Topic last updated—November 2007
State messages are sent by Configuration Manager 2007 clients, using a new messaging system that is built into the product and that allows clients to send messages to site systems based on important changes of state. State messages are not the same as status messages; status messages provide information about component behavior and data flow, whereas state messages provide a snapshot of the state of a process at a specific time.
State messages can be helpful when troubleshooting, to identify at which stage a process failed or stopped. For example, the state messages "Waiting for another installation to complete" or "Restart required before installing" can provide information about a process at that specific point in time. State messages can also be used to verify that processes are working correctly. For example, for information about using state message changes in client logs, see How to Verify Clients are Successfully Remediated with Network Access Protection.
The fallback status point exclusively uses state messages for reporting the different states of client deployment and monitoring client communication. For example, these state messages can report whether a client installed successfully, installed successfully but requires a restart, failed to assign to a site, switched to native mode communication, or cannot communicate with its management point because of certificate-related issues. For more information about which reports use the fallback status point to relay state messages from clients, see About Reports for Configuration Manager Clients. For more information about the fallback status point, see About the Fallback Status Point in Configuration Manager.
State messages sent to the fallback status point are then forwarded to the management point. However, some state messages are sent directly from clients to the management point. For example, clients send compliance information from assigned configuration baselines to the management point using state messages. For more information about the state messages used with desired configuration management, see Compliance Sent As State Messages and Status Messages in Desired Configuration Management.
By default, clients consolidate and send their state messages to their site every 15 minutes. This frequency can be modified by configuring the State message reporting cycle (minutes) value. (For more information about configuring this value, see Computer Client Agent Properties: General Tab.)
In some scenarios, a high number of clients that are all sending state messages can cause the state message system to backlog, and state messages cannot be processed in a timely fashion. This can result in a delay in displaying the latest client information in the reports, and even missing information. For more information about this issue and how to prevent it, see Troubleshooting State Message Backlogs.
State messages are used with software updates, Network Access Protection (NAP), desired configuration management, client deployment, and client communication. For the most part, administrators will not directly see or use state messages. Unlike for status messages there is no state message viewer. Instead, the information state messages provide is made available to the administrator in reports, and client log files.
For a list of state messages, see State Messages in Configuration Manager 2007.