How to display Partially configured or installed Solutions in Symantec Installation Manager

Products

IT Management Suite

Issue/Introduction

In some situations, especially after an upgrade or a repair, the customer wants to check if there are partially configured or installed Solutions just because some pages may not be displaying what he is expecting, for example.

Is there a way to know what is partially configured or installed?

Environment

ITMS 8.5, 8.6, 8.7

Cause

What criteria are checked to determine "Product is not properly configured" in SIM?

The following answer is provided as a reference since explaining in detail how SIM works and how it determines a properly configured product will require a very technical document.

1. When SIM starts the installation process, it makes a Windows API call to start the MSI installation.
2. When the MSI is done installing, the API process returns a status with the execution value.
3. When all the MSIs are installed, SIM makes a call to a Webservice to do configuration. This web service process is owned by the NS Platform process.
4. When the product being configured is done, the Webservice returns a status. SIM queries that status and determinates if it has been done based on the status returned.
5. SIM queries the database in order to check what appears as configured. SIM uses the information contained in the database and compares the Product Listing:

--Query
select [State] from vProductInstallation --(SIM searches what’s returned from State for the MSI’s product code—if found, SIM reports the product as configured)

In most cases, this failure to configure is caused by the Altiris Services failing to start in a timely fashion, causing the configuration to fail.
The common reason the status on the SIM main page will report ‘not configured’ is that the MSI’s product code is not found in the query of the State column.

This can be caused by two things:
1) the configuration did actually fail, which should have been reported at the end of the installation/configuration of a product. This usually happens, as it is mentioned above, because there were problems with the web service; and this can be fixed by running “aexconfig /configureall”. Usually running "aexconfig /configureall" should be enough to fix that.

2) The MSI’s product code and the product code listed in the config file do not match. In this case, SIM will never report the product as configured because the above query will never find the correct product code in the State column (which comes from the config file). In this case, the product may very well be configured.

Another case is that the configuration was completed just fine but SIM reports that it didn't happen. In those cases, the issue is with a mismatch between the product code GUID in the config file and the MSI. If that is the case, no matter if you try to reconfigure it will still show as unconfigured. Usually, the Solution team that owns the MSI needs to fix the product listing.

Resolution

Symantec Installation Manager (SIM) usually displays if something seems to be misconfigured:

SIM has some hotkeys that could help in a situation like this one. The main ones are:

Description	Key Combination	SIM Interface Location
Show all installed components, including partial solution installations	Ctrl + Shift + P	Installed Products view

Show optional installed components (documentation, language packs, and migration) and allow you to repair or uninstall them

Ctrl + Shift + O

Installed Products view

When you use "Ctrl + Shift + P" while you are in the main view in SIM, it switches the general view to "Partially installed products". To go back to the original view, click again "Ctrl + Shift + P".

Now, if you are in the "partially installed products" view, if you hit "Ctrl + Shift + O", then you will see the partially installed optional products. Click again "Ctrl + Shift + O" to go back to the "partial" view.