Creating Computer Attributes

  • Article

Computer attributes are authored within the MOM Administrator console under the following console node:

Console Root\Microsoft Operations Manager\Management Packs\Computer Attributes

To create a computer attribute, right-click the Computer Attributes console node and select the Create Computer Attribute option from the context menu. The Computer Attributes Wizard will appear, which provides the opportunity to define the following computer attribute criteria:

  • Computer Attribute Name

  • Computer Attribute Description

  • Declaration of whether a registry key or value will be computed

  • Declaration of the path to the registry key or value that will be used

The first page of the wizard asks the author whether the computer attribute will look at an actual registry key or a registry value. Next, the author is asked to provide the registry path to the registry key or value. Authors may choose to use the Browse option to navigate to the registry key or value.

Note

MOM can discover only computer attribute data from the HKEY_LOCAL_COMPUTER hive of the registry. For this reason, when defining the path to a registry key or value, the hive can be omitted from the path. In other words the registry path HKEY_LOCAL_COMPUTER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion would be represented as SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion for a computer attribute.

Next, the author will be asked whether the computer attribute should simply check for the existence of a registry key or value, or whether the data portion of the registry value itself should be retrieved. If the author chooses to check for the existence of a registry key, a Boolean value will be retrieved. If the author chooses to retrieve the data portion of the registry value, a data type of the value must be defined. The options for the data type include: string, integer, float, and IP address. Finally the author can complete the wizard by providing the computer attribute with a name and an optional description.