FIX to SCCM ConfigMgr 2012 RTM Client Compatibility Issue with WMF

FIX to SCCM ConfigMgr 2012 RTM Client Compatibility Issue with WMF. There are loads of noise from the community and forum about the SCCM 2012 RTM client compatibility issue with Windows Management Framework (WMF) 3.0.

Microsoft has responded to those reactions (it seems) with a workaround KB. Today, they’ve released KB 2796086 with a workaround to get rid of this compatibility issue.

FIX to SCCM ConfigMgr 2012 RTM Client Compatibility Issue with WMF

ConfigMgr 2012 SP1 RTM will be compatible with WMF 3.0. If you want to know more about the advantages of WMF then read this article. If I remember correctly, this workaround (mentioned in KB 2796086 ) is already provided (long back) to skip the automatic rebuild of WMI repositories during client health evaluation tasks, especially on servers.

KB 2796086 is applicable

When Windows Management Framework (WMF) 3.0 KB 2506143 has been installed on your ConfigMgr 2012 Clients/Servers.

Issue

CM 2012 client is not compatible with Windows Management Framework (WMF) 3.0.  There is a new feature in CM 2012 client, client health evaluation and this is a scheduled task. This client health eval task runs every night and it calls CCMEval.exe. As per Microsoft, this eval exe mistakenly finds that the client’s WMI repository is corrupted and thus calls for a rebuild and re-install the client.

When this happens on a client which is co-located with SCCM 2012 Management Point then the rebuild of the repository by CCMEval causes loss of MP specific information, methods, etc., from WMI which as a result causes the MP to fail.

Workaround

The workaround is quite simple!

1.  Change the following registry value “HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CCM\CcmEval\NotifyOnly” to TRUE. With this registry value set to True, the client will still run the evaluation task daily and incorrectly report that the WMI repository is corrupt but will not call for the repository rebuild or the daily client reinstall.

2.  If the Management Point is already failing as a result of the issue explained above, the MP will need to be uninstalled and reinstalled to get it back online.

Resources

What’s New In SCCM Windows 10 Servicing Dashboard | ConfigMgr HTMD Blog (anoopcnair.com)

Author

Anoop is Microsoft MVP! He is a Solution Architect in enterprise client management with more than 20 years of experience (calculation done in 2021) in IT. He is a blogger, Speaker, and Local User Group HTMD Community leader. His main focus is on Device Management technologies like SCCM 2012, Current Branch, and Intune. E writes about ConfigMgr, Windows 11, Windows 10, Azure AD, Microsoft Intune, Windows 365, AVD, etc…