When should ZEN Management agent be installed

Question

I use a standard image that is pushed out with ZEN imaging. This contains
the ZEN Management agent as part of the build. Therefore, there are a few
areas in the registry (under
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Novell\Workstation Manager) that are specific
to the machine that the image was built on. Primarily of concern are the
following two strings:
STRFileName="00B0D069CF85_1105073267000"
SystemGUID="00B0D069CF85172.22.175.1371105073290"
Any PC that gets this image will therefore get these same registry
strings, and this causes errors on the inventory side of things. I have
tried a combination of deleting these keys and / or their values with no
luck, as "STRFileName" and "SystemGUID" do not recreate or repopulate with
data from the new PC. Therefore in order to get the PC working with
inventory, I need to remove the management agent, and then reinstall and
then all works fine (as these keys are repopulated with data specific to
the local PC, and not the PC the image was created on).
Question: Does this mean that in future my images should not include the
management agent (i.e. it is a post install step), or is there a way
around this problem?
Thanks

Answer 1

I found that when the management agent is installed, the following
relevent entries are placed in the registry:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Novell\Workstation Manager]
"Registration Agent"="zenwsreg.dll"
"Enabled"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Novell\Workstation Manager\InvScanner]
@=""
"ScannerPath"="C:\\Program
Files\\Novell\\ZENworks\\Inventory\\NTScan32.exe"
Rebooting creates additional registry entries in this area, even when
logging in as 'workstation only', and these new entries contain specific
information about the PC. Ensuring that any image I use contains only the
above registry settings (and not any additional ones) means that the
workstation specific entries are generated correctly (when the newly
imaged PC is first booted up) and all works fine. To do this I used a bit
of vbscript as part of the image build, and this is the last thing done
prior to shutting down the PC and creating the ZEN Image.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Novell\Workstation
Manager\PredesktopHelperDLLs]
"WMPM.DLL"="WMPM.DLL"
"WMPOLHLP.DLL"="WMPOLHLP.DLL"
"WMPRTNT.DLL"="WMPRTNT.DLL"
"WMUSPOL.DLL"="WMUSPOL.DLL"
"WMGRPPOL.DLL"="WMGRPPOL.DLL"
> On Fri, 07 Jan 2005 06:05:47 GMT, [email protected]
> wrote:
>
> > Question: Does this mean that in future my images should not include
the
> > management agent (i.e. it is a post install step), or is there a way
> > around this problem?
>
> the strfilename will be recreated when you run an inventory..
>
> the wksid should be recreated when you import the wks..
> --
>
> Marcus Breiden
>
> Please change -- to - to mail me.
> The content of this mail is my private and personal opinion.
> http://www.edu-magic.net