Small Business Server - WMI issues

[Guest Alex_ACS]

Here's the story. 4 different customers, 4 different servers. 3 of them use

Small Business Server, one uses Enterprise R2. I use a free asset

management/help desk/reporting system on all of them which communicates using

the WMI protocol, which we all know runs on TCP135. The problem is that on

all three of the SBS servers, the asset management system doesn't want to

communicate with HALF the computers on each network. It recognizes them,

authenticates with them using a domain admin account, and roughly half of

them on each network just won't talk. I've tried adjusting WMI Control and

DCOM Config on the "unknown" machines that it won't communicate with, netsh

firewall set service remoteadmin enable, group policy firewall exceptions,

everything in the software's documentation, but nothing works. One of these

servers talks with 8 computers perfectly and 8 computers not at all.

 

The asset management program running on the Enterprise server detects all 22

workstations on it's network flawlessly.

 

All the networks have Sonicwall firewalls, but they're out of scope of the

workstations (used as gateway) and TCP135 is passed through anyway.

 

I already hated Small Business Server as compared to Enterprise, but

seriously... what's going on?

[Guest Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

Re: Small Business Server - WMI issues

 

Alex_ACS <Alex_ACS@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

> Here's the story. 4 different customers, 4 different servers. 3 of

> them use Small Business Server, one uses Enterprise R2. I use a free

> asset management/help desk/reporting system on all of them which

> communicates using the WMI protocol, which we all know runs on

> TCP135. The problem is that on all three of the SBS servers, the

> asset management system doesn't want to communicate with HALF the

> computers on each network. It recognizes them, authenticates with

> them using a domain admin account, and roughly half of them on each

> network just won't talk. I've tried adjusting WMI Control and DCOM

> Config on the "unknown" machines that it won't communicate with,

> netsh firewall set service remoteadmin enable, group policy firewall

> exceptions, everything in the software's documentation, but nothing

> works. One of these servers talks with 8 computers perfectly and 8

> computers not at all.

>

> The asset management program running on the Enterprise server detects

> all 22 workstations on it's network flawlessly.

>

> All the networks have Sonicwall firewalls, but they're out of scope

> of the workstations (used as gateway) and TCP135 is passed through

> anyway.

>

> I already hated Small Business Server as compared to Enterprise, but

> seriously... what's going on?

 

I suggest you try posting in microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs. I know

you've tested already, but I'm still inclined to think this is a firewall

issue (which you could address via group policy) - but to test that theory,

stop the underlying Windows service for the firewall on the problem

client(s) and test.