Cannot Use Leading Spaces in a String for an Inventory Rule (122134)

SYMPTOMS

When you use a string that contains leading spaces in the Systems Management Server Administrator Inventory Rules dialog box for a software inventory rule, the inventory rule string returns in quotation marks with the leading spaces removed. This prevents the administrator from specifying a string with leading spaces for an inventory rule.

CAUSE

This is a known situation with Systems Management Server Administrator in Microsoft Systems Management Server, which removes leading spaces in a string.

FILETOKN -S <filename> returns 10 byte strings, each offset by 10 bytes from the previous. It can return several strings at 10 byte offsets with leading spaces, depending on the file. The Systems Management Server administrator can erroneously assume that these strings with leading spaces can be used to uniquely identify the software package. But because SMS Administrator won't allow leading spaces, these strings cannot be used.

RESOLUTION

When you run FILETOKN -S <filename>, the results can look like this:

   10 "1234567890"
   20 " 23 56 890"
   30 "  34567890"
   40 "   4567890"

Theoretically, you could specify an inventory rule with the string "1234567890" at offset 10 or " 4567890" at offset 40. With Systems Management Server Administrator removing leading spaces, the second example is wrong, to use this string you would need to specify the address 40+3=43 with the string "4567890".

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Systems Management Server versions 1.0 and 1.1. We are researching this problem and will post new information in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.