14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is acknowledging that customers have been reporting a range of issues related to Windows Management Intrumentation (WMI), as well as to components related to this particular service. In this regard, Microsoft Support Services has put together a knowledge base article containing a number of hotfixes that the company is recommending customers to install.
Depending on the version of Windows they’re running, users will have one or more fixes at their disposal, which they can access through KB2591403.
There are multiple hotfixes available for download for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, as well as for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, and one each for Windows Server 2003 SP2 and Windows XP.
The software giant provided a complete list, which I included at the bottom of this article. All of the fixes are designed to resolve WMI operation and functionality problems, according to the Redmond company.
Microsoft’s Tim Newton explains that because of WMI’s pervasiveness, symptoms are very hard to identify and fix, citing the complexity of the troubleshooting process.
The following list of high-level symptoms related to WMI issues has been provided to customers:
“• Loss of functionality with enterprise management/monitoring software for various machines. Software examples: Microsoft SCOM/SMS, IBM Tivoli, LANDesk Management, HP OpenView, BMC Patrol, etc.
• Loss of functionality related to Citrix terminal services load-balancing.
• Loss of functionality for WMI-based scripts.
• Slow user logon times on Citrix terminal servers.
• Slow user logon times on Windows clients where WMI-based group policy filters are in-place.”
According to the software giant, there are additional, more granular problems that customers can encounter. Some IT pros will find for example that they cannot use WBEMTEST in order to connect to root\default, root\cimv2 and/or root\citrix namespaces.
In addition, the OBJECTS.DATA file can cause the repository’s size to explode, while some CITRIX missing/repeating namespaces can go missing.
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Hotfix list for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008
2464876 The WMI repository is corrupted on a computer that is running Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista
973243 The default gateway is missing on a computer that is running Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista after the computer restarts if the default gateway is set by using the Netsh command
Hotfix list for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2
2465990 "0x80041002 (WBEM_E_NOT_FOUND)" error occurs when you try to open a WMI namespace on a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2
2492536 Msinfo32.exe takes a long time to display or export system information on a computer that has many MSI-X-supported devices and that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2
982293 The Svchost.exe process that has the WMI service crashes in Windows Server 2008 R2 or in Windows 7
974930 An application or service that queries information about a failover cluster by using the WMI provider may experience low performance or a time-out exception
Hotfix list for Windows Server 2003 SP2
2257980 "0x80041002 (WBEM_E_NOT_FOUND)" error code occurs when you try to open a WMI namespace on a computer that is running Windows Server 2003 SP2
Hotfix list for Windows XP
933062 A hotfix is available that improves the stability of the Windows Management Instrumentation repository in Windows XP.”