Applications need to explicitly load Smscstat.dll by using the Win32 LoadLibrary() API. LoadLibrary requires the full path to Smscstat.dll.

The logic for finding the path on a given client is as follows:

1. Read the registry value Local SMS Path in key HKLM\Software\Microsoft\SMS\Client\Configuration\ClientProperties.
   
   
2. If last three characters of this path are ccm, then this is the Advanced Client or Configuration Manager 2007 client and Smscstat.dll resides in the path retrieved.
   
   

When Smscstat.dll has been loaded, call the Win32 API GetProcAddress() to retrieve function pointers to the status message functions. The three status message functions are:

• CreateSMSStatusMessage()
  
  
• AddAttributeToSMSStatusMessage()
  
  
• ReportSMSStatusMessage
  
  

GetProcAddress() returns a pointer of type FARPROC. For convenience, Smscstat.h (provided with the SMS 2003 SDK) defines C function prototypes for the status message APIs. The application should cast the pointer returned by GetProcAddress() to the appropriate prototype and then call the function through the pointer.

If Smscstat.dll does not exist, as in the case of SMS 2.0 Legacy Clients that do not have Service Pack 1 or a later service pack installed, LoadLibrary() fails. A subsequent call to the Win32 API GetLastError() returns an error code indicating that the file does not exist. Most likely this will be error 126: "The specified module could not be found."

The Win32 API FreeLibrary should be called when access to the functions is no longer need.

There are three steps to using the status message functions.

1. Create a status message object by calling the CreateSMSStatusMessage() function. This function allocates an object and returns a handle to the caller.
   
   
2. Add any needed status message attributes to the object by using the AddAttributeToSMSStatusMessage() function. Status message attributes are optional and are required only if the application needs to integrate with a particular Configuration Manager feature. Most applications will not do this.
   
   
3. Call ReportSMSStatusMessage to submit the status message to the Configuration Manager status system and deallocate the object.