Network Inventory Advisor - help & support

Solution #1 - Asset has to be online: This may sound primitive, but we have to ask this. Is remote asset online? Turned on? Available on the network? Many of our clients just don't check that... sorry. It's the first thing you should consider; however, if it is online and "nicely" pinged, read on. If the remote asset you are trying to inventory does not appear in reports but is ping'ed easily and without severe losses, there might be something wrong with its configuration, please, check this FAQ further, we'll definitely have a solution. Let us know if we don't, as we are still eager to help you.

Solution #2 - Admin rights: You might have no local administrator rights on the remote computer. You must have the rights of the domain administrator to be able to connect to your assets. If you are inventorying a Vista or Windows 2008 machine, the good idea would be to disable UAC (User Account Control), some of our clients reported that it helped to bypass some issues they had with auditing networks with Windows Vista installed in remote systems. If you don't want to disable UAC completely, please, refer to FAQ #17.

Solution #3 - Firewall: You should check for a firewall blocking access to the remote computer. While configuring it, note that remote computer's firewall should allow DCOM protocol and remote computer management. If there's a Windows firewall interfering, please, read on for more instructions.

Solution #4 - Sharing model: Sometimes it may seem that everything is configured correctly, but connection still fails. If you are using Windows XP, Vista or 2003, you should check for the default sharing and security model for local accounts: open the Local Security Policy editor (e.g. type 'secpol.msc' in the Run box); go to "Local Policies" and select "Security Options". Now scroll down and find "Network access: Sharing and security model for local accounts" (or its localized analog). If this is set to "Guest only", change it to "Classic" and restart the computer.

Solution #5 - Blank password: Starting with Windows XP you can no longer use admin accounts with blank passwords for remote administration and management. This can surely be turned off in Local Security Policies, but it's not the right way to do this. It's better to set a password for the admin account you will be using.

Solution #6 - WMI/RPC/etc not available: Windows NT, Windows 95, and Windows 98 do not support WMI. If "Windows Management Instrumentation Driver Extensions" (or other WMI-related service, like RPC) is disabled on the remote computer you are inventorying, you won't be able to get any data from such an asset. However, you can easily fix this by installing the needed software.

Solution #7 - Compatibility restriction: Basically, you can't connect to/from some versions of Windows OS:

• Windows XP Home does not support remote management, you won't be able to inventory it from a remote PC
• Windows NT computers cannot connect to operating systems newer than Windows 2000, so you won't be able to inventory Windows XP, Windows 2003, or Vista from a Win NT system
• Windows 9x will not connect to Windows 2003 Server
• Windows 2000 assets need Service Pack 2 to be able to communicate successfully to Windows XP or newer Windows OS

Solution #8 - Network connection properties: You may be getting "No such host is known" or "An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host" errors and scanning may fail if you have NetBIOS disabled in your network connection properties. You should check this on the nodes producing the same or similar errors when scanned in "Network connection properties - Internet protocol (TCP/IP) - Properties - Advanced - Wins tab". The general recommendation would surely be to enable NetBIOS.

Solution: Please, download WMI Core for Windows 95 and 98 and for Windows NT. Learn more details about WMI support in various versions of Windows in other sections of this FAQ (compatibility restriction and deployment of WMI in Win 9x).

Solution: First, download the WMI core. Secondly, place the WMI application in the startup section, and enable DCOM connections:

• In the registry, find the section HKLM\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\OLE and set the EnableDCOM value to "Y", and EnableRemoteConnect to "Y" (it is "N" by default)
• In the registry, find the section HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\wbem\cimom and set the AutostartWin9X value to "2". Set EnableAnonConnections to "1"
• Add a link to the Winmgmt.exe file into the Startup directory. The file is stored in the \Windows\System\WBEM folder

That's it.

Solution: In Windows 2003 the WMI Windows Installer Provider is an optional component. To install this provider, open the Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs section and click Add/Remove Windows Components. Select the Management and Monitoring Tools checkbox, then click Details. Mark the WMI Windows Installer Provider checkbox, and click OK.

Answer: Oh, sure. It definitely exports into MDB. Whenever you see the option to export into SQL, that's actually what you need. As you know, SQL is the best option to store a database structure, as it is easily readable, occupies just a couple of kilobytes, and is easily transferable, that it why we did our best to make the SQL output as universal as possible. To import the exported SQL script into the new MS Access database, you'll need to do the following:

• Export the report you need into SQL
• Get a copy of BatchAccess (a third-party utility, copyright belongs to its respective owner), install it and launch. You can Google for it, or request a copy from our technicians, it's free, open-source, and quite useful if you deal with MS Access regularly
• Create an empty database in BatchAccess, and then Run the SQL script exported previously
• Ta-da! Your MDB database is ready to be opened in MS Access.

