the Configuration manager forum a few hours ago, therefore my comment is kind of wrong now of course ;)

    I still hope someone can clarify on this.
    It is really shame if CMTrace is not available to regular users.

    Why is it available for download at all? Just bundle it with Configuration Manager then?

    Thursday, December 10, 2015 6:51 PM
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    Hi, oriooff, I'm on the product team at Microsoft, and our fantastic MVPs have a direct line to me, so they let me know about your question. I'll jump in here rather than have them proxy a reply back, so you have it straight from me.

    We aren't trying to trap anyone with licensing on this. All of the other tools in the toolkit are only of use when you have Configuration Manager. Based on some discussions we had internally after Jörgen told me about this thread, I think most of us never even considered that anyone would want CMTrace for anything other than Configuration Manager log files. We're glad it's popular!

    The reason we ship a toolkit separately is so it can have a different release deadline. We have to lock down a major product months before anyone in the public can get it, but a minor release like a toolkit can be completed in a very short period of time.

    The good news is, we started including CMTrace on the CD a while back. If you download the eval version of Configuration Manager from here https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-system-center-configuration-manager-and-endpoint-protection and unzip the exe, the CMTrace.exe is in \SMSSETUP\TOOLS. And the eval license covers using the tools in the eval release.

    Hopefully that removes any concern about using CMTrace. Given how popular it is, we may have to rethink how we license it. I think Torsten is right that a lot of big companies have licensed System Center, so there's no problem. For anyone just using MDT, hey, install the eval copy and see what you're missing with Config Manager. :-) And thanks, Jörgen, for bringing this to our attention.

    Cathy Moya, Program Manager, Configuration Manager and Intune 


    Thursday, January 7, 2016 6:23 PM
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    Thanks for the reply Cathy, really appreciate it!
    I hope you can keep this on a list internally and consider if this can be made a separate free release.

    I previously worked with Configuration Manager at my old job and integrated it with MDT.
    If things progress as they do, we will probably switch to a different licensing in a few years which would include Configuration Manager I assume :) It seems there is some Linux support now which is also fundamental to us. CMTrace by itself is probably nothing that would influence someones decision on this.

    Recently I have learned about another way to read the log files:
    Keith Garner - Find errors quickly in a SCCM or MDT log file
    This has the advantage that it checks the type of the line and only displays it as an error in this case.

    CMTrace on the other hand will always displays lines as an error if they contain the word "error"
    A line with the string 'No error' will be marked falsely as error because of this.
    Sure would be nice to be able to toggle this behavior in CMTrace.

    @Jörgen: Thanks for putting that useful comment on the Technet article! https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn744297.aspx

    @Cathy: Could you forward that someone makes an edit on the technet article?

    • Edited by oriooff Thursday, January 7, 2016 9:42 PM passage, edit article
    Thursday, January 7, 2016 9:36 PM