Chapter 10: Managing Inventory

In Brief

Managing inventory in an enterprise is an extremely involved task. Although several expensive inventory management packages are available, many companies cannot afford to purchase these systems and train employees to implement them. In this chapter, you will learn how to inventory your enterprise with simple, customizable scripts. In the previous chapters, you learned how to collect information about various items such as files, folders, shares, and services. In this chapter, you will learn how to collect information from various system and device components , such as a battery, mouse, monitor, sound card, printer, and more.

Windows System Tools

Microsoft Windows contains many tools you can use to view and modify system resource information. Each tool provides a central location to easily identify resources and conflicts, and modify device settings and drivers.

Microsoft System Information

Windows 98 included a utility called Microsoft System Information (MSI). MSI was first introduced with Microsoft Office 97 and can be started by clicking StartRun and entering MSINFO32 . This utility included quick links to other diagnostic tools (Dr. Watson and ScanDisk) under the Tools menu. One of the most valuable features of this tool was the History page. Under this page you would find a history of system changes that you could use to diagnose system malfunctions.

Windows 2000/XP/2003 follows Windows 98 and uses an updated version of Microsoft System Information. MSI is an invaluable system tool that uses WMI to provide an easy method to locate drivers, resources, components, and sources of system errors, to print reports , and more. Some advanced features include remote system connectivity and report generation. You can start this utility by clicking StartRun and entering MSINFO32 or by entering WINMSD. MSI is actually a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in, stored as C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\MSInfo\MSInfo32.msc.

Within the same directory is a file called MSINFO32.EXE, used to run MSI from the command line. You can use MSINFO32 to connect to a remote computer or store system information to an NFO (Information) file. The basic syntax of the MSINFO32 command is:

 MSINFO32 /  commands  

Here, the available commands are:

• /CATEGORIES +/- name ”Displays (+) or does not display (-) the category name specified. Supplying the name ALL will display all categories.

• /CATEGORY name ”Specifies the category to open at launch.

• /COMPUTER name ”Connects to the specified computer name.

• /MSINFO_FILE= file ”Opens an NFO or CAB file.

• /NFO file ”Sends output to an NFO file.

• /REPORT file ”Generates a report to the specified file.

Warning  

MSInfo32 is a memory- intensive application and might use up valuable system resources.

Device Manager

Windows 2000/XP/2003 include a graphical utility called Device Manager (see Figure 10.1) to manipulate the various devices on your system. From within this utility, you can view or modify system settings, device properties, device drivers, and more. Device Manager displays its items in a tree-like structure, allowing you to easily view dependencies. This utility is most commonly used among administrators to determine resource conflicts (noted by yellow exclamation points) and update device drivers.

Figure 10.1: The Windows 2000 Device Manager.

Microsoft Systems Management Server

Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) is a complete enterprise inventory and management package. Some of the advanced features include remote control, software licensing, and electronic software distribution (ESD). Although this product is extremely helpful, many companies cannot afford to pay for the training or licensing of SMS (about $1800 for 25 users). As related to this chapter, SMS performs system inventory using Windows Management Instrumentation. In this chapter, you will learn how to perform similar WMI queries to gather the system information you need ”for free.