PSTools Installation and Configuration Guide
Article ID: 224205
Updated On: 05-01-2025
Products
Issue/Introduction
Microsoft PsTools is an important prerequisite for configuring Interval Logging in CA Service Desk.
PSTools additional functionality to help gauge a given Windows installation's overall performance and capability through the usage of several key functions that are included (memory readouts, CPU performance, task lists, etc), and may be of value beyond its usage in Service Management Interval logging.
While PSTools is an optional component and will not affect a Service Management installation, it is an essential and recommended component if Interval Logging is called upon for any reason. PSTools may be installed prior to or after an SDM installation has taken place.
The tool can be accessed through Microsoft and is free of charge, but a one time license agreement will need to be accepted prior to initial usage.
Environment
CA Service Desk Manager 17.1 and higher.
Windows based installations
Resolution
Instructions for installing and configuring Microsoft PsTools. Instructions require that the logged in user on the given server is either the local Administrator user or is a user with full local Admin rights over the given SDM Server (domain admin rights are not an acceptable substitute)
Important: Please follow these instructions as there is a License Agreement popup that appears the first time pslist.exe is executed, which has been known to prevent Interval Logging from running correctly if the instructions are not followed.
- Download PSTOOLS from the Microsoft website - It is a ZIP file called PSTools.zip.
- Extract it to a specific folder, e.g., C:\PSTOOLS.
- Add this folder to the Windows PATH variable, under System variables. Do not add to the PATH setting under User variables.
- Run the command below (accept the License Agreement):
psexec.exe -s -i pslist.exe
You will be prompted twice to accept the license agreement.
First occurrence:
Press "Agree". A second prompt then appears like this:
Press "Agree" to finish. - Additionally, we recommend running "pslist" by itself to bring up one more EULA prompt to accept, and to also test that pslist is configured correctly for its PATH location
If you are implementing pstools on an existing SDM instance and SDM Services are running, you will need to recycle SDM Services to allow the PATH update to refresh.
Additional Information
The above is applicable to Windows based implementations of Service Desk and is meant to unlock the full functionality of interval logging on this OS implementation.
Linux based environments have native commands present which take the place of pstools for Windows. Hence, there is no necessary equivalent product to download.
If PsTools is not properly installed and configured, options like "Task List" will not work as expected.
Known Issue: If you do not run the above "psexec" and "pslist" commands, and Interval Logging is not able to run pslist successfully. It may result in two "locked" pslist commands in the Task List. If it happens with you, kill them manually. The root cause is due to the license not being accessed and accepted prior to initial use.
Consider restarting all SDM services and make sure there is no remaining JAVA process running for Interval Logging.
Certain virtual environments, such as VMWare, will affect how environment variables are being saved and stored in the given server depending on how the access to the virtual server environment takes place, such as logging into the given server through the console.
If any of the pslist commands fail due to the error message below, check that the directory location where pslist.exe resides was added to the system PATH environment variable.
An example error that indicates that pstools is not defined in the PATH correctly:
'pslist' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
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