The ZENworks Development team is currently working to rebuild the existing Windows Inventory Collector(s) (based on C) into a refreshed, modern, and more flexible .NET architecture. The purpose of this change is to allows us to respond to customer issues in less time and allows us to quickly and easily integrate the new features that are latest in the market.

The team has reached a stage where they need your help. The hardware collector of the inventory process is near complete and the team needs to identify a channel to make the required code available, to receive and respond to input or queries from customers; to receive output from the customer for performing analysis and for comparing the old versus new collector data.

To this end we have created a Vibe site where you can download the collector from along with a location whereby you can upload the needed data back.

To this end we would appreciate your help in completing the following two scenarios:

Running the Hardware collector on few machines manually

1. In this scenario, unzip the zip on a local folder.

• Start the command prompt in Administrator mode.

• Run the batch file that gathers scan results. Copy the zip file that gets created.

• Delete the folder where the BetaCollector is unzipped.

• Send the zip file to NewInventoryCollector@novell.com  or upload the file to ftp://ftp.novell.com/incoming/BetaCollector

Deploying the BetaCollector for few managed devices in the zone:

1. Download the zip file from the Vibe page.

• Provide a Bundle with contents that can be imported to the zone. The zip contains a text file which includes step-by-step information on importing the bundle.

• After importing the bundle, manipulate the Primary Server value to ensure the output files are uploaded to an appropriate IP or DNS addres. Edit the Action of the imported Bundle bat x.x.x.x where x.x.x.x will be the Primary Server.

• Once the Bundle is imported to your zone, you can assign and launche the bundle on few devices of your choice. The batch file runs on each device and the output zip is uploaded to the Primary Server in the following location: collection|inventory|BetaCollector

• You need not manually login to each device to get the results because the results are uploaded to the configured Primary Server.

• You can either send a single email with all the device zip files from single location or can create a consolidated zip with name <CustomerName>_<datetimestamp>.zip and upload to the ftp site.

After receiving the results through email or FTP, Novell Engineering will respond with our feedback that includes the analysis findings. Customers who chose to FTP the zip, please include your email address added in a text file so that we can reply back.