Remove SCSM Management Pack with dependencies

Question

I's trying to delete a couple of MP's from Service Manager 2012 R2 that I no longer need.  They all show that the MP "Service Manager Configuration Management Configuration Library" is dependent on them.
The MP is unsealed but is an MPB.  How do I remove the dependency from an MPB?
Thanks,
Allen

Answer 1

You've stumbled into a tricky situation. (Sorry, Thomas, I'm stepping on your toes yet again! ;) )
MPBs are basically "zip files" that contain an XML management pack and any resources (dlls, images, etc) that are needed for that management pack.
You can export the XML MP, but you don't get the resources. You can export the MPB, but it's not easy to extract the resources and XML.
But it can be done (I had to do it last week and it was annoying..if there's a better way to do it, I sure would love to know what it is.)
There's a second option that I'll describe in a bit, but it's still pretty annoying. There's also a third option that, if you need resources (images) from an SCSM MP, is even easier.
Edit: Go with option 3 if you're modifying an out-of-the-box MP and you have the authoring tool installed. I had to do option 1 for another MP and didn't have its resources anywhere else. Since you're modifying an SCSM MP, I don't think you'll
have to worry about all the option 1 stuff at all..but I'm leaving it here in case anyone's interested.
Option 1) Extract the MP and resources from the MPB. Modify the MP. Re-bundled the MP with its resources. Import that new MPB.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh519649.aspx
That's only half the story, though. The last sentence of that article describes using the GetStreams() method of the ManagementPacks property. Once you use that, all you have is a big list of Streams. You need to write some powershell to actually convert
those streams into files. I don't even want to show you the powershell I used because it only worked for a very specific set of resources that I knew existed in the management pack I was trying to modify. It would not work for any other management pack
or any other resource. But, Google can show you plenty of examples on how to convert a stream to a file using powershell (I found an example on StackOverflow that I adapted
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15299544/how-can-i-write-a-binary-stream-object-to-a-file-in-powershell I don't know if there's a better or more elegant way of doing it, I just know I was able to adapt it to work for me)
After all that, you'll have your resources. Now you can export the MP from Service Manager as just an XML file. Make your changes to it. Use New-MPBBundle.ps1
http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager/archive/2009/09/04/introducing-management-pack-bundles.aspx to bundle your xml file with the resources you just extracted. Import your new MPB.
Option 2) Remove unnecessary references using C# (Maybe powershell?)
Using the SDK, retrieve your MP. Remove the reference. "AcceptChanges()". Done.
ManagementPack mp = emg.ManagementPacks.GetManagementPack(new Guid("<My Management Pack Guid>"));
mp.References.Remove("<The alias for the reference I want to remove>");
mp.AcceptChanges();
Option 3) If the MP you want to modify is an out-of-the-box SCSM MP bundle, get the resources from your authoring tool installation..they're all in there. (the png images, not the DLLs)
Then you can just export the MP XML, modify it, then re-bundle it with new-mpbfile.ps1 and re-import it into service manager.
All of these options of course require that _nothing_ in the management pack actually uses that alias/reference you want to remove. So if you still have a view that references that MP, you won't be able to remove the reference. Option 2 would be more
annoying if the reference you want to remove is still being used..you'd have to use the console to remove the views, or templates, or whatever else might be referencing it.
Option 2 gives me an idea for a quick little utility I could write.. "remove unused references from all unsealed MPs"..maybe I'll do that this weekend :)