Enhansoft is pleased to announce that Monitor Information Reporting (MIR) now includes SQL Server Report Services (SSRS) reports. Moving forward all new reports created for MIR will included SSRS reports.

SQL Reporting Services in Configuration Manager 2007 R2 enables administrators to use the advanced reporting features of SSRS. Some of the advantages of using SSRS are:

· Report subscriptions by allowing report to be e-mailed on a schedule.

· Cleaner user interface

· Allows for reports to be exported to various file formats such as PDF and Excel.

· Allows for graphics and data to be intermixed within reports.

To see samples of all the reports available, please see http://support.enhansoft.com/wiki/mir%20-%20ssrs.ashx

Sample report for MIR:

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, January 19, 2010--- Enhansoft Inc., a leading developer of System Center Configuration Manager solutions, was awarded Microsoft Gold Certified Partner status on January 15^th 2010. Holding the Systems Management competencies confirms Enhansoft’s commitment to Microsoft customers and technologies. 

 

Microsoft Gold Certified Partners have access to exclusive resources and early product information. The program includes direct access to Microsoft staff, product support, new products and technologies, and planning tools and events on the latest Microsoft product developments and future direction.

 

 “Our new partnership provides us greater access to the Microsoft System Center team. Our dedication to providing the best solutions and support in the industry has paid off. ”

 

Garth Jones

 

Chief Architect

 

 

 

About Enhansoft Inc.

 

Enhansoft, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, specializes in providing software solutions and consulting services within the system management area focusing on Microsoft System Center products. Maximize the potential of your systems, the productivity of the company workforce and, best of all, the impact on the bottom line.

 

 

 

Our products have a worldwide reputation for extending and enhancing Microsoft technologies by leveraging Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr / SCCM) & Systems Management Server (SMS) technologies to extend their asset information and reporting capabilities.

 

 

Enhansoft professional services bring together a deep product knowledge of system management focused on Microsoft System Center products.

 

 

Our Clients Benefit From:

 

Our Focus

 

We specialize in the system management area, focusing on Microsoft System Center products with an emphasis on asset management.

 

 

Our Experience

 

The team at Enhansoft combines real-world system management experience with high-level programming expertise to design software that is easy to implement and has an immediate impact on workload and company bottom line.

 

 

Our professional services team helps customers realize value within their system management environment. Many of our consultants have more than 10 years of experience within system management area, are leaders in their respective IT communities and user groups, and have presented at such conferences as Microsoft Management Summit, Techdays, and EnergizeIT.

 

 

Our Expertise

 

Our products and services are designed for ConfigMgr experts by ConfigMgr experts.

 

 

From global corporations to institutes of higher learning and public school systems, to global government agencies, Enhansoft has the software and expertise to help any organization realize the long-term efficiencies and cost savings associated with asset management. Our headquarters are located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada with remotes offices in Chicago, Illinois. We leverage hands-on experience, as well as client feedback to continually refine our products. We also work with a network of partners — including software resellers and consulting firms — who recommend our products, service and expertise to their own clients.

 

 

 

http://www.enhansoft.com/

On a regular base Enhansoft is asked how Monitor Information Reporting (MIR) compares to the community monitor scripts. So we thought that we would compare MIR to a few of the existing scripts. Throughout this white paper we will try to provide a fair comparison.

Download the Whitepaper below:

We are pleased to announce the beta of Monitor Information Reporting v3.

 

 

As a participant in this beta, you will receive a 4-month license for MIR v3 and will help shape the final release of MIR v3. To participate in this private beta, please contact support@enhansoft.com and we will send you a license key and link to the MIR v3 setup program.  

 

 

During the beta program Enhansoft will send out surveys to participants to help guide us with future releases of MIR v3. Support can be obtained by posting issues within support forum http://support.enhansoft.com/Forum/  or contacting support@enhansoft.com 

 

 

What is new in MIR v3:

 

·         Interface changes to provide a better listing of monitors

 

o   Minor changes to layout

 

o   Removed Default Monitor data

 

o   Filtered out truly duplicated monitors.