Solution: In case a Windows XP computer is not allowed for remote administration, please, follow these steps:

• Click "Start", click "Run", type "gpedit.msc" (Group Policies), and then click "OK"
• Under "Local Computer Policy" expand "Computer Configuration" > "Administrative Templates" > "Network" > "Network Connections" > "Windows Firewall" and then click "Domain Profile"
• Right-click "Windows Firewall: Allow remote administration exception", and then click "Properties" or simply double-click it
• Click "Enabled", and then "OK".

That's it.

Solution: Please, follow these steps:

• Click "Start", click "Run", type "DCOMCNFG", and then click "OK"
• In the "Component Services" dialog box, expand "Component Services", expand "Computers", and then expand "My Computer"
• On the toolbar, click the "Configure My Computer" button. The "My Computer" dialog box appears
• In the "My Computer" dialog box, click the "COM Security" tab
• Under "Launch and Activate Permissions", click "Edit Limits"
• In the "Launch Permission" dialog box, follow these steps if your name or your group does not appear in the "Groups or user names list": In the "Launch Permission" dialog box, click "Add"; In the "Select Users", "Computers", or "Groups" dialog box, add your name and the group in the "Enter the object names to select" box, and then click "OK"
• In the "Launch Permission" dialog box, select your user and group in the "Group or user names" box. In the "Allow" column under "Permissions for User", select "Remote Launch", and then click OK.

That's it.

Solution: Before you enable ports in "Windows Firewall", make sure that the "Windows Firewall: Allow local port exceptions" setting is enabled in Group Policies. To do this, follow these steps:

• Click "Start", click "Run", type "gpedit.msc", and then "OK"
• Under "Local Computer Policy" expand "Computer Configuration" > "Administrative Templates" > "Network" > "Network Connections" > "Windows Firewall", and then click "Domain Profile"
• Right-click "Windows Firewall: Allow local port exceptions", and then click "Properties", or simply double-click it
• Click "Enabled", and then "OK"

That's it.

Note: You can also use the "Windows Firewall: Define port exceptions" setting to configure local port exceptions.

The DCOM port is TCP 135. To open the DCOM port, follow these steps:

• Click "Start", and then click "Control Panel"
• Double-click "Windows Firewall", and then click the "Exceptions" tab.
• Click "Add Port".
• In the "Name" box, type "DCOM_TCP135", and then type "135" in the "Port number" box.
• Click "TCP", and then click "OK".
• Click "OK".

Note: You can also type the following command at a command prompt to open a port:

netsh firewall add portopening TCP 135 DCOM_TCP135

Solution: Before you define program exceptions in "Windows Firewall", make sure that the "Windows Firewall: Allow local program exceptions" setting is enabled in Group Policies:

• Click "Start", click "Run", type "gpedit.msc", and then "OK"
• Under "Local Computer Policy" expand "Computer Configuration" > "Administrative Templates" > "Network" > "Network Connections" > "Windows Firewall", and then click "Domain Profile"
• Right-click "Windows Firewall: Allow local program exceptions", and then click "Properties" or simply double-click it
• Click "Enabled", and then "OK"

That's it.

Note: You can also use the "Windows Firewall: Define program exceptions" setting to configure local program exceptions.

To add the program to the "Windows Firewall Exceptions" list, follow these steps:

• Click "Start", and then click "Control Panel"
• Double-click "Windows Firewall", and then click the "Exceptions" tab
• Click "Add Program"
• Locate the file iadvisor.exe (in the program folder, inside "Program Files"), and then click "OK"
• Click "OK". This is how we add the GUI of Network Inventory Advisor to exceptions.
• Locate the file piaservice.exe (in the program folder, inside "Program Files"), and then click "OK"
• Click "OK". This was needed to add the service of the software to the exceptions list.

You can also type the following command in command prompt to add a program to the Windows Firewall Exception list:

netsh firewall add allowedprogram path_to_the_program_folder\iadvisor.exe NetworkInventoryAdvisor ENABLE

and

netsh firewall add allowedprogram path_to_the_program_folder\piaservice.exe NetworkInventoryAdvisorSVC ENABLE

strong>Solution: According to our tests this error refers to Generic Failure accessing remote WMI. However, solutions can be different depending on recurrence of this error. You can find a good discussion on this error here. Please, feel free to contact our tech support any time.

