About Configuration Manager Status Messages

Article
05/03/2011

Applies To: System Center Configuration Manager 2007, System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2, System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R3, System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP1, System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP2

In Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007, status messages are the universal means for components to communicate information about their health to the Configuration Manager 2007 administrator. Status messages are similar to Windows NT Events; they have a severity, ID, description, and so on.

The Configuration Manager Status System is a fully-distributed, enterprise-wide aggregation and summarization system for status messages. Status messages flow from components to the Configuration Manager site servers and up the Configuration Manager site hierarchy.

The administrator configures how Configuration Manager processes the status messages at each site server in the hierarchy. This processing can include storing the status messages in a SQL database, replicating the messages to the parent Configuration Manager site, reporting the messages as Windows Events on the site server, and exporting the messages to another eventing or alerting application.

Certain kinds of status messages are automatically processed by Summarizer components that are running on the site servers. The Summarizers produce high-level data about the raw flows of status messages. Administrators monitor this data in the Configuration Manager console.

Status messages are similar to Windows events; they have a severity, ID, and description. They also support message insertion strings and named attribute values. This allows user-defined messages to be reported through the site.

For more information about status messages, see https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=110807.

Types of Status Messages

Predefined Status Messages

Each Configuration Manager component has a set of predefined status messages assigned to it. It is important that the context in which an application reports a predefined status message matches exactly the purpose of the Configuration Manager component status message. Otherwise, the integrity of the site might be affected by Configuration Manager misinterpreting the meaning of the status message. For more information, see About Configuration Manager Component Status Messages.

User-defined Generic Status Messages

Configuration Manager provides three types of user-defined generic status messages.

Information
Warning
Error

Along with the message type, insertion strings and attributes can be supplied. The text that is provided as the insertion string, when creating the status message, is the text seen in the user interface. This makes using generic messages simple, but it does not allow for localization. For more information, see How to Read User-Defined Status Messages.

Creating Status Messages on the Client

You can create events on client computers in the following ways:

SMSEvent

SMSEvent Class is a COM automation class that you use to raise user-defined status messages on a client. As a COM Automation object, it can readily be used by VBScript. For more information, see SMSEvent Class.

SMSCSTAT.DLL

SMSCSTAT.DLL is a Win32 dynamic link library that is available on clients. It has been installed on Configuration Manager 2007 clients since SMS 2.0 Service Pack 1. It cannot be easily be used by VBScript. For more information, see About Using SMSCSTAT.DLL to Create Status Messages.

Management Point Interface

Using the management point interfaces, you can raise status messages that are defined by XML from client computers. The management point interfaces cannot be used by VBScript. Using the management point interface is recommended for raising status messages on client computers that are not running a Windows operating system. For more information see, Configuration Manager Management Point Interface.

Creating Status Messages on the Site Server

You raise events on the server by creating instances of SMS_StatusMessage. For more information, see How to Report User-Defined Status Messages.

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