Dell Warranty Status 2.0 console extension for ConfigMgr 2012 has been released

Over the past year I’ve evolved my PowerShell skills and revisited some of the scripts and tools that I’ve previously created. When I looked at the Dell Warranty Console Extension Tool 1.0 that I created, I felt that something had to be done about how it was written. So I set out to rewrite the whole code base for the tool, and can proudly present a new version of the brand new and renamed Dell Warranty Status 2.0 tool!
The new version of this tool does not remotely query any information from WMI on the clients, as the previous would. Instead it’s now relying on the hardware inventory collected by ConfigMgr. If you’ve not turned on hardware inventory in your Client Settings, the tool will not work as expected and give you a warning that there’s no hardware inventory data found. In addition to that, if you try to execute it against a device where hardware inventory has been collected, but it’s not a Dell device, it will warn you about that as well.
I’d like to thank Dustin Hedges and Sean O’Mahony for their contributions and testing of this tool during it’s development phase, thank you guys.

Download the tool

I’ve uploaded the tool to the TechNet Gallery for your convenience. Download from here.

Installation instructions

For the previous version of this tool I created a Nullsoft installer package. I’ve decided not to take that approach with this version. Instead I’ve chosen to go with a PowerShell scripted installation, and for those that want to do it manually I’ll also provide instructions for that. For this tool to work, you need to have the ConfigMgr console installed on the server you’re going to run the installation on, or manually install it on. The automated approach is relying on the SMS_ADMIN_UI_PATH system environment, so if that’s not present the tool won’t be installed.

Automated installation

1. Download the zip-file from the TechNet Gallery and unpack it to e.g. C:\Temp\DWST. You should now have the following files in C:\Temp\DWST:

• DellWarranty.xml
• Invoke-ToolInstallation.ps1
• Get-DellWarrantyStatus_2.0.ps1

2. Close the ConfigMgr console, open an elevated PowerShell console and run the following command to install the tool (Path parameter should point to a location where the script file will be stored):

Invoke-ToolInstallation -Method Install -Path C:\Scripts -Verbose

3. Re-launch the ConfigMgr console.

Manual installation

1. Download the zip-file from the TechNet Gallery and unpack it to e.g. C:\Temp\DWST. You should now have the following files in C:\Temp\DWST:

• DellWarranty.xml
• Invoke-ToolInstallation.ps1
• Get-DellWarrantyStatus_2.0.ps1

2. Close the ConfigMgr console and copy Get-DellWarrantyStatus_2.0.ps1 from C:\Temp\DWST to e.g. C:\Scripts (it’s important that you place it in a non-temporary location, since the DellWarranty.xml file will point to this location for referencing the script).
3. Edit the DellWarranty.xml file on the line that starts with <Parameters>, amend the part after -File to the path where you copied the Get-DellWarrantyStatus_2.0.ps1 file, e.g.:

-WindowStyle Hidden -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -File "C:\Scripts\Get-DellWarrantyStatus_2.0.ps1" -SiteServer ##SUB:__Server## -DeviceName ##SUB:Name## -ResourceID ##SUB:ResourceID##

4. Go to <ConfigMgr console root directory>\XmlStorage\Extensions\Actions. You can get the path by running a PowerShell console and typing:

$env:SMS_ADMIN_UI_PATH

5. Create the following two directories in the Actions folder:

• 3fd01cd1-9e01-461e-92cd-94866b8d1f39
• ed9dee86-eadd-4ac8-82a1-7234a4646e62

6. Copy the DellWarranty.xml file from C:\Temp\DWST to both of the directories recently created.
7. Re-launch the ConfigMgr console.

Using the console extension

One you have successfully installed the console extension by using any of the installation methods, open the ConfigMgr console, go to Assets and Compliance – Devices and right click on any device.