 

·         Option to scrub monitor data and allow for a fresh start

 

·         Capture native pixel format data

 

·         Capture monitor power option data

 

·         Update the active monitor status

 

·         Calculated serial numbers

 

·         Even more detailed logging.

 

 

Interface

 

Based on feedback we have simplified the interface.

 

 

 

Scrubbing monitor data

 

Removing old monitor data from a PC can be a tedious process as demonstrated by the blog poston how to manually clean up monitor data. MIR v3 allows you to remove this data either by using an option within the MIR GUI found under tools menu or by using a command line switch “/Scrub”.

 

 

 

 

 

It is important to note that a reboot is required to repopulate the monitor data, otherwise you will see the following message displayed. MIR v.3 will NOT force the reboot of a system once the scrub command has been executed.

 

 

 

 

 

Native pixel format

 

 

 

 

The Native Pixel format also called Preferred Timing Mode or default resolution has been added. This allows an Administrator to determine if a monitor is blurriness’s caused by incorrectly setting the native pixel format.  With most PCs now having liquid crystal display (LCD), most LCD flat panel monitor users do not realize that operating their monitor in a resolution other than the native resolution negatively impacts the performance of their flat panel monitor. Unlike cathode ray tube (CRT) displays, the liquid crystal display panel used in flat panel monitors has a fixed, predefined pixel format over a set area. A fixed pixel format means that if the native resolution of the LCD panel is 1,024 x 768, there are exactly 1,024 pixels in each horizontal line and 768 pixels in each vertical line or 786,432 total pixels. When a PC’s resolution is set to the native pixel format, this allows for a 1:1 ratio and yields the best results. When the non-native resolution such as the 800 x 600 is displayed on a 1024 x 768 native resolution monitor scaling occurs. Scaling adjusts the image to fill the entire monitor screen. This results in manipulation of pixels to fill the screen, but the manipulation may cause text and images to appear blurry.  There is no good way to show a non-native resolution on a fixed matrix display. 

 

 

 

Monitor Power option

 

 

 

 

 

What are the 4 monitor power management options and what do they mean?

 

The 4 options are: 

 

Mode	Power	Approximate Recovery Time
On	100%	0 Second
Standby	< 80%	1 Second
Suspend	< 30W	5 Seconds
Active Off	< 8 W	20 Seconds

 

From these options we can see that a significant power saving can be achieved just by ensuring that all monitors have suspend mode and are set up to use it. For more details please see the blog post entitled “Monitor Power Management Options”

 

 

 

Update the Active monitor status

 

Within the previous screenshot for the interface section you will notice within the Active Monitor section that the HP monitor is “Marked Active”, but if you look at the screenshot below you will see that the Samsung is “Active”. You might ask yourself why have we added this feature. The answer is simple: we have determine that there are cases when a monitor is “Marked Active” when in fact is it not active. Until now, there was no way to determine this if a monitor was truly active, let alone clean up this issue. MIR v3 solved this issue in two ways, First for Vista , Windows 7 and Windows 2008 we can determine the truly active monitors; those will be set as “Active”, and other monitors will marked appropriately. Secondly, we have provided mechanisms to scrub the existing monitor data, which allows for this data to be cleaned up and the correct data to be displayed. See the scrub section for more detail.

 

 

Active Monitor States:

 

Active – This monitor is truly active (Vista, Window 7, Windows 2008 only)

 

Marked Active – This monitor is marked as active but could be a false positive (Active state for Windows XP and Windows 2003)

 

Non-Active – this monitor is not active

 

 

 

 

 

Calculated serial numbers

 

Based on the standards for monitors, the maximum serial number length is 13 characters. However many monitor manufacturers have serial numbers greater than 13 characters.  This leaves the question: how can I determine what is the right serial number for a given monitor?

 

 

Through a number of processes we have been able to expand the functionally of MIR to help determine the correct serial number and in some cases even provide almost all of the serial number for some manufacturers. The following screenshots illustrate this.

 

 

 

Notice the following for each screenshot:

 

HWP2601	This HP model serial number has been confirmed to be correct as displayed.
ACRAD92	This Acer model, we can expand the serial number to included all but the first 2 characters. (we believe that they are always “ET” but have not added this into MIR yet pending further research.)
DEL3013	This Dell monitor we have displayed the serial number as it would look on the physical monitor itself, except we have replaced unknown charters with “x”
CPQ1349	This Compaq monitor is an example of a monitor that we have not confirmed what the physical serial number is and therefore we have placed the normal serial number within the Calculated field and marked it as Default

 

We will be expanding this feature to included more Calculated Serial numbers as we confirm details for each model. Please feel free to pass along any details to help expand this feature. We require a copy of the EDID for the monitor and physical serial number as displayed on the monitor.

 

 

System Management Server 2003

 

MIR v3 is fully backwards compatible with SMS 2003, however the setup program is designed only for ConfigMgr, therefore will not install correctly on SMS 2003. If you require manual installation instructions, please review the MIR v2 documentation as it still applies. If you need additional assistance please contact support.

 

 

Troubleshooting:

 

To aid in troubleshooting, please provide us  with the following details:

 

 

MIR

 

·         A description of the issue that is occurring

 

·         Export of the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\DISPLAY

 

·         MIR.log, generally found with the ConfigMgr client logs.

 

·         Physical serial number of monitor as displayed (optional but recommend)

 

 

MIR Setup

 

·         A description of the issue that is occurring

 

·         MIR_setup.log, generally found with the ConfigMgr client logs; in some cases it will be within the %temp% directory

 

·         A description  of your environment: please include Windows version(2003/2008/2008 R2) (x86/x64), ConfigMgr version, SQL version (2005 / 2008) and location (Local to site server or remote)

 

Why does Monitor Information Reporting (MIR) v2 and below display more active monitors than the PC truly has?

This is what is called a false positive. There are many reasons why this occurs. The two most popular reason are when the OS has crashed and a new monitor replaces the original monitor or when the PC is imaged the active monitor flag does not always get cleared. 

How can I resolve this issue?

In MIR v3, a new feature has been added to help fix this issue. Launch MIR as an Administrator on the local PC, from the File menu and select Scrub, once the data has been scrubbed, reboot the PC to allow for the monitor data to be recreated. There is also a /Scrub command line switch that can be used by ConfigMgr to delete the display data. 

I don’t have MIR v3, how can I scrub the data from my PC?

For manual instruction on how to clean up monitor data, please see How to manually clean out the monitor data 

 

What are the 4 monitor power management options and what do they mean?

The 4 options are: 

Mode	Power	Approximate Recovery Time
On	100%	0 Second
Standby	< 80%	1 Second
Suspend	< 30W	5 Seconds
Active Off	< 8 W	20 Seconds

Why do I care about monitor power consumption?

There are many reasons why, but with all the discussion about “Green IT” let’s not forget that a PC is made up of two major parts:  CPU & Monitor. If we only look at the power consumption of a PC we might not be getting all the power savings available to you. What happens in many case is that the PC is shut down or Wake-on-LAN product is use to turn off a CPU, however the monitor is not shut off. 

Using a Dell 1901FP as an example we can see that the ON mode uses maximum 75W and typically 55W vs in Active off mode it uses less than 3W. If we assume that a PC is turn off for 14 hours a day then we can calculate that power saving by having a monitor that can enter into Active Off mode.  

With average cost per KW cost 9.13¢ according to the Energy Information Administration.  

55W-3W=52W

52Watts*14 hours = 728W savings or ~6.6¢ per PC/Day or $24.26/PC/Year 

Or IBM E74 Monitor

75W-2W=73W

73W*14Hours= 1022Watt or ~1KW or ~9.3¢ per PC/Day or $34.05/PC/Year 

Now this does not sound like a lot of money to be saved but what these numbers don’t take into account are the AC cost nor do they take into account that businesses pay more for electricity compare to residential rates.  

Now take an originations with 5000 PCs, 10 000 or 100 000, how much will they save with Active Off mode using the Dell 1901FP as an example?

