AVIcode

The AVIcode blog has moved!

J.C. Hornbeck — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:09:08 GMT

With the impending launch of System Center 2012, we thought now would be a fine time to move our standalone AVIcode blog and integrate it fully into our Operations Manager team blog at https://blogs.technet.com/b/momteam/. Starting today, all future AVIcode posts will be made on our Operations Manager team blog so if you subscribe via RSS you’ll want to be sure to update those subscriptions so you don’t miss out on all the future excitement.

You can subscribe to the Operations Manager team blog here. We have a lot planned so stay tuned!

J.C. Hornbeck | System Center & Security Knowledge Engineer

Get the latest System Center news on Facebook and Twitter:

The Forefront Server Protection blog: https://blogs.technet.com/b/fss/
The Forefront Endpoint Security blog : https://blogs.technet.com/b/clientsecurity/
The Forefront Identity Manager blog : https://blogs.msdn.com/b/ms-identity-support/
The Forefront TMG blog: https://blogs.technet.com/b/isablog/
The Forefront UAG blog: https://blogs.technet.com/b/edgeaccessblog/

Searching in AVIcode SE Viewer fails with "The URL encoded form data are not valid" error

J.C. Hornbeck — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:00:40 GMT

Here’s a new Knowledge Base article we published today. This one talks about an issue introduced with MS11-100 that causes searches in AVIcode to fail:

=====

Symptoms

When using AVIcode SE Viewer to search for specific criteria, the following error message may be generated:

: Operation is not valid due to the current state of the object. (translation: the operation is not valid Because of the state of the object)
Source: System.Web
Target Site: Void ThrowIfMaxHttpCollectionKeysExceeded ()

Stack Trace: at System.Web.HttpValueCollection.ThrowIfMaxHttpCollectionKeysExceeded ()
to System.Web.HttpValueCollection.FillFromEncodedBytes (Byte [] bytes, Encoding encoding)
System.Web.HttpRequest.FillInFormCollection to ()

Message: The URL encoded form data are not valid.
Source: System.Web
Target Site: Void FillInFormCollection ()

Stack Trace: at System.Web.HttpRequest.FillInFormCollection ()
System.Web.HttpRequest.get_Form to ()
System.Web.HttpRequest.get_HasForm to ()
to System.Web.UI.Page.GetCollectionBasedOnMethod (Boolean dontReturnNull)
System.Web.UI.Page.DeterminePostBackMode to ()
at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain (Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint)

Message: Exception of type 'System.Web.HttpUnhandledException' was thrown.
Source: System.Web
Target Site: Boolean HandleError (System.Exception)

Stack Trace: at System.Web.UI.Page.HandleError (Exception e)
at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain (Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint)
at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequest (Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint)
at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequest ()
at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequest (HttpContext context)
to ASP.pages_search_allevents_aspx.ProcessRequest (HttpContext context)
to
at System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep (IExecutionStep step, Boolean & completedSynchronously)

Cause

This issue was introduced by Microsoft Security Bulleting MS11-100 (https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2656351 or https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/ms11-100). This hotfix affects any applications that rely on .Net Framework 4 and that handle large amounts of forms data. The hotfix adds the following key to the web.config file which has a default value of 1000:

MaxHttpCollectionKeys” value=”1000” />

Resolution

To resolve this issue, modify the web.config file located in :\Program Files (x86)\AVIcode\Intercept\SEViewer\Web and change the value of MaxHttpCollectionKeys to a higher value. For example, change this:

"1000" />

to this:

More Information

Note that increasing the MaxHttpCollectionKeys value above the default setting of 1000 increases the susceptibility of your server to the Denial of Service vulnerability that is discussed in security bulletin MS11-100. Please be sure you understand the issue as documented in Knowledge Base article 2661403 (https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2661403) and the possible ramifications for your particular environment before making the modifications discussed above.

