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

Products

• IT Management Suite

Issue/Introduction

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

Opened the SMP Console to Manage > Computers > Targets > System and found some addition Solution targets were missing. Found under this path that the default folder was not present and confirmed that the Altiris Patch Management Solution folder that was to be located there and was missing. 

Environment

ITMS 8.x

Cause

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

Resolution

Worked 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. Confirmed that 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 SMP Console at Manage > Computers > Targets > System "Root targets folder for storing the resource target items" 
      
3. Ensure that 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>