About Configuration Manager Component Status Messages

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

The message text for both the Configuration Manager 2007 components and the raw user-defined messages is contained in message DLLs. The SMS_StatMsgInsStrings Server WMI Class class contains the insertion strings for those messages that use insertion strings. To read the SMS component and raw user-defined messages, you must know the message DLL that contains the message text.

You can get the DLL name from the SMS_StatMsgModuleNames Server WMI Class. The SMS_StatMsgModuleNames Server WMI Class class contains the ModuleName and MsgDLLName properties. You can use ModuleName to join the SMS_StatMsgModuleNames class with the SMS_StatusMessage class, as the following example shows.

// Note that this query returns all the instances found in the SMS_Status_Message 
// class. This query can return several thousand instances. If you test this 
// query, you should add a where clause to limit its scope, or set the 
// InstanceCount context qualifier to limit the number of instances returned.
SELECT B.Severity, B.MessageID, B.MessageType,
       B.Win32Error, B.SiteCode, B.MachineName,
       B.Component, C.MsgDLLName, D.InsStrValue 
FROM SMS_StatusMessage AS B
     INNER JOIN SMS_StatMsgModuleNames AS C 
     ON B.ModuleName = C.ModuleName
     LEFT OUTER JOIN SMS_StatMsgInsStrings AS D
     ON B.RecordID = D.RecordID 
ORDER BY B.Sitecode, B.RecordID, B.MessageID, D.InsStrIndex

You can use the MessageID and Component names from the list to limit your status message query. For example, you can add a WHERE clause to limit the status messages to the SMS_Distribution_Manager component.

After you have the DLL name, you can use the Microsoft Win32 API function FormatMessage to retrieve the message text from the component's message DLL. This requires you to get the module handle for the DLL by using the Win32 API function GetModuleHandle. The dwMessageId parameter is the OR'd result of the MessageID and the Severity properties. You should set the FORMAT_MESSAGE_ARGUMENT_ARRAY flag and pass the insertion strings as an array.

The following code shows how to call FormatMessage to retrieve the message text from a DLL.

// Get the module handle for the component's message DLL. This assumes the
// message DLL is loaded. If the DLL is not loaded, then load the DLL by using
// the Win32 API LoadLibrary.
hmodMessageDLL = GetModuleHandle(MsgDLLName);

// The flags tell FormatMessage to allocate the memory needed for the message,
// to get the message text from a message DLL, and that the insertion strings are
// stored in an array, instead of a variable length argument list. The last
// parameter, apInsertStrings, is the array of insertion strings returned by the
// query.
dwMsgLen = FormatMessage(FORMAT_MESSAGE_ALLOCATE_BUFFER |
                         FORMAT_MESSAGE_FROM_HMODULE |
                         FORMAT_MESSAGE_ARGUMENT_ARRAY,
                         hmodMessageDLL,
                         Severity | MessageID,
                         0,
                         lpBuffer,
                         nSize,
                         apInsertStrings);

// Free the memory after you use the message text.
LocalFree(lpBuffer);

See Also

Concepts

About Configuration Manager Status Messages
SMS_StatMsgInsStrings Server WMI Class
SMS_StatMsgModuleNames Server WMI Class