=====

For the most current version of this article please see the following:

2667985 : Searching in AVIcode SE Viewer fails with "The URL encoded form data are not valid" error

J.C. Hornbeck | System Center & Security Knowledge Engineer

Get the latest System Center news on Facebook and Twitter:

The Forefront Server Protection blog: https://blogs.technet.com/b/fss/
The Forefront Identity Manager blog : https://blogs.msdn.com/b/ms-identity-support/
The Forefront TMG blog: https://blogs.technet.com/b/isablog/
The Forefront UAG blog: https://blogs.technet.com/b/edgeaccessblog/

Microsoft Enterprise Product Roadmap Webcast

J.C. Hornbeck — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:14:21 GMT

Please join us for a high level discussion into Microsoft software investments designed to cover most of the major product lines. This will be a 35,000 foot view into the following areas:

Windows Family
Virtualization
Office System
Unified Communications
IT Management
Security

This particular webcast is scheduled for Friday, January 20 at 1:00pm Pacific Time although others are scheduled as well. See this link for more information.

J.C. Hornbeck | System Center & Security Knowledge Engineer

Get the latest System Center news on Facebook and Twitter:

Steps to import AVIcode 5.7 templates after upgrading to System Center 2012 - Operations Manager

J.C. Hornbeck — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 11:12:10 GMT

Here’s another good KB article we published today that shows you how to import AVIcode 5.7 templates after upgrading to the 2012 version of OpsMgr:

=====

Symptoms

After upgrading a System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 management group that was integrated with AVIcode 5.7 to System Center 2012 - Operations Manager, when trying to edit new or existing AVIcode 5.7 templates in the Operations Console, one of these errors occurs:
The page [AVIcode.SystemCenter.UIPages.LobASPNETChooseName] in the assembly [AVIcode.SystemCenter.UIPages, Version=5.7.491.0, Culture=Neutral, PublicKeyToken=5e9f8bbdb7409eb4] could not be loaded. Please make sure that the account you are running under has sufficient privileges to load the given assembly, or the Management Pack that defines this page is installed or the assembly containing the page is in the path of the executable or that the page derives from known Operations Manager page type.

Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.Internal.UI.Authoring.Extensibility.UISDKException: The page could not be loaded. Please review the errors and try again. ---> Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.Internal.UI.Authoring.Extensibility.UISDKException: The page could not be loaded. Please review the errors and try again. ---> System.MissingMethodException: Method not found: 'Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.ManagementGroup Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.UI.UIPage.get_ManagementGroup()'.

Cause

After upgrading to the newer version of Operations Manager, the console cannot load the correct Wizard Pages for the AVIcode template and for the .NET Events view because it must reference binaries from the SDK for Operations Manager 2007.
To allow monitoring configuration changes, this solution redirects the binding assemblies of the UI SDK for Operations Manager 2007 to the UI SDK for the newer version of Operations Manager.
The Template need updating too, but this doesn’t happen automatically during setup.

Resolution

When AVIcode .NET Enterprise Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007 is present in the management group, and the system gets upgraded, some management packs will need to be manually upgraded after setup has finished, in order to fix incompatibilities with the 2012 release of Operations Manager.
The Management Pack files will be copied to the server under the directory where Operations Manager is installed, but not imported automatically.
The MP files that need to be imported are:
1. AVIcode.DotNet.SystemCenter.Enterprise.Monitoring.mpb
2. AVIcode.DotNet.SystemCenter.Client.Monitoring.mp

More Information

To restore management pack templates functionality, the used should import the fix for the AVIcode Management Packs which will be copied by setup to the server under the directory where Operations Manager is installed.

=====

For the most current version of this article please see the following:

2606375: Steps to import AVIcode 5.7 templates after upgrading to System Center 2012 - Operations Manager

J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer

AVIcode agent installation fails with “1324 Error.” The Path “My Documents” contains an invalid character.

J.C. Hornbeck — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 10:44:42 GMT

Just a quick heads up on a new KB article we published today:

=====

Symptoms

The installation (setup) of the AVIcode agent on a computer fails with the following error:

“1324 Error.” The Path “My Documents” contains an invalid character.

Cause

This is usually caused by an invalid character in the user profile. For example, this error could occur if the Windows Registry entry for My Documents is pointing to an invalid location (e.g. Drive D and there is no drive D).

