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R2 Authoring Console

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I’ve been getting this question quite a bit, so I thought I’d give a quick answer to it.  The question is whether we can use the R2 Authoring Console to create management packs for SP1.  The answer is that you absolutely can – with a minor caveat.  There is nothing different about the structure of a management pack for SP1 or R2, and the Authoring Console just creates management packs in XML.  There are R2 specific modules, and using those will make your MP unusable in SP1, but you could use those with any version of the Authoring Console or even editing XML directly.

But what about that one caveat?  When you create a new management pack in the Authoring Console, it will automatically add references to the library MPs – System.Library, System.Health.Library, Microsoft.Windows.Library, and Microsoft.SystemCenter.Library.  The R2 Authoring Console will create those references to the latest versions of those MPs (6.1.7043.0 as of RC version of R2).  You probably aren’t going to use any specific features of those new versions, but if you leave those references, your management pack won’t load in a management group with pre-R2 libraries. 

To fix this, you should be able to just go to the References tab in Management Pack Properties and change the versions of those references.  The Key Token won’t change since the same certificate was used for sealing the different MP versions.  For reference, the SP1 libraries are version 6.0.6278.0, and the RTM libraries are version 6.0.5000.0.

Bottom line is definitely use the R2 Authoring Console regardless of which version of OpsMgr you’re working with.  Several improvements over the SP1 version including the ability to create elements that we used to have to drop out to XML for.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Well, I did this upgrade to R2 Authoring Console. My fault was that I installed it on the RMS running SCOM 2007 SP1. On the next restart, SDK service crashed immediately with some strange .NET exception. :-) I had to open a case, and MS support told me that R2 console registers new dll files, so that was a bad idea... Finally, we got repaired it with re-registering dlls needed for SDK service.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Sorry for your problem but thanks for the heads up.  I didn't know about that issue.  

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
      I’ve been getting this question quite a bit, so I thought I’d give a quick answer to it. 

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    I use the console released for SCOM RTM, and faced with a strange thing: it looks for the version 6.0.5000 (RTM) of Windows Library, it does not accept the newer version used with SCOM 2007 SP1. So it may be wise to keep a backup of older MPs at hand.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    I actually keep a complete set of the library MPs for each OpsMgr release - just in case.  Any MP I'm writing for customers will typically need to work with SP1 since most aren't using R2 yet. Probably want to upgrade to the new Authoring Console though.  Much better than the RTM version.