ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

Joku — Fri, 28 May 2004 07:11:00 GMT

I suppose there's not "standard" way of querying what power mode is currently used, to allow writing some tool to do that or something?

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

Jonathan Hardwick [MSFT] — Fri, 28 May 2004 17:32:00 GMT

There probably is, but I'm hoping someone else out there will tell me about it... :-)

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

Heine Jeppesen — Thu, 03 Jun 2004 18:26:00 GMT

It shouldn't be that difficult to check the powerstate of a computer.
Try this program I did in a few minutes.

It uses the Win32 API to check for the powerstate and if the computer is considered offline by the OS, it will check if the ccmexec service is running and if so, stop it.
It should also try to start the service again if it finds the power is back on.

The check is done every 60 seconds.

I haven't really tested it since I'm to lazy to turn on my laptop :-)
Btw: Use /s if you want to get rid of the messagebox once you've tested it.

http://www.betaplace.dk/sms2003/smscheck.zip

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

Jonathan Hardwick [MSFT] — Fri, 04 Jun 2004 21:00:00 GMT

Very cool - could you include the source in the zip file, for the paranoid amongst us? :)

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

SMSPerfGuy — Fri, 09 Jul 2004 16:05:00 GMT

FYI: Inventory.exe is the Office scan tool. It has nothing to do with SMS hardware or software inventory. It is used to scan to make sure Office related products are up to date.

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

Jonathan Hardwick [MSFT] — Fri, 09 Jul 2004 19:28:00 GMT

Thanks for the clarification - inventory.exe does seem to be kicked off by SMS though. At least, if I do a "sc start ccmexec" when my laptop's been sitting idle for a while, that's the process that will promptly peg the CPU for a minute or two :-)

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

Richard Threlkeld — Sun, 11 Jul 2004 21:50:00 GMT

It is part of the Office Scan in the same way that the MBSA (or to be more specific mbsacli.exe) is used by the Security Scan Tool for Software Updates functionality in SMS. Scanwrapper.exe calls this utility to find which updates are installed and which are not, and then the data rolls up to SMS via HINV. More info here http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork/xp/journ/OffUTool.htm . This is kicked off by SMS when it runs as part of the normal weekly (or however often you decide to configure the process later) Advertisment.

IMHO, having people kill CcmExec should be a rarety as the Security and Office Scans should take less than 60 seconds under 'normal' conditions. If its taking longer and bogging down a system the SMS Administrator needs to start digging into what on the system(s) is causing this perfomance hit and possibly open up a case with PSS. CcmExec is the actual SMS Agent (the SMS Agent Host service calls this) and by killing the process all client functionality stops - inventory, software distribution, patch management, etc. Better to fix the problem.

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

Jonathan Hardwick [MSFT] — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 23:00:00 GMT

I agree that by stopping and restarting the SMS service I'm fixing the symptom and not the cause. Having said that, it's also a quick fix for a definite pain-point: it's just unacceptable for this service to stop me getting work done on my laptop in the middle of a meeting, even if it's only for a couple of minutes. And since I only do this while on battery power, the SMS service is stopped for a maximum of three hours. At least with current technology :-)

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

Levi Stevens — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 21:43:00 GMT

I wanted to point out that a new version of the Office Inventory tool has been released that addresses the performance issues. If you are still hitting this then notify your IT administrators to update thier SMS scan packages.

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

Thomas Smailus — Wed, 11 Jan 2006 23:29:38 GMT

My problem with ccm is not a performance issue, but a problem with it grabbing file handles and then not releasing them. I have large data sets on my drive, and occasionally find that ccm has an open handle to the contents, though no applications I am running are in those directories.

Result = windows will not allow me to rename the directory = highly irritated user.

Result = turn of ccm and forget about being corportate citizen until microsoft can figure out how to not get in my way with the things its trying to do 'for me'.

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

Massimo — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 15:17:21 GMT

I'm angry too. I deal with an xp system with only 256 Mb of memory. Having tasks running continuosly affects performances dramatically.
Result=I'm looking for a way to stop definitively ccmexec

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

jonathanh — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 01:35:52 GMT

Massimo - if you've got ccmexec running on your system, it's because your sysadmin wants it there. If it's affecting your work, ask him or her for more memory!

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

Paul M — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 20:29:14 GMT

In my circumstance this process seems to continually throughout the day access various and numerous files and hence kick the on access VirusScan regularly resulting in the machine pausing for several seconds at a time. Is it really appropriate to continually inventorise the drive given the impact it can have?

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

jonathanh — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 00:14:32 GMT

Paul - your admin should have some control over how frequently the inventory takes place.

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

Nishant — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 09:17:27 GMT

Terminating or blocking SMS (ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe) doesnt affect the system, just ensure that you do all the patches manually. I dont like the auto enforce from SMS so i keep it blocked ;-) using Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

Elroy — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 16:29:33 GMT

As a user, I can sympathize. And having Inventory.exe kick-off over a dial-up/VPN is ridiculous.

As an administrator of SMS, I'd rather hear about your performance issues and help fix them than to have your laptop go without security updates--especially if you're out 'cavorting' with unprotected wireless connections. I don't need to deal with the bugs you bring home.

And fair warning: if I find a Kerio personal firewall on your laptop blocking my administrative tools--and it's my job to find it--your supervisor will hear from mine. Nothing personal.

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

Lurking Observer — Mon, 22 May 2006 15:15:41 GMT

This was a very helpful dialog.

Thanks everyone for your comments.

:-)

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re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

Tim — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 00:05:01 GMT

I loose any use of my laptop for several minutes each time it comes out of hiberbnate because of this process. It defeats the point of hibernating. My suspicion is that this is related to the wireless network and VPN not being available immediately and the the state of the offline files being being differnt pre- and post-hiberante as a result.