Resolution

To resolve this issue, verify that the My Document location for the user profile is not redirected to a location that is not available. Group policy can cause My Document redirections if configured by Network Administrator. If the My Document folder is pointing to a location that is not accessible, reconfigure the system so that the My Document location information in the Registry points to a local folder, then log out from system, log back in and begin the install process again. Once the location is valid it should proceed as expected.

=====

For the most current version of this article please see the following:

2625330: AVIcode agent installation fails with “1324 Error.” The Path “My Documents” contains an invalid character.

J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer

NOW LIVE: The Microsoft TechNet Gallery

J.C. Hornbeck — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 07:40:35 GMT

As many of you probably already know, for a long time the Script Repository (a special-purpose gallery) has been an engine of great content and community engagement on TechNet. Well starting last week it was upgraded significantly and launched as the new TechNet Gallery, supporting not only just scripts but many other technical resources for Microsoft products including App-V, Exchange, and System Center.

Also of note is that in addition to English, the new gallery is available in French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Italian, Korean, Czech, Polish, and Turkish. Individuals’ contributions and engagement with the TechNet Gallery are tracked in their TechNet profiles and fully integrated with our reputation system which is also fully localized.

If IT resources like scripts, management packs, utilities, and extensions are important for your success, you’ll definitely want to bookmark this one.

TechNet Gallery

J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer

How to Extend an Expired Evaluation License in AVIcode

J.C. Hornbeck — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 07:02:50 GMT

Hi Everyone, Nicholas Dodge here. Today I want to take a minute to talk about a recent issue I encountered that involved extending an expired AVIcode evaluation license. In this scenario, my customer was using an Evaluation License version of AVIcode and the evaluation period as well as the evaluation license that was in use had both expired. The customer was also using a previous version of AVIcode (e.g. version 5.6 SP1) and wanted to continue their evaluation period rather than upgrade to version 5.7. In this scenario, we simply needed to extend the evaluation period of the expired license.

In order to successfully resolve this issue, we are required to import a new evaluation license. License keys from version 5.7 are backwards compatible with licenses for version 5.6 and this can be confirmed by examining the contents of an AVIcode SMSE\SMSD license file as follows:

AVIcode Inc.
SMSE/SMSD licensed customer
AVIcode Intercept Studio
5.0
(C) 2008 AVIcode Inc.

In the above example, we can clearly identify the version checking for 5.0 as a minimum, so as a result this particular version 5.7 license file could be successfully imported into the 5.6 environment. If you don’t have this license file you can contact Microsoft Customer Support directly to obtain a new license file for import.

Alternatively, you can download the trial/evaluation version of AVIcode from the official Microsoft AVIcode site. This package includes evaluation licenses for both Intercept Studio as well as Advisor with an expiration date up to December, 2011. This can be found at the following location:

https://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/en/us/avicode.aspx

With the new license file available, simply open SEViewer and navigate to Tool –> Licenses. At that point, choose Remove Evaluation License in the License Management Wizard. After removing the expired evaluation license, import the recently downloaded License using the Tool –> Licenses - License Management Wizard once again. Now you will have an extended evaluation license period using the recently acquired evaluation license.

Nicholas Dodge | Senior Support Escalation Engineer

New KB: Invalid column name 'ASPECTID' error in the AVIcode 5.7 SE-Viewer Configuration Utility

J.C. Hornbeck — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 08:20:14 GMT

Here’s a quick heads up on a new Knowledge Base article for AVIcode that we published this morning:

=====

Symptoms

When using AVIcode Intercept Studio 5.7, you receive the following error in the SE-Viewer Configuration Utility when you try to update the SE-Viewer database for use with Advisor:

Invalid column name 'ASPECTID'.

Specifically, this problem affects SE-Viewer installations that previously ran the 4.1 version.

Cause

The dbo.ASPECT table had different columns and data types in the 4.1 version of Intercept Studio. When you upgrade from 4.1 to version 5.0 or higher, the upgrade retains these old column names and data types. However, the script in 5.7 to prepare the SE-Viewer database for use with Advisor does not work with the old version of the table.

