Patch Management Policies lack the ability to manage default Targets in selector

Products

• IT Management Suite

Issue/Introduction

Opened the Console > Settings > All Settings > Software > Patch Management > Windows Settings > Windows Patch Remediation Settings; click the Apply To and found that the Available Targets selector lacked the Windows Computers with Software Update Plug-in Installed Target.

Opened the Console > Manage > Computers > Targets > System; found some addition Solution targets were missing. Found under this path; the default folder under was not present.

Confirmed the Altiris Patch Management Solution folder was to be housed there and was missing. 

 

 

 

Environment

ITMS 7.5.x, 7.6.x and 8.x

Cause

Cause appeared to be environmental for there was no sign of corruption in the SMP Logs nor installation logs from the last upgrade.

Resolution

Work through the following remediation steps:

1. Prerequisite is to have the correct ParentFolderGuid assigned.
   • Found this was lost in the environment and created a new folder for them which provided a new ParentFolderGuid
      
2. Confirm the following is included in the XML:
   • <parentFolderGuid>e799a395-0879-4352-8055-08044beacff7</parentFolderGuid>   -- Default Targets Folder
   • This is the default GUID for all Targets under the Console > Manage > Computers > Targets > System "Root targets folder for storing the resource target items" 
      
3. Ensure the correct ItemAttributes includes the following attribute <itemAttributes>Normal</itemAttributes>:
   • <itemAttributes>Readonly, System</itemAttributes>
   • If this is not present; work through the following:
     • Export the XML via right-click
     • Modify the XML with this entry above
     • Right-click the System folder; import the updated XML

Example of how one of those Target XML looked with the incorrect entries:

<item guid="{f74f662b-f586-457a-9a2e-804cc8f347e5}" classGuid="{d1d31520-c3ae-471d-be99-d0ff1221bbca}">
  <!--  Type: Altiris.NS.StandardItems.Targeting.ResourceTarget  -->
  <!--  Assembly: Altiris.NS.StandardItems, Version=7.6.1645.7, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=d516cb311cfb6e4f  -->
  <name>Windows Computers with Software Update Plug-in Installed Target</name>
  <alias />
  <productGuid>{b1338338-5575-4a27-9808-23bec40d79fa}</productGuid>
  <itemAttributes>Normal</itemAttributes>

<parentFolderGuid>43f16363-4cd5-42bd-8871-14ad57689218</parentFolderGuid>