Issues with running Batch Patch as a service

[RobStewart]

Hello

We are trying to get batch patch working as a service. Very keen on this feature for it to work, currently I have been using interactive instances of batch patch and ideally would like to move away from this for our scheduled installations

I have a dedicated ‘scheduled tasks’ user / account defined for our domain and it is a member of the local administrators group for the affected servers

When I try to register the service I get an error

Batch patch encountered an unexpected error – the parameter is incorrect

I have tried from my own account – which is a domain admin and I get the same error

The error log is as follows:

Data: System.Collections.ListDictionaryInternal

InnerException:

Message: The parameter is incorrect

Source: BatchPatch

StackTrace: at A.c0bbd71273182d5c19bbb6ec64c9da73d.cc21a306c83eb860f6b02571b7597a34c_Encrypted$()

at A.c0bbd71273182d5c19bbb6ec64c9da73d.cc21a306c83eb860f6b02571b7597a34c()

at A.c5324d953fd8f2f15a57ab1f42e74c6e9.c68b79e0bad6debc66327b93113225a1b_Encrypted$(c5324d953fd8f2f15a57ab1f42e74c6e9 , Object , EventArgs )

at A.c5324d953fd8f2f15a57ab1f42e74c6e9.c68b79e0bad6debc66327b93113225a1b(Object c5aafb7163e7c8fbf0ebdac5a4c43afc2, EventArgs cf10b6510e8e2f64867adeafd2de3ded4)

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnClick(EventArgs e)

at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e)

at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mevent)

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.ButtonBase.WndProc(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.Button.WndProc(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

TargetSite: Boolean A.c0bbd71273182d5c19bbb6ec64c9da73d.cc21a306c83eb860f6b02571b7597a34c_Encrypted$()

I know this feature is still in Beta – so just curious if this feature is supposed to work, or if this issue is ‘known’

Thanks in advance

[doug]

Rob, this is *not* a known issue. What OS are you using? We will look into it ASAP.

As a test could you please run ‘Tools > UAC Test’ and tell me what, if anything, happens?

Separately, could you please try launching BatchPatch as administrator, and then try to install the service again. Let me know what happens.

The error that you’re encountering is occurring when BP is trying to check if you’re running as admin before installing the service. It needs to be running as admin to install the service, but for [currently] unknown reasons, it’s crashing during the check to see if it’s running as admin. Normally it would check to see if it’s running as admin, and if not, it would tell you that it can’t continue until/unless you start the application as admin. Unless you’re trying this on Windows 2003/2000/XP? Those old OSes would actually likely cause this error to appear. If that’s the case, please let me know, as we should be able to fix it.

Thanks,

Doug

[RobStewart]

Hello

We are running WSUS / Batch patch on a server 2003 installation

Running the UAC config I get the following results

Isuerinadmingroup True

Isrunasadmin True

Isprocesselevated NA

Integritylevel NA

I have tried my account (domain admin) which didn’t work (same error)

I have tried the local builtin admin which also doesn’t work (same error)

It most likely is due to the fact we are still using 2003 as our ‘management’ server

Thanks in advance

[doug]

I can confirm that the issue occurred because you’re on 2003, and we didn’t account for pre-Vista systems in the code. What I don’t know at the moment is whether or not we will add run-as-service support for pre-Vista systems or we will just fix the error and throw up a messagebox explaining that run-as-service is not supported pre-Vista.

-Doug

[RobStewart]

‘Those old OSes would actually likely cause this error to appear. If that’s the case, please let me know, as we should be able to fix it’

Should be able to, yes. As a paid for product we would expect legacy support for server 2003. Many organisations (including ours) are under extended support for windows server 2003

The code wouldn’t be too hard to implement, detect what version of the operating system is in use – if server 2003 then skip UAC check and install service, else if server > 2008, then proceed as normal

Do we need to raise a support ticket to get this implemented?

[doug]

Rob – The run-as-service solution is beta, and so it is not officially supported right now on any OS. You do not need to raise a support ticket.

The reason I said I’m not sure what we’re doing with it is because I didn’t know if the issue was strictly related to the UAC check, or if the service installation code wouldn’t work as-is on pre-Vista systems even after logic was added around the UAC check.

Also FYI – Microsoft’s extended support for Windows 2003 ended July 14, 2015, though I understand you might still be paying MS for additional support beyond their July 14 cut-off date. However, I can’t guarantee that new features we implement, including run-as-service, will work or be supported on 2003 systems. That said, unless significant code changes are required for it to work on 2003, it is something that we will likely do.

-Doug

[RobStewart]

Hello

We are well aware of the EOL for server 2003, the unfortunate thing about the environment we manage is that many of the application teams don’t know how their applications will fare in server 2008 infrastructure – hence their reluctance for us to upgrade (we are still on server 2003 domain controllers for this very reason)

I will organise a migration of our management server to 2008 however, this does not affect the end users 🙂

[jwiseguy]

Hello RobStewart,

Why don’t you install a new Windows Server 2008 / or 2012 and use this server as the new BatchPatch server #1

From this server you run the BathPatch jobs. You can export from the old BatchPatch your settings to the new Batch Patch server.

I think this wil solved the problem

Running BatchPatch on a management server seems to me a bit risk when a colleague restart this server while BatchPatch is running with a job. We use a separate BatchPatch server. When you have a large environment you can install a second BatchPatch server and split the load

[doug]

OK – Windows 2003 is now working with run-as-service, and the update was published today, though I would still encourage you to run BP on 7/2008 for a better experience. I hope this helps.

-Doug

[jwiseguy]

Thanks for the update Doug !

[RobStewart]

Thanks for the update – I will give this a go also

[RobStewart]

Hello

I have tested the new version and can confirm that we no longer get the error message when going to install the service

Still have an active task sequence running so I havent fully switched over to the new version yet – will do this after this week

@Jwiseguy – Why don’t you install a new Windows Server 2008 / or 2012 and use this server as the new BatchPatch server #1

The only reason we are using the current management server is that it has all of the scheduled tasks configured for uptime checks / pre and post patching checks.

[doug]

Sounds good.

Thanks,

Doug

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