WMI Troubleshooting for VMM

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When troubleshooting VMM issues that appear to be related to WMI, it is important to note that WMI errors may simply indicate the inability to communicate with the WMI service on a remote machine, not necessarily a problem with the service. This could be due to permissions or network-related issues. It is best to test and troubleshoot suspected WMI issues outside of VMM, using the WMI troubleshooting tools that are available.

WMI troubleshooting tools and related information is discussed in this section.** **

WMI Troubleshooting Tools

The following tools may be used to test and troubleshoot the majority of WMI issues:

  • Windows Management Instrumentation Tester (wbemtest.exe).
  • WMI Service Control Utility (winmgmt.msc).
  • WMIC command line.

 More Information:

 More information about WMI troubleshooting

Windows Management Instrumentation Tester (wbemtest.exe)

 

The Windows Management Instrumentation Tester (wbemtest.exe) provides the ability to connect to and query WMI namespaces, on local or remote machines. It may be used to verify that an object exists in a particular namespace.

 More Information:

 More detailed WBEMTest usage information

Wbemtest.exe is well suited to quickly test connectivity to local and remote WMI namespaces. Connecting to a namespace on a local machine verifies that the namespace is properly registered and accessible via the WMI service. Connecting to a namespace remotely additionally verifies that WMI connectivity between the two machines is working.

Verify WMI Namespaces

Each namespace below represents a point of failure that can be tested. To open this tool, type ‘wbemtest.exe’ at the Run prompt. The following screenshot shows the method used to connect to the remote server VMM2008R2-03C. The ‘Connect…’ button has been clicked on the ‘Windows Management Instrumentation Tester’ window, then the name of the remote server appended to the beginning of the ‘root\cimv2’ namespace. Below are three namespaces to verify. 

  • Verify basic WMI service availability by connecting to ‘root\cimv2’.
  • Verify that the virtualization namespace (Hyper-V) is available by connecting to ‘root\virtualization’.
  • Verify that the VMM Agent namespace is available by connecting to ‘root\scvmm’.

 Note:

The SCVMM namespace will not be available unless a Host or P2V Agent is installed and running on the target system.

WMI Service Control Utility (winmgmt.msc)

The WMI Service Control Utility configures and controls the WMI service. This tool allows permissions to namespaces to be viewed and modified. To open this tool type ‘winmgmt.msc’ at the Run prompt. In the following screenshot, ‘WMI Control (Local)’ has been right-clicked and ‘Properties’ selected. ‘Root’ was then selected on the ‘Security’ tab and the ‘Security’ button clicked in the lower right of the window. At this point permissions can be viewed and modified.

WMIC command line

The WMIC command line tool is useful for quickly pulling information about local or remote systems. The same namespaces as described for the ‘wbemtest’ tool can be verified as follows:

Local

Test local CIMV2 namespace. 

wmic /namespace:root\cimv2 context

Output below verifies connectivity.

NAMESPACE             : root\cimv2\root\cimv2

ROLE                  : root\cli

NODE(S)               : VSTATION

IMPLEVEL              : IMPERSONATE

[AUTHORITY            : N/A]

AUTHLEVEL             : PKTPRIVACY

LOCALE                : ms_409

PRIVILEGES            : ENABLE

TRACE                 : OFF

RECORD                : N/A

INTERACTIVE           : OFF

FAILFAST              : OFF

OUTPUT                : STDOUT

APPEND                : STDOUT

USER                  : N/A

AGGREGATE             : ON

Other namespaces to check: 

wmic /namespace:root\virtualization context

wmic /namespace:root\scvmm context

Remote

Test remote namespaces.

wmic /node:"vmm2008r2-03c" /namespace:root\cimv2 context

wmic /node:"vmm2008r2-03c" /namespace:root\virtualization context

wmic /node:"vmm2008r2-03c" /namespace:root\scvmm context

WMI Error Constants

The table below provides information regarding ranges of WMI return codes.

Common ranges of WMI errors:

Term

Description

0x800410xx - 0x800440

Errors that originate in WMI itself.

A specific WMI operation failed because of:

  • An error in the request, for example, a WQL query fails or the account does not have the correct permissions.
  • A WMI infrastructure problem, such as incorrect CIM or DCOM registration.

0x8007xxx

Errors originating in the core operating system. WMI may return this type of error because of an external failure, for example, DCOM security failure.

0x80040xxx

Errors originating in DCOM. For example, the DCOM configuration for operations to a remote computer may be incorrect.

0x80005xxx

Error originating from ADSI (Active Directory Service Interfaces) or LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol), for example, an Active Directory access failure when using the WMI Active Directory providers.

 

 A complete list of WMI errors and their meanings

See Also

More VMM Troubleshooting topics: