Old post but useful to share from J.C.HornBeck .We all know there are some hidden files(they are kind of secret files) which are available since Since Many years( I would think from SMS 2003 or may be from 2.0) in order to activate or deactivate some features in SMS/SCCM 2007 /SCCM 2012 (now) on client side or server side, such as preventing Software Inventory for a particular folder or preventing the installation of ConfigMgr files on a machine. Here’s some information on some of those files and how you might use them to control your Configuration Manager environment. The files are as follows:
- NO_SMS_ON_DRIVE.SMS
- ARCHIVE_REPORTS.SMS
- SKPSWI.DAT
So what do these files do?
SKPSWI.DAT
This file can be used for skipping the Software inventory Process for a partition or for a folder. If you want to prevent software inventory on a drive/partition or folder you can create a hidden file named SKPWI.DAT and place it on the root of the drive/partition/folder.
When do you, or can you use it?
In order to avoid the overhead of running software inventory on large disks with a large number of files that you do not need collected, you can create a hidden file named Skpswi.dat and place it in the root folder of each disk drive that you want excluded from software inventory. From that point forward, no software inventory will occur for those drives or folders unless the Skpswi.dat file is removed.
The Skpswi.dat file can also be used to avoid a software inventory collection rule. For example, if you have a rule to inventory "\WINDOWS", that entire folder tree will be skipped on any Configuration Manager client that has a Skpswi.dat file in the \ WINDOWS folder. Disks with a Skpswi.dat file are not scanned to find files that are to be collected.
You can also place this file in the root of any folder structure you want to exclude from software inventory. This procedure can be used to disable software inventory on a single workstation or server client, such as a large file server. Software inventory will not inventory the client drive again unless this file is deleted from the drive on the client computer.
For more information see the following:
How to Exclude Folders From Software Inventory: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb632671.aspx
ConfigMgr (SCCM) – Skip Software Inventory : http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/6568.configmgr-sccm-skip-software-inventory.aspx
ARCHIVE_REPORTS.SMS
This is a client side file and is used when hardware/software inventory troubleshooting needs to be done.
When troubleshooting ConfigMgr client software or hardware inventory, you might want to retain the XML files that contain details on what the latest scan discovered (regardless whether the scan was a full scan or just a delta). In order to do this, we have to create a file named “archive_reports.sms” within %systemroot%\system32\ccm\inventory\temp\ or within %systemroot%\SysWOW64\ccm\inventory\temp\ depending if the machine is x64 or x86. Normally, on a regular client this would be as follows: C:\WINDOWS\system32\CCM\Inventory\temp\
Read the rest of the post http://blogs.technet.com/b/configurationmgr/archive/2012/09/17/controlling-configuration-manager-2012-using-hidden-files.aspx