How-to: SPSReport
This post is intended for:
- People who haven't yet had a chance to use SPSReport to gather SharePoint speicific information
- People who wanted to know some details about SPSReport before running it in their environment
What is SPSReport?
- It is a Microsoft Public License (Ms-PL) based utility available @ https://spsreport.codeplex.com/ to gather detailed information about SharePoint configuration in a system. You can further share that information to a Microsoft Support Professional for your SharePoint related support case(s).
SPSReport can be used to gather data for SharePoint Support Cases that involve the following SharePoint environments:
- Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 / SharePoint Portal Server 2003
- Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 & Office SharePoint Server 2007 [MOSS 2007]
Here are some points for you about SPSReport:
1. By default, the tool is installed to this folder: %Systemroot%\SPSReports\Portal\
2. This is the default directory structure for SPSReport: %SystemRoot%\SPSReports\Portal > Bin > Rpt > Cab
3. SPSReports\Portal\bin\Readme.txt contains details about the tool - After extracting the data by running SPSReport.exe, this file can be accessed without running the tool further.
4. The tool does not make any changes to registry / operating system / SharePoint
5. Login to the machine with the user account that have Administrative rights to run this tool
6. Since the tool will take some time [5 to 15 minutes] to gather data, run the tool during off-peak hours if the machine is busy.
7. IIS logs are not collected by the tool and they need to be manually collected, if needed.
8. The tool cannot gather ULS logs if the trace log file location is customized - For example, if Trace Log location is set to D:\WSS-logs, SPSReport cannot gather the logs from that custom location.
9. In that case, gather the ULS logs manually if they are asked by the Microsoft Support Professional.
10. This tool gathers only three recent ULS log files at the time of running it.
11. Based on WMI settings of the machine, the tool may not collect reports based on WMI.
12. This tool may result some errors while running on Windows 2008 OS, but most of the times it can collect the required data - it normally works well with Windows 2000 or Windows 2003.
Modes of SPSReport:
You can use one of these four modes of SPSReport to gather data:
• LITE - 1
• LITE Secure - 2
• FULL - 3
• FULL Secure -4
For the mode prompt, if you do not enter any key and if you just press Enter key then the report will be created using LITE mode.
LITE mode and LITE Secure mode cannot gather:
• Original Event logs [.evt files]
• Hotfixes registry
• Drivers info, etc
SPSReports\Portal\bin\Readme.txt contains more details about what are not collected in LITE mode.
Preferrably it is better to get SPSReports based on FULL mode by typing the number 3 and pressing Enter key.
‘Secure’ modes of LITE or FULL additionally gather these files:
• WHOAMI.log
• Security Event log [in both .txt and .evt format]
What to do if the tool does not work as expected?
After prompting for the mode of operation, the gathering of data may fail sometimes. In that case:
1. Make sure you login with administrative privileges to collect the data
2. Try to re-run SPSReport.exe. Even if it fails again:
• Collect COMPUTERNAME_PROGRESS.TXT from SPSReports\Portal\rpt folder
[For example: if your machine name is MyPC, you can find a file named MyPC_PROGRESS.TXT in SPSReports\Portal\rpt folder]
• Send it to the Microsoft Support Professional of your support case.
Sometimes after completing the gathering of data, the final .CAB file may not be generated
• In that case, zip all the files in SPSReports\Portal\rpt folder
• Share the .zip file with the Microsoft Support Professional
I attached a .PDF file with screen shots of SPSReport to this post. SPSReport v3.0.0.8 which is the latest version at the time of posting this blog.