Trilight Zone

[digital8]

If you have not tried the command line WMI tool WMIC(Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line) I would suggest you give it a shot. I know Rod has touched on the subject http://myitforum.techtarget.com/articles/20/view.asp?id=6919 but I thought you might also be interested in learning what you can also do remotely from a command line. Now if you are like me at all the whole idea of WMI can be quite intimidating but the great thing about this tool is you can learn one step at a time, you don’t have to make any changes if you don’t want to and you can do it remotely.

For instance, say you are having problems identifying which print server someone’s printer is attached to and want to know quickly you would type the following;
/NODE:hostname printer
This will bring up a lot of information for all of the printers for that host. You can than type the following for even more options;
/NODE:hostname printer /?
This will show you how to delete, create and even more.

One of my favorites so far is the ‘/NODE:hostname service’ command, rather than use ‘xnet list \\hostname’ I can now use this and really get a lot of great information back (have to make sure smsexec is running!).

After some research I also found you can export into html and loop to your hearts content. In the included link from 2002 there is a provided download with 5 example scripts and some additional WMIC related information. Hope you enjoy this great tool, I am just now really digging into it and the possibilities look promising.

http://www.windowsitpro.com/Windows/Article/ArticleID/23854/23854.html