Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 uses the hardware ID to attempt to identify clients that might be duplicates and alert you to the conflicting records. For example, if you have to reinstall a computer, the hardware ID would be the same but the GUID used by Configuration Manager 2007 might be changed.

You can configure a site-wide setting to tell Configuration Manager 2007 whether to automatically create new records when it detects duplicate hardware IDs, or to allow you to decide when to merge, block, or create new client records. If you decide to manually manage duplicate records, you must manually resolve the conflicting records.

In addition to manually resolving conflicting records at the site level, you can resolve conflicts centrally in the entire hierarchy, if the entire branch of the hierarchy is configured to manually resolve conflicting records.

Important
If the entire branch of the hierarchy is not set to manually resolve conflicting records, the conflicting records will not appear in the parent site Configuration Manager 2007 console.

To change the site-wide settings for managing conflicting records

  1. In the Configuration Manager console, navigate to System Center Configuration Manager / Site Database / Site Management / <site code> - <site name>.

  2. Right-click <site code> - <site name> and then click Properties.

  3. On the Advanced tab, click either Manually resolve conflicting records or Automatically create new client records for duplicate hardware IDs.

  4. Click OK.

To manually resolve conflicting records

  1. In the Configuration Manager console, navigate to System Center Configuration Manager / Site Database / Computer Management / Conflicting Records.

  2. In the results pane, select one or more conflicting records.

  3. In the Actions pane, select one of the following:

    • Merge to combine the newly detected record with the existing client record, creating one unified record.

    • New to create a new record for the conflicting client record.

    • Block to create a new record for the conflicting client record, but mark it as blocked.

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