Microsoft Hyper-V VMMS & System services stop after December 2012 Updates (KB2506143)

I had an issue recently with some Hyper-V servers where it was noticed that the Hyper-V system services (VMMS, VHDSVC & NVSPWMI) gets stopped all in a sudden and no one can access or manage the Hyper-V Virtual machines from the console as per attached image.

I noticed that these services stop on specific time on daily basis, after several investigations it was related to a specific rule/job based on WMI (CCMEVAL) that runs from the System Center Configuration Manager 2012 (SCCM) server

The only thing related to WMI that was updated on December is the Windows Management Framework 3.0 (KB2506143)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2506143

When this update get installed the SCCM client health check Read/Write WMI actions fail resulting in these services stopped.

To fix this issue Uninstall this KB and reboot the server, If this didn't work, please try the following:

1. Uninstall the Windows Management Framework 3.0 (KB2506143)
2. Run ccmclean.exe /all to uninstall the ConfigMgr 2012 client.
3. Run ccmdelcert.exe
4. Once the above steps are done, rename the WMI repository and restart the WMI service
5. Reboot the Server
6. Install the ConfigMgr 2012 client and check the services.

Microsoft released a bulletin confirming this KB compatibility problems with SCCM 2012

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2796086

This issue will get fixed with SCCM2012 SP1 expected to be released Quarter 1 2013.

 

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Increasing SCCM 2012 Add/Remove Programs Simple Query Value

We passed by this issue with one of our new System Center configuration Manager SCCM 2012 installations when trying to create a new device collection with the Add/Remove Programs used in the Query. The List of programs was limited till applications starting with the "M" Letter and other applications weren't displayed as shown below.

I recall we passed by this issue in SCCM 2007 and we had to add the Valuelimit registry key and looks like its not fixed in SCCM 2012 and you need to do the same, however due to the change in the OS/SCCM version, the key location is changed, to fix this issue you need to apply the following:

1. Open the Registry (using Regedit) on the SCCM server
2. Explore HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\ConfigMgr10\AdminUI\QueryProcessors
3. Add a new DWORD value named "Valuelimit" with Hexadecimal value of 10000 (The maximum value is 20000, its recommended to start up with 10000 and check if the problem is fixed instead of just entering the maximum number which can eat your memory). Check this article for more details http://support.microsoft.com/kb/269201
4. Stop the SMS_EXECUTIVE & SMS_SITE_COMPONENT_MANAGER services in this order
5. Start both services in the same order.

Note: If you managing the SCCM from a console on a terminal computer (most of the cases) and not directly from the SCCM server then you need to apply these settings on your console computer and reboot the computer after adding the registry key.

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