As you might know SMS/Configmgr; has some secret files that can change the way agents behave. One of the files is called archive_reports.sms. When you add this file to the inventory temp folder (\system32\ccm\inventory\temp\) it will prevent the inventory xml files from being deleted after they are send to the management point. This can be very useful when you want to track the size of each inventory file. In my screen dump you can see several xml file. I use this feature to spot the change in file size whenever I enable new classes in my sms_def.mof file (AI classes, custom classes etc).

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As you can see from the pictures it’s easy to check the size of each file and also to read the information – very useful. Just remember to delete the archive_reports.sms file when you are done testing.

The file has been around for many years, and I am pretty sure you will find the information on other blogs as well.