If a user contacts the helpdesk about a computer not working as expected, helpdesk staff can use the Configuration Manager Client Configuration Manager to help diagnose the computer by identifying configurations that are not compliant with the configuration baselines defined in Configuration Manager 2007.

When a client computer downloads its assigned configuration baselines, these are displayed on the Configurations tab of Configuration Manager, together with compliance evaluation results. Users with administrative rights can also view details of the compliance evaluation to see which configuration items are out of compliance.

Note
If the Configurations tab is not visible, the client is not running the desired configuration management client agent. This might be because the site is not enabled for desired configuration management, or the site is enabled for desired configuration management but the client has not yet downloaded its machine policy, or a local policy has disabled the desired configuration management client agent, or the client is not a Configuration Manager Client.

To troubleshoot a client computer using Configuration Manager

  1. Navigate to Configuration Manager in the Control Panel of the client computer, and double-click to open its properties.

  2. Click the Configurations tab, and then view the list of assigned configuration baselines.

    Note
    If there are no configuration baselines displayed but there are configuration baselines assigned to this computer, it is probable that they have not yet been downloaded. To accelerate this process, click the Actions tab, click Machine Policy Retrieval & Evaluation Cycle, and then click Initiate Action. Click OK on the informational dialog box Machine Policy Retrieval & Evaluation Cycle. When this has completed, click Refresh on the Configurations tab to display the downloaded configuration baselines.

  3. View the Compliance State column for each configuration baseline. If the configuration baselines are named appropriately, this helps to identify where the computer is out of compliance.

  4. For any configuration baselines that display Non-Compliant, select the configuration baseline, and then click View Report.

  5. View the displayed report to determine the configurations that are reporting out of compliance, and resolve these configurations. You must have local administrator privileges to view these compliance reports.

    Note
    To help interpret the results, see About Compliance and Compliance Information in Desired Configuration Management.

  6. When the non-compliant configurations are resolved, select the configuration baseline, and then click Evaluate. This will re-run the compliance evaluation, and you will see the Compliance State display In Progress.

    Important
    The evaluation results are cached on the client for 15 minutes. If you initiate a re-evaluation within the 15 minute period, the compliance results will be returned from this cache rather than a new evaluation. Therefore, if you make a change on the client that might affect the compliance evaluation results, wait until the 15 minutes have elapsed before initiating a re-evaluation.

  7. If all configuration items are now configured according to the compliance configuration defined in the configuration baselines, all configuration baselines display Compliant in the column Compliance.

  8. Click OK to close Configuration Manager.

    Note
    For more information about the options in the Configurations tab, see Configuration Manager Properties: Configurations Tab.

See Also