Monitor Print Spooler

[Joe_F]

I'm attempting to set up a monitor policy to alert someone if a print spooler on a Windows server grows. How to I build a meaningful policy based on this? Is it actually watching the queue or the print spooler service?  I obviously don't want to get an alert generated every time someone prints, but need to be alerted when the queue grows and doesn't clear.  It's an automated print process, and services will be OK, but the queue will grow when there is a problem.

[Igor Perevozchikov]

Hi Joe_F,

You are going to monitor this using agent-based or agentless Monitor policy?

For example: you can use agent-based or agentless WMI metric (text) using different WQL to get required instance(s) value(s):

WQL:

SELECT JobsSpooling FROM Win32_PerfFormattedData_Spooler_PrintQueue WHERE Name = "Microsoft XPS Document Writer"

You can check other Counters has "Win32_PerfFormattedData_Spooler_PrintQueue" class to use them in WMI metric:

• https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa394288%28v=vs.85%29.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

Metric Evalution rule:

For example this Metric Evaluation Rule, where you will set to check whether metric value is changed or not per appropriate time range. If value is changed after 1 hour, then rule will be triggered and alert will be raised and if this value will not be changed after next 1 hour, then Rule will be triggered and alert will be auto-resolved.

Also you can check this arctile about an agentless monitoring:

• https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/itms-76-agentless-wmi-performance-metrics-pack

Thanks,

IP.

[Joe_F]

Thank you for the response. Sorry for the delay.  I found where my coworker set up an alert, not in Altiris.  I'll try creating a agent alert using your instruction, as the other method is not working.