Access is not available

The information in this article applies to:

  • Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server

  • Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server

  • Application-tier server

  • Data-tier server

  • Team Foundation client

  • Health check

  • Preinstall check

The Best Practices Analyzer tool for Team Foundation Server performs many queries that require access to information that is stored on the computers that you specified in the scan.

Note

If the computer that you specified is not available, no queries that access information from that computer are run. For more information, see Computer cannot be found.

A warning appears if any of the queries fails. The warning indicates the computer where the query failed and one of the following conditions:

  • Application-tier IIS metabase access not available

  • Application-tier WMI access not available

  • Application-tier registry access not available

  • Client WMI access not available

  • Client registry access not available

  • Data-tier WMI access not available

  • Data-tier registry access not available

  • Data-tier SQL Server access not available

  • Some application-tier data not available remotely

If the tool cannot access the information that it requires to process specific rules, the results of that process do not appear in the scan reports.

If one of these errors appears, you should investigate the following causes first:

  • A network issue is preventing the tool from contacting the computer.

  • The account with which you logged on to run the tool does not have sufficient permissions to perform the query.

    You must have administrative credentials on the computer that you are scanning. Otherwise, the tool cannot call the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) providers, access the registry, or access the metabase for Internet Information Services (IIS).

  • You are running the scan from a computer other than the one that the error indicates.

    When you run a scan from a Team Foundation client, some information is unavailable. When you troubleshoot issues that relate to the application-tier server, you must run the scan from that server.

    Also, in a dual-server deployment, you might have to explicitly set some WMI permissions before you can scan computers in a distributed environment.

  • One or more of the following services is not running on the computer that you specified for the scan:

    • Windows Management Instrumentation (required to access WMI)

    • Remote Registry (required to access the registry)

    • IIS Admin Service (required to access the IIS metabase)

To resolve an issue where access to information is unavailable, perform the following steps:

  • Verify that you can connect to the computer over the network. Ping the computer that the error specifies to determine whether the computer is available.

  • Review the Run Time Log report that the scan generates for the following messages:

    • General access denied error.   This error indicates that the account with which you logged on does not have the necessary administrative credentials on the computer that you are scanning. Log on using an account that has the necessary credentials, and run the scan again.

    • The RPC server is unavailable.   Verify that the Remote Registry service is running on the computer that you are scanning. If the service is not running, restart it. For more information, see A service is not running.

  • If you run the scan from a client that is running Windows Vista, enable metabase access. For more information, see Enable Metabase Access on the Client Computer.

  • Run the scan from the computer that the error specifies.

Enable Metabase Access on the Client Computer

By default, metabase access is disabled for Windows Vista. To access metabase information, you must log on to the client computer, and access Windows Features.

Required Permissions

To perform these procedures, you must be a member of the Administrators security group on the client computer for Team Foundation.

To enable metabase access for a client that is running Windows Vista

  1. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.

  2. Click Programs.

  3. Under Programs and Features, click Turn Windows features on or off.

  4. In the Windows Features dialog box, expand Internet Information Services, and then expand Web Management Tools.

  5. Select the IIS Management Console check box, and click OK.

See Also

Tasks

How to: List Scans and View Reports

Concepts

Information Messages About Team Foundation

Other Resources

Issues That Relate to the Application Tier for Team Foundation