How to Remove a Category from a Windows Driver

In Configuration Manager, you remove a category from a Windows driver by removing the unique identifier for the category from the SMS_Driver Server WMI Class CategoryInstance_UniqueIDs array property.

To remove a category from a Windows driver

1. Set up a connection to the SMS Provider. For more information, see SMS Provider fundamentals.

2. Get the SMS_Driver object for the driver that you want remove the category from.

3. Get the category name identifier from the SMS_CategoryInstance Server WMI Class object that matches the desired category.

4. Remove the category identifier from the SMS_Driver Server WMI Class object CategoryInstance_UniqueIDs array property.

5. Commit the SMS_Driver Server WMI Class changes.

Example

The following example method removes a category from a Windows driver. driverID is a valid SMS_Driver Server WMI Class object. For more information, see About Operating System Deployment Driver Management.

For information about calling the sample code, see Calling Configuration Manager Code Snippets.

Sub RemoveDriverCategory(connection,driver,categoryName)

    Dim results
    Dim driverCategoryID
    Dim category
    Dim categories
    Dim i

    If IsNull(driver.CategoryInstance_UniqueIDs) _
           or UBound (driver.CategoryInstance_UniqueIDs) = -1 Then
        ' There are no categories, so quit.
        Wscript.Echo "No categories found"
        Exit Sub
    End If

     Set results = _
      connection.ExecQuery("SELECT * From SMS_CategoryInstance WHERE LocalizedCategoryInstanceName = '" _
      + categoryName+ "'")

    ' If the category was found, delete, if it is there, from the driver.
    For Each category In results

        ' Destination for copied categories.
        categories = Array(driver.CategoryInstance_UniqueIDs)
        i=0

        For Each driverCategoryID in driver.CategoryInstance_UniqueIDs
            If driverCategoryID = category.CategoryInstance_UniqueID Then
                ' Found it, so skip it.
                 Redim Preserve categories (UBound(categories))
            Else
                ' Copy the category.
                categories(i) = driverCategoryID
                i=i+1
            End If
        Next

        ' Make sure the array is empty.
        if i = 0  Then
            Redim categories(-1)
        End If

         driver.CategoryInstance_UniqueIDs = categories
         driver.Put_
    Next
End Sub

public void RemoveDriverCategory(WqlConnectionManager connection,
    IResultObject driver,
    string categoryName)
{
    try
    {
        // Get the category.
        IResultObject results =
            connection.QueryProcessor.ExecuteQuery(
            "SELECT * From SMS_CategoryInstance WHERE LocalizedCategoryInstanceName = '"
            + categoryName
            + "'");

        ArrayList driverCategories = new ArrayList(driver["CategoryInstance_UniqueIDs"].StringArrayValue);

        // Remove the category from the driver.
        foreach (IResultObject category in results)
        {
            driverCategories.Remove(category["CategoryInstance_UniqueID"].StringValue);
        }

        // Update the driver.
        driver["CategoryInstance_UniqueIDs"].StringArrayValue = (string[])driverCategories.ToArray(typeof(string));
        driver.Put();
    }
    catch(SmsException e)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Failed to remove category :" + e.Message);
        throw;
    }
}

The example method has the following parameters:

Compiling the Code

This C# example requires:

Namespaces

System

System.Collections.Generic

System.Text

Microsoft.ConfigurationManagement.ManagementProvider

Microsoft.ConfigurationManagement.ManagementProvider.WqlQueryEngine

Assembly

microsoft.configurationmanagement.managementprovider

adminui.wqlqueryengine

Robust Programming

For more information about error handling, see About Configuration Manager Errors.

.NET Framework Security

For more information about securing Configuration Manager applications, see Configuration Manager role-based administration.

See Also

About Operating System Deployment Driver Management How to Add a Category to a Windows Driver