Controlling Software Inventory on Servers

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Servers often have large disk drives with many files that are accessed by many users. Managing servers with SMS and even inventorying the installed software might be useful, so installing the SMS client on servers can be valuable. However, inventorying files on the shared disk drives can take considerable resources on the server and generate considerable network traffic and workload on the SMS servers.

To avoid the overhead of running software inventory on large disks, you can create a hidden file named Skpswi.dat and place it in the root folder of each disk drive that you want excluded from software inventory. Software inventory does not scan these drives unless the Skpswi.dat file is removed.

You can also place a Skpswi.dat file in the folder that is at the top of the path of a software inventory collection rule. For example, if you have a rule to inventory "\Program Files," that entire folder tree is skipped on any SMS client that has a Skpswi.dat file in the "\Program Files" folder.

Note

  • Skpswi.dat also applies to file collection. Disks with a Skpswi.dat file are not scanned to find files that are to be collected.

  • SMS automatically excludes the Recycle Bin from inventory on all SMS clients.

You might find that software inventory scans folders that include secondary copies of files. This is especially true if you scan compressed folders, which includes the operating system DLL cache and service pack uninstall folders. If you do not want to inventory such folders, place a Skpswi.dat file in those folders on your SMS clients.

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