5000 PC                                $322.33/Day       $121 301.18/Year

10000 PC                              $644.66/Day       $242 602.36/Year

100000 PC                            $6446.60/Day     $2 426 023.60/Year 

Even farther saving can be achieved if the monitor uses any of the other modes during the day! Is $322.33/day good enough reason to care about monitor power consumption? 

Need more convincing? 

Quoting Energy Star’s web site http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=power_mgt.pr_power_management 

“Hundreds of leading organizations have activated system standby and hibernate settings. Read how GE, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, North Thurston Public Schools and others are saving as much as $75 per computer annually.” 

Use Energy Star calculate to help you determine the cost saves. Estimate your savings using our online savings calculator 

Which of my monitors support “Active Off” option?

Monitor Information Reporting (MIR) v3 has just added this feature to collect this data and return it to your System Center Configuration Manager 2007 database.  

For more information about monitor power management options see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VESA_Display_Power_Management_Signaling or http://www.vesa.org/Standards/summary/2003_3b.htm  

What is a preferred monitor size?

Preferred monitor size is defined by the Monitor standards group (vesa) as the resolution as“The display manufacturer defines the “Preferred Timing Mode (PTM)” as the video timingmode that will produce the best quality image on the display’s viewing screen. The display manufacturerdefines the meaning of the words “best quality image”. For most flat panel displays (FPD), the preferredtiming mode will be the panel’s "native timing" based on its “native pixel format”.” 

Why should I use a monitor’s Preferred Timing Mode / Native Pixel Format?

Most LCD flat panel monitor users do not realize that operating their monitor in a resolution other than the native resolution negatively impacts the performance of their flat panel monitor. Unlike cathode ray tube (CRT) displays, the liquid crystal display (LCD) panel used in flat panel monitors has a fixed, predefined pixel format over a set area. A fixed pixel-format means that if the native resolution of the LCD panel is 1,024 x 768, there are exactly 1,024 pixels in each horizontal line and 768 pixels in each vertical line or 786,432 total pixels. When the PC’s resolution is set to the native pixel format, this allows for a 1:1 ratio and yield the best results. When the non-native resolution such as the 800 x 600 is displayed on a 1024 x 768 native resolution monitor scaling occurs. Scaling adjusted the image to fill the entire monitor screen. This results in manipulation of pixels to fill screen but, the manipulation may cause text and images to appear blurry.  There is no good way to show a non-native resolution on a fixed matrix display. 

How do I know what the native monitor size is for my monitor?

Monitor Information Reporting (MIR) v3 displays and collects this information. 

When I look at my monitor’s serial number it is a 20 character serial number, but when I run MIR or other tools they display a 12-13 character serial number. Why is that? 

The answer to that is simple: VESA, the monitor standards organization, has defined “up to 13 alphanumeric characters of a serial number may be stored”. This is why that EDID Serial number is a maximum of 13 characters long.  

When I look at my monitor’s serial number it is a 20 character serial number, but when I run Monitor Information Reporting (MIR) or other tools they display a 12-13 character serial number. Why does it not display the last 13 characters of the serial number? 

This answer is not so simple. Although the standards say “up to 13 alphanumeric characters of a serial number may be stored”, they don’t define which 13 characters are stored. Therefore it is up to the manufacturer to select which part why want to encode within EDID. 

Follow up question: But how can I determine which monitor is the right monitor? Keep watching here for an announcement on how to better handle monitors and their serial numbers.

 

There are a few reasons why you would want to clean out the monitor data that exists on a PC, for example monitor data included with the imaging process and falsely marked as active monitors.

With all version of the Windows there is no built-in way to clean up monitor data. Therefore these manual steps are needed to fix this issue.

Before beginning download and install Subinacl.exe .

Open an elevated command prompt and execute the following command.

subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\DISPLAY /grant=<Domain>\<User Name>=f

Open Regedit, and browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\DISPLAY

Delete the Display key.

It is important to reboot the PC at this time. This will allow the OS to recreate the display key with the appropriate data and to reset the security on the registry key.