How to Delete a Collection

Article
06/30/2016

Applies To: System Center 2012 Configuration Manager, System Center 2012 Configuration Manager SP1, System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager

Your application can delete a collection in System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager by using the SMS_Collection Server WMI Class and class properties.

Warning

Care should be exercised when deleting any System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager object.

Collections are closely tied to packages, programs, and advertisements. For more information, see Software Distribution Overview.

These examples require the following values:

A Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) connection object.
An existing collection ID.

The following code is an example of the subroutine call in Visual Basic:

Call DeleteCollection(swbemServices,"ABC00010")

The following code is an example of the method call in C#:

DeleteCollection(WMIConnection,"ABC00010")

To delete a collection

Set up a connection to the SMS Provider. For more information, see About the SMS Provider in Configuration Manager.
Get the specific collection instance by using the collection ID provided.
Delete the collection by using the delete method.

Example

The following example method deletes a collection.

For information about calling the sample code, see Calling Configuration Manager Code Snippets.

' Setup a connection to the local provider.
Set swbemLocator = CreateObject("WbemScripting.SWbemLocator")
Set swbemServices= swbemLocator.ConnectServer(".", "root\sms")
Set providerLoc = swbemServices.InstancesOf("SMS_ProviderLocation")

For Each Location In providerLoc
    If location.ProviderForLocalSite = True Then
        Set swbemServices = swbemLocator.ConnectServer(Location.Machine, "root\sms\site_" + Location.SiteCode)
        Exit For
    End If
Next

Call DeleteCollection(swbemServices,"ABC00010")


Sub DeleteCollection(connection, collectionIDToDelete)

    ' Get the specific collection instance to delete.
    Set collectionToDelete = connection.Get("SMS_Collection.CollectionID='" & collectionIDToDelete & "'")

    ' Delete the collection.
    collectionToDelete.Delete_

    ' Display change information.
    Wscript.Echo "Deleted collection: " & collectionIDToDelete

End Sub

public void DeleteCollection(WqlConnectionManager connection, string collectionIDToDelete)
{
    //  Note:  On delete, the provider cleans up the SMS_CollectionSettings and SMS_CollectToSubCollect objects.

    try
    {
        // Get the specific collection instance to delete.
        IResultObject collectionToDelete = connection.GetInstance(@"SMS_Collection.CollectionID='" + collectionIDToDelete + "'");

        // Delete the collection.
        collectionToDelete.Delete();

        // Output the ID of the deleted collection.
        Console.WriteLine("Deleted collection: " + collectionIDToDelete);
    }

    catch (SmsException ex)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Failed to delete collection. Error: " + ex.Message);
        throw;
    }
}

The example method has the following parameters:

Parameter	Type	Description
connection	Managed: WqlConnectionManager VBScript: SWbemServices	A valid connection to the SMS Provider.
collectionIDToDelete	Managed: String VBScript: String	Unique auto-generated ID containing eight characters. For more information, see the CollectionID property of SMS_Collection Server WMI Class.

Compiling the Code

The C# example requires:

Namespaces

System

System.Collections.Generic

System.ComponentModel

Microsoft.ConfigurationManagement.ManagementProvider

Microsoft.ConfigurationManagement.ManagementProvider.WqlQueryEngine

Assembly

adminui.wqlqueryengine

microsoft.configurationmanagement.managementprovider

Robust Programming

For more information about error handling, see About Configuration Manager Errors.

.NET Framework Security

For more information about securing Configuration Manager applications, see Securing Configuration Manager Applications.

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