Microsoft Product Support's Reporting Tools (MPSReports)

[The_Exchange_Team]

A friend called me at home recently… he had bad Exchange issues and it all sounded very confusing. I pointed him to our data collection tools, had him run it and send me the .CAB file. After looking it all over I was able to figure out the problem pretty quickly.

It can be challenging at times to hunt down all sorts of information that you might need when troubleshooting a problem. This is if you are working with a Support Engineer or even if you are not.

So - if you have not used MPSReports, you might like it! This tools packages all sorts of different server information up very neatly into a .CAB file. Note that there are different versions of the tool for different situations. For example, if you are running this on an Exchange server, you should use the Exchange version of the tool - and you can get it here:

870640 How to install the Exchange edition of the Microsoft Product Support

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=870640

But - if you are troubleshooting a DC replication problem (which will eventually bubble up as an Exchange problem), you should use the version created for Domain Controllers.

More info on different other flavors of the tool:

818742 Overview of the Microsoft Configuration Capture Utility (MPS_REPORTS)

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=818742

Location of all download links for different versions:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=CEBF3C7C-7CA5-408F-88B7-F9C79B7306C0&displa...

One more thing - you might wonder what is the difference between this tool and the recently released Exchange Server Best Practices Analyzer Tool (ExBPA). To put it shortly, MPSReports is really just a data collection tool which simplifies collection of different logs that are scattered around the system, including the application and system logs. ExBPA on the other hand, has rules and intelligence that examines configuration settings on the server that it is being run against. The two tools really complement each other. This is even more the case now than it used to be before, as the newest version of MPSReports for Exchange actually runs the command line EXBPA report too.

- Nino Bilic

[#2]

Actually, the exchange version captures all the custer information you need too :D

[#3]

It actually runs exbpacmd too already !!!!

[#4]

Thanks! Correction was spot on - the Cluster.log got packaged up - I just tried it out. =)

[#5]

Yes, I've used the other versions of MPS Reports pretty extensively. Nice tool for support issues.

[#6]

Hi. Is there a way to compare the results of an MPS Report to one run at a different date and identify differences? Specifically, I have an Exchange 2003 environment ( 8 severs ) that I need to create an off-site Disaster Recovery environment that mirrors the production. After I build the DR I will need to compare it to the production, and monthly update it with changes that happen in production. The MPS reports look to be the most extensive tool available ( for free, cost is a big concern ). I would greatly appreciate any commentssuggestions. Thanks.
- Eric Haupt erich@usi.net

[#7]

Eric,

I don't think we have a very good tool for what you need. It soulds like you would like to get a report on the "current settings" of different Exchange components. While we have a tool (ExBPA - go to www.exbpa.com) that checks the configuration - it checks the configuration issues based on our experience when working with different customers. We do not really have a "report" that would show you different settings so you could then compare that report from today with one from tomorrow, for example - and quickly see what configuration changes were made in the mean time.