Common: Importing Registry Settings

FlexNet Manager Suite 2022 R2 (On-Premises)

This topic applies to all forms of gathering FlexNet inventory, by any of the cases covered in this reference, for inventory devices running Windows only (does not apply to UNIX-like devices).

You may configure the FlexNet inventory agent to collect information from the registry on Windows devices, and include the results in the normal .ndi inventory file, uploaded through the inventory beacon hierarchy to your central inventory server (or, in smaller implementations, your application server). However, because imports from the registry are not a normal part of inventory collection, these uploads are not imported into the inventory database until you also customize the settings on your inventory server. Once the settings are customized to allow for import into the inventory database, the normal processes take over: the nightly full import transfers the data from the inventory database into the compliance database, and after the license compliance calculations, the results are available in the web interface of FlexNet Manager Suite, specifically in the inventory device property sheet Evidence tab, when you select the WMI sub-tab.

On the inventory device

On the inventory device, the FlexNet inventory agent uses the IncludeRegistryKey preference to control which areas of the registry it collects as part of inventory. You can set this preference in either of two ways:

• By including it on the command line for FlexNet inventory agent
• By configuring the registry entry [Registry]\ManageSoft\Tracker\CurrentVersion\IncludeRegistryKey on each inventory device where you want to collect registry values.

The default value of IncludeRegistryKey is configured to collect only information from the uninstall section of the registry (Add/Remove entries). This behavior is equivalent to configuring IncludeRegistryKey with the value:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

Important: For correct collection of software inventory, the uninstall section (as above) must always be included in this preference. If you add more paths, separate them with a semicolon (;) or comma (,) between each path.

Enter the keys you want to track in IncludeRegistryKey, separating paths with semicolons or commas. For example, to track settings related to the installation of Adobe Photoshop 7.0 (while maintaining collection of the uninstall section of the registry), set IncludeRegistryKey to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Photoshop\7.0\ApplicationPath; 
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

CAUTION:

Collecting large amounts of registry information may significantly degrade the performance of inventory resolution on the central application server. For this reason, the amount of registry information you collect should be minimized and restricted to values that you really do require.

For more information about this preference on inventory devices, see IncludeRegistryKey.

Configuring your central server

These changes must be made on your inventory server (or, in smaller implementations, whichever server is hosting this functionality, such as your application server).

There are two distinct ways that you can configure your inventory server for the import of registry settings from uploaded inventory:

• You can make a precision setting that exactly specifies one registry entry for collection (and you can repeat this process for as many registry settings as you want to track), as described in Targeting Individual Entries
• You can make a general setting that 'scoops up' unnamed registry entries and includes them in the import, for which see Collecting All Uploaded Entries.