PowerShell One-Liners for Accessing WMI

Executive Summary:

As a command shell and scripting environment, Windows PowerShell is quickly proving to be one of the most valuable tools available to system administrators. PowerShell particularly shines in its support for Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), a management technology built into Windows OSs. WMI provides a comprehensive structure for accessing information on local and remote Windows computers and managing those computers. (You can find more information about WMI at http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/pnppwr/wmi.)

With PowerShell, you can take advantage of the full range of WMI capabilities. And the best part is that in many cases, you need to enter only a single line of code to access WMI. These “one-liners” can return a wealth of information and can simplify many of your administrative tasks. In addition, the procedures for working with WMI in PowerShell are consistent across the WMI spectrum, making it easier to adapt what you learn to other areas. . . .