Solution: Please, consult this topic: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/318849. There's an issue with your local security policies, and this article will guide you through on fixing them. There's also a great guide to low-level troubleshooting of these two errors here.

Solution: This error stands for "The current user does not have permission to perform the action". You might run into this error message when the user account you are scanning your network with does not have the required WMI privileges. As we mentioned before, the user account has to have administrator rights in target system, as well as have specific privileges enabled. First of all, you'll have to check the namespace security of the remote system. To do this, get to the remote asset, access the WMI Control and the Security tab in the Computer Management Console:

• Right-click "My computer", and select "Manage"
• Double-click "Services and Applications" and then double-click "WMI Control"
• Right-click "WMI Control" and select "Properties"
• Go to "Security" tab
• Expand the "Root" category and navigate to "CIMV2" namespace, highlight it
• Now, please, click "Security". If the user you use to login to this PC is on the list which appears, modify the permissions in the following way: add "network service" account (from local computer accounts) and Administrator account. If the user is not on the list, click the Add button, and add the user from the location (local machine, domain, etc.) where the account resides
• To be able to configure namespace security, the user must have Read Security and Edit Security privileges. Administrators have them by default, and can assign the permissions to other users
• Enable "Remote Enable" permission
• By default, user account privileges set on a namespace are applied only to that same namespace. If you want the user to have access to all subnamespaces click the Advanced button. Click Edit and specify the scope of access in the dialog box which follows.
• If the above steps don't fix the issue, do the same for "Default" namespace

Solution: The reason of this issue is the version of Windows OS. Actually, in Win NT/2000/XP a user always logs on before logging to network (Netware or Microsoft). In Windows 9x you cannot get the user name unless you log on into Windows. So, Windows logon must precede the network logon to correctly capture the username. So, please try to select the 'Windows logon' option in the 'Primary Network Logon' list (Control Panel > Network > Configuration). Unfortunately, it is not possible to get the user name in Windows 9x BEFORE 'Windows logon' occurs.

Solution: Please, check that your domain name is not included in the login ID which you use to inventory the network. Also, make sure the user name and password which you use belong to domain admin and have the highest privileges assigned.

Solution: It surely is agent-free, however, it features several scanning methods, and by default in case the one that uses an RPC/DCOM agent fails, an agentless method is used. You can change this behavior in Settings. Please, note that scanning using self-deployed agent will result in more accurate results, as some of the data categories are inventoried in a custom way, bypassing WMI services.

Solution: It's totally secure. Network Inventory Advisor does not send any data about your network to us or anywhere else, it doesn't collect personal sensitive data and cannot harm your network configuration and stability in any way. You can always download a free demo of Network Inventory Advisor to make sure it satisfy your requirements.

Solution: If you don't want to disable UAC completely in Windows Vista systems which you are going to inventory, but still need to scan them, you can consider disabling UAC for remote administrator only. More details on this can be found in this article by Microsoft. In general you just need to do the following:

• In registry locate this key: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\system
• Set value LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy into 1 (it means Remote UAC disabled)
• That's it

Solution: You forgot to enable scanning via SSH, which is required for Macs to be included in the Inventory. Please, open Settings -> General, and check the "Enable scanning via SSH (for Macs)" option. We noticed that sometimes it would also help if you delete the node from the network tree and add it again.

Solution: Your Mac seems to have remote login disabled.

The Apple Mac OS X operating system has SSH installed by default but the SSH daemon is not enabled. This means you can't login remotely or do remote copies until you enable it. To enable it, go to 'System Preferences'. Under 'Internet & Networking' there is a 'Sharing' icon. Run that. In the list that appears, check the 'Remote Login' option. This starts the SSH daemon immediately and you can remotely login using your username. The 'Sharing' window shows at the bottom the name and IP address to use. You can also find this out using 'whoami' and 'ifconfig' from the Terminal application.

Also make sure the username and password used to scan the Mac remotely are correct.

Solution: Free trial version of Network Inventory Advisor implies certain demo limitations, however, this doesn't prevent you from trying absolutely all features of our software to make your purchasing decision. The following limitations are applied:

• Free trial will expire in 15 days, and you will not be able to launch Network Inventory Advisor until you purchase a license
• You can inventory no more than 25 nodes
• You can export and print only your localhost's reports

Once you try the free demo version, please, consider buying a license.

Solution: Yes, you surely can. Network Inventory Advisor, since version 3.9, features native scanning of Linux nodes. Make sure open-ssh server is enabled/installed in your Linux machines.