Microsoft Base Pack PowerPack Release Notes version 108

Version 108 of the Microsoft Base Pack PowerPack adds new device classes and includes updates to Dynamic Applications.

  • Minimum Required SL1 Version: 11.2.0

Before You Install or Upgrade

Ensure that you are running version 11.2.0 or later of SL1 before installing "Microsoft Base Pack" PowerPack version 108.

For details on upgrading SL1, see the relevant SL1 Platform Release Notes.

Installing or Upgrading the PowerPack

To install version 108 of the Microsoft Base Pack PowerPack, perform the following steps:

By default, installing a new version of a PowerPack will overwrite all content in that PowerPack that has already been installed on the target system. You can use the Enable Selective PowerPack Field Protection setting in the Behavior Settings page (System > Settings > Behavior) to prevent the new version of the PowerPack from overwriting local changes for some commonly customized fields.

If you are currently using the Dynamic Applications in this PowerPack to monitor devices, collection errors might occur for one or two polling cycles during the installation of a new version. To prevent collection errors during an upgrade, you can optionally disable collection for monitored devices before performing the following steps and re-enable collection after the upgrade.

To install this PowerPack:

  1. Familiarize yourself with the Known Issues for this release.
  2. See the Before You Install or Upgrade section. If you have not done so already, upgrade your system to the 11.2.0 or later release.
  3. Download the "Microsoft Base Pack" version 108PowerPack from the Support Site to a local computer.
  4. Go to the PowerPack Manager page (System > Manage > PowerPacks). Click the Actions menu and choose Import PowerPack. When prompted, import "Microsoft Base Pack" version 108.
  5. Click the Install button. For details on installing PowerPacks, see the chapter on Installing a PowerPack in the PowerPacks manual.

See the manual Monitoring Windows Systems with WMI for instructions on using the PowerPack.

Features

This release includes the following features:

  • Dynamic Applications that collect IIS statistics, asset information, usage information for CPU, disk, memory, and interface, information about processes and services, and SMART status.
  • Event Policies that are triggered when Windows devices meet certain status criteria
  • Device Classes for each type of Windows device monitored

NOTE: The Device Classes include older device types that can be discovered but are no longer supported by SL1.

  • A sample Credential for discovering Windows devices

Enhancements and Issues Addressed

The following enhancements and addressed issues are included this release of the "Microsoft Base Pack" PowerPack:

  • Added the following device classes:
  • Windows 11 Workstation
  • Windows Server 2022 Domain Controller (Support Case: 00256378)
  • Updated the poll frequency of the "Microsoft Windows DCM+R Relationship" Dynamic Application from every 15 minutes to every 12 hours.
  • Updated queries in WMI requests to improve performance in the following Dynamic Applications:
  • Windows Asset
  • Windows CPU
  • Windows Disk
  • Windows Interface
  • Windows Memory
  • Windows SMART Status
  • The system vitals and performance charts for the "Windows CPU" Dynamic Application will no longer display "_Total" as their index and will instead display "CPU Utilization".
  • A "Swap" collection object was added to the "Windows Memory" Dynamic Application to display total swap utilization across all paging files available on a Windows device. This value will now be used as the Swap vitals data point and the index will read "Swap" instead of "_Total". Separate values for each paging file are still available from the "Paging File Usage" object.

  • Updated the "Windows CPU" Dynamic Application's "CPU Utilization" WMI request to improve data accuracy. (Support Case: 00254725)

  • Updated the "Windows Asset" Dynamic Application to show memory size in megabytes instead of kilobytes. (Support Case: 00256947)

  • Added a credential type check to the "Microsoft: Windows DCM+R Relationship" Dynamic Application to prevent auto-alignment when using a PowerShell credential.

Known Issues

The following known issues affect version 108 of the Microsoft Base Pack PowerPack:

  • The value returned for "Memory Size (MB)" in debug mode will be shown in kilobytes. A formula converts it into megabytes for display and the asset report. The "Windows Asset" Dynamic Application is set to run once per day, so it may take up to 24 hours for the correct values in MB to be reported.

  • The names of services or processes that contain special characters may not be shown or shown in hexadecimal format in the Configuration tab for the "Windows Service List" and "Windows Process List" Dynamic Applications.