If objects are selected in either the SMS Administrator Sites window or the Query Results window, you can use the Delete menu item (from the Edit menu) to remove them from the database; however, this simply moves the objects to history, where they remain. Note that history for a deleted object cannot be viewed from the SMS Administrator.
With the Delete Special menu item (also under the Edit menu), you can group and delete objects according to criteria you define in the Delete Special dialog box fields. For example, you can group objects by their last activity date, deleting all objects that were added to the inventory on or before that specific date. You can also group and delete history records.
You can also use the SMS Database Manager (DBCLEAN.EXE) to delete items from the SMS database. Use the Delete Duplicates menu to delete entries for computers that are the same, but have different SMSID numbers. Under the Tools menu, you can use Delete Group Classes and Delete Unused Common/Specific Records.
Important Be careful when deleting groups. For example, it is important not to delete a predefined group such as the Identification group. This will cause a failure of all SMS processes (such as jobs, alerts, and running queries) that require the information contained in the predefined group.
Before you use the SMS Database Manager, make sure that there are no other administrators using the SMS Administrator to access that database.
The SMS Database Manager (DBCLEAN.EXE) is installed in the SITE.SRV\platform.BIN directory (where platform is the processor type of the computer where it is installed) on any computer where the SMS Administrator is installed.