OpsMgr 2007: Operations Manager console Monitoring tab displays HTTP 401 error

We've seen this problem a couple times now so if you're getting HTTP 401 errors when checking events on the Monitoring tab of the System Center OpsMgr console then you'll want to take a look at this:

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Issue: When using the Operations Manager 2007 console on a Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 computer, if an alert or event is highlighted on the Monitoring tab then no data may be returned in the lower details pane and eventually a HTTP 401 error will be displayed along with "This page cannot be displayed" or "This program cannot display the webpage".

Cause: This may happen for users that have an exclamation mark (!) at the beginning of their username. This is due to an inability to render items from a directory that starts with the "!" character.

Workarounds:

1. Use the Operations Manager console on a Windows Vista machine, as this issue only affects Windows XP/2003.

2. Use an account that does not start with the "!" character.

3. Rename the user profile directory for the affected user as follows:
     a: Login with an account with local administrator rights to the machine where Operations Console is installed.  Make sure you're not using the account beginning with the "!" character.

     b: Rename the Documents and Settings folder for the user containing the "!" character.  For example, rename “C:\Documents and Settings\!<user>” to “C:\Documents and Settings\<user>”

     c: Open Registry Editor and browse to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

     d: Go through the subkeys and rename the directory for the affected user.  For example, find the one with “%SystemDrive%:\Documents and Settings\!<user>” in “ProfileImagePath” and give it the new value of “%SystemDrive%:\Documents and Settings\<user>”.

Hope this helps!

Adrian Doyle | Support Escalation Engineer