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

Marco — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 15:53:18 GMT

Elroy: I appreciate that you don't like users disrupting efforts at security, but let my try to describe the situation this way: the *user* is paid by the company do do useful work; the *sysadmin* is paid by company to make computers run, so that users can do their job; SMS updates, ccmexec and whatnot are tools that help *sysadmins* to do their job, on average at the detriment of *users* who as a result are hindered in theirs. No brainer, or what ? Cordially, Marco

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

Maurizio — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 12:21:26 GMT

Thanks for the article and the feedback, it helped me finding out what's knibbling on my system and prevented me from shouting to our administrators.

To Elroy: Sure you got to do your job, but to go crying by the boss.... hate that kind of admins.... this way you only trigger the "users" to hide their stuff better.

And you widen the gap between the so-called "support" side and the "user" side, so next time you get even less credit if you want to "improve" something on the user's pc's.

Why don't sysadmins learn to communicate? If something is really necessary just tell people why that is, I guess you have fair chance that they'll accept it.

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re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

Nic — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 06:32:23 GMT

CCMEXEC.exe was constantly grinding on my hard drive, so I renamed my the CCMEXEC.exe file to KILLCCMEXEC.exe. Now WinDoze no longer finds it. If I need an update, I'll restore it... and kill it again after I'm done.

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

Patrick — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 14:50:46 GMT

Folks, there is a great tool out there called filemon from the sysinternals crowd. It shows you what programs are smashing away on your disk. I've been able to systematically find programs like ccmexec and others to help dramatically improve the performance on my MS lappie.

BTW, if SMS updates can't play well with me. I won't play well with it. Disabled.

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

0/0 — Thu, 03 May 2007 18:02:16 GMT

1. Telling sysadmins that they're only there to make sure the users can do the actually useful work is rather like telling a cop that you pay his salary - generally unhelpful, and likely to end less than favorably.

2. If the users don't like the administration tools, they need to complain to the admins and tell them why, so that they can fix the issues. Going around them is childish and petty.

3. SMS blows anyway. Use a real management tool like Novell ZENWorks, or maybe LANDesk. I'm in the middle of learning and implementing SMS after working with ZEN for the past 8 years, and I am constantly amazed by the kludgey, half-baked way that most of it works (or doesn't work). Management tools should be seen and not heard, except when doing something deliberate and large, and only after prior communication from IT. Daily management should be invisible.

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

Tue, 08 May 2007 21:07:16 GMT

services.exe musy be a pretty comprehensive, "hide-all" package because it rips away at my poor HD ALL DAY LONG. What could it possibly be doing for days on end?!? I think I might look into filemon.

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

Wed, 09 May 2007 16:05:43 GMT

After 3 straight days of HD crackling in my laptop, I ran "sc stop ccmexec" and...Silence! I have my sanity again. I will now do a half hearted search for the purposes of CCMEXEC.exe and see if I ever need to turn it back on.

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

Larry — Wed, 30 May 2007 00:16:55 GMT

I found this process by using filemon.exe (from microjunk) and running it to find out which process had which files open. The CcmExec.exe program must have a flaw in it because it was accessing my CVS repository and all other files on my hard drive. They had nothing to do with office.

This is another example of terrible design by Microjunk. Linux rules.

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

Joe — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 15:15:24 GMT

Can CcmExec.exe have an effect on closing outlook?

Everything I close it -- the taskmanager shows multiple instance running. I have to close it from taskmanager to stop it. And restarting it causes it to start from safe mode.

I've read posting suggesting that some program may be accessing outlook is what causes my delimema.

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

joe — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 00:04:41 GMT

Gotta program "knockout.exe" to fix my issue.

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

JeffCurless — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 01:46:06 GMT

My issue is that for some reason, CcmExec.exe seems to keep handles to VMWare virtual machines that I have opened previously. It stops me from being able to open the vm again later. Stoping CcmExec clears this problem.

Weird.

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

AnActualSysAdmin — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 21:27:07 GMT

--------

Tuesday, May 29, 2007 5:16 PM by Larry

This is another example of terrible design by Microjunk. Linux rules.

--------

Larry - I'm not sure you understand what ccmexec.exe is. That is the executable that the SMS Agent uses. It is unrelated to Office. The problem people are discussing is related to inventory.exe, an Office inventory tool. The issue here is that when SMS kicks off it's regularly scheduled inventory processes, it can cause inventory.exe to also initiate. The SMS inventory processes themselves have very little impact. If you have that on your computer, then your computer is in a managed environment - managed by your sysadmins. Please report any issues you have to them, and get them to troubleshoot the source of the problem.

Arrogant users annoy me - especially the know it all linux people whose sole source of education is wikipedia.

re: ccmexec.exe and inventory.exe - what are they and what do they do?

Mark — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 01:26:32 GMT

I just wanted to pass along my thanks for this blog entry. I've had to fight ccmexec.exe from a different perspective than the laptop scenario you describe. Sometimes I need to attach a USB external drive to my system. Many times when I tried to stop the device via the "Safely remove hardware" feature, I would get the dreaded "unable to stop the device at this time" message. I found UnLocker (http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/), a neat little utility which can unlock a device. But when it came to ccmexec, it wouldn't do any good since as soon as I unlocked the dozen references ccmexec had, it had moved on to the next dozen.

So anyway, your tip now allows me to easily get my portable drive safely detached without having to do a shutdown and restart. Much faster to stop a service, then restart it after detaching the device. So thanks for taking the time to publish this.