Resolution

To resolve this problem, use the steps below to rename the existing dbo.ASPECT table and recreate it.

Create a full backup of the SE-Viewer database.
Open SQL Management Studio and connect to the database instance that contains the SE-Viewer database.
In Object Explorer, expand Databases//Tables.
Right-click the dbo.ASPECT table and click Rename.
Rename the table to dbo.ASPECT_old or something similar.
Click the New Query button.
On the SQL Editor toolbar, make sure the SE-Viewer database is the current table.
Paste the below script into the query window and press F5 to execute it.

/*==============================================================*/
/* Table: ASPECT */
/*==============================================================*/
CREATE TABLE DBO.ASPECT (
ASPECT NVARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
DESCRIPTION NVARCHAR(255) NULL,
ASPECTID INT IDENTITY,
CONSTRAINT PK_ASPECT PRIMARY KEY (ASPECTID)
)
go

GRANT SELECT ON DBO.ASPECT TO PUBLIC
GO

INSERT INTO DBO.ASPECT VALUES('All', 'All')
GO

INSERT INTO DBO.ASPECT VALUES('ApplicationFailure', 'Application Failure')
GO

INSERT INTO DBO.ASPECT VALUES('Connectivity', 'Connectivity')
GO

INSERT INTO DBO.ASPECT VALUES('Security', 'Security')
GO

INSERT INTO DBO.ASPECT VALUES('Performance', 'Performance')
GO

INSERT INTO DBO.ASPECT VALUES('uncategorized', 'Operational Info')
GO

INSERT INTO DBO.ASPECT VALUES('SystemFailure', 'System Failure')
GO

/*==============================================================*/
/* End of script */
/*==============================================================*/

After you run the script, run the SE-Viewer Configuration Utility to configure Advisor.

=====

For the most current information please see the following:

KB2560917 - Invalid column name 'ASPECTID' error in the AVIcode 5.7 SE-Viewer Configuration Utility

J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer

System Center Unlimited - All your favorite System Center posts, together in one central place

J.C. Hornbeck — Thu, 12 May 2011 10:02:02 GMT

If you’ve been following the blogging efforts of the System Center support and product teams for any length of time then you know we have quite a few different blogs based on the technology or product we focus on. For example, we have the App-V blog, the DPM blog, the ConfigMgr 2007blog, Nexus SC plus many many more, and we do that because sometimes maybe you want DPM info but don’t care about App-V (or vice versa), but what if you’re like so many of our customers and actually do use most of the System Center products together and you want an easier way to track all the content we publish? Well that’s a common request that we get so I decided to setup a single site that mirrors all of the feeds from our most popular System Center sites all in one place. Now by subscribing to a single site you can get all of your favorite System Center content pushed right to your desktop. Here are the feeds I’m mirroring:

I named this blog System Center Unlimited mainly because that’s kind of what it is, an unlimited view into the official System Center universe, so if this sounds like something you’d like then check it out at the link below and let me know what you think:

https://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcentertech

And don’t forget, you can still get all this same information by following me on Twitter or by becoming a fan on Facebook.

Enjoy!

J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer

The System Center Blog Aggregator app is now available on Android

J.C. Hornbeck — Tue, 10 May 2011 08:46:31 GMT

A few weeks back I announced the System Center Blog Aggregator app for Windows Phone 7 and today I wanted to let you know that it was now available for all you Android users out there as well. I won’t go into all the details as you can read that at the link above, but here are a couple screen shots to give you an idea of what it looks like. It’s essentially the same app except for the addition of the Nexus SC blog and the blog for Microsoft Server Application Virtualization. Look for the original Windows Phone 7 app to be updated shortly.

After you load and start The System Center Blog Aggregator you see the main screen that defaults to loading the Nexus SC System Center site:

From there you simply click the list button and you’ll see the option for all of our other blogs:

From there you can select and read any blog you like. So there you have it, an app that allows you to follow our content quickly and easily right on your Android phone. If you have an Android phone you should load up The System Center Blog Aggregator and check it out. It’s free after all so what do you have to lose? You can find it here.

Enjoy!

J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer