This is great. I have been reading up on the WMI classes and was trying to pull the network settings (ipaddress/DNS/GW, etc) but it always gives me errors. Any thoughts? I would also like to grab some software info. Is there an easy class that has the SW listed in ADD/remove only? What about hotfix/updates? Thanks for the great script!

I was trying to get the SerialNumber property from the bios and entered the property in Line 133 in HrdWrInv.vbs and added the property on line 97 of the buildReport.vbs. The info is collected in the text file but doesn’t show up in the Excel report. Did i omit something?

Would this script go for Exchange 2003 and Windows Server 2003 or is there another way there?

I very much enjoyed this article about updating remote registries. I am always looking for articles like this that show more advanced scripting because I write a lot of VBScripts. I reviewed ApplyReg.vbs and just want to make a couple of remarks.

When I write scripts that perform actions on a series of remote computers, I also have a function that checks whether the remote computer is reachable. Instead of using Ping and reading the output to determine whether the remote machine answered, I prefer to use the Win32_PingStatus WMI class, which is available in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, for a couple of reasons. First, I think that this method is a more elegant approach to this task. Second, we work in an environment with computers in 5 different countries in Europe, all of which use their local language on their machines. Writing a script that reads the output of a command-line command is difficult when multiple languages are involved.

A note from Ethan: I’m aware of the Win32_PingStatus class, and I agree with you that this is the best approach. Just to give you some history, I specifically choose the approach I took because the Windows Resource Kit team originally asked me to write these scripts and the team told me that I must make the tool work in a pure Windows 2000 environment. I couldn’t even rely on having a Windows XP client for running the script. As a result, I went with the non-localized approach of reading the "reply from..." message. Your approach is much better when you can assume that one client is running Windows XP.

You make another great point about using DNs instead of FQDNs or NetBIOS names in the script. Again, a little history is in order. The goal was to take the output from another script as the input for the ApplyReg script. The output from the other script was the DNs of all domain controllers in a domain. If you get a chance, take a look at the two white papers that I reference in the article. The scripts, including ApplyReg, were written specifically to support the security goals delineated in the white paper.

The script in this article seems to work but is inconsistent. One time it will work, the next time it will error on the SetInfo line. The difference in the script is that I added several fields for the user, such as company, address, city, and distinguished name. I know that adding these variables works because I have a different script that adds them but I like this one because it has a form-based option. (The other script pulls from Excel.)

It’s almost like the script is trying to add too much information at once, so I used SetInfo two or three times while adding the information for all the fields. That worked for a while, then seemed to stop.

The error type is:

(0x8007200B)
/IT/main/UserCreation.asp, line 224

Any thoughts about what’s going on?

A note from Ethan: I think your problem is caused by some of the attributes you’re trying to set. For example, the distinguishedName attribute is set by Active Directory. It denotes the exact location of an Active Directory object. For example, MyerKen in the Management OU of the na.fabrikam.com domain is automatically given the distinguishedName value of cn=MyerKen,ou=Management,dc=NA,dc=fabrikam,dc=com. The only way to change this is to move the user account to another location. If you attempt to set this value in a script, the domain controller responding to your request will deny the modification and the script will fail. If you attempt a Put operation with the distinguishedName attribute, then any attempt to write other attributes (other Put operations) before calling SetInfo will fail because of the one attribute, in this case distinguishedName, that is configurable only by the system.

If a user isn’t a member of the Administrators group, I found that the printer map page will not come up. I tried changing the permissions in IIS and NT file systems and gave users full control on the printer map directories, but it still does not work.

The only time I can see the printer map is if I specify Integrated Windows Authentication on IIS without anonymous access AND if I’m a member of the Administrators group on the print server. I even tried changing the permissions in the registry for the /root/cimv2 key in the registry without any effect. I also tried adding the users to all the user rights in Local Policy. This had no effect either. The error message I receive is: Error in CIMV2 connect string: -2147217405.

Does this mean all users have to be administrators on the print server in order to see the map? I don’t want to have to give all users administrative privileges on the print server.

A note from Ethan: The good news is that all your users do not need to have Administrator permissions. I think the issue is probably your access settings to the CIMV2 namespace. Try the following:

1. Open the Computer Management console on one of your print servers.
2. Expand the Services and Applications node.
3. Select the WMI Control control.
4. Right-click the WMI Control node and then click Properties.
5. From the WMI Control Properties dialog box, click Security.
6. Expand the Root node and click CIMV2.
7. Click the Security button.
8. Assign the Everyone group Remote Enable permission or, for a more secure solution, add a group to which your users are members and then grant the group the Remote Enable permission.

I suggest that you use only IIS Integrated authentication for security but I suppose you could also add the IIS anonymous user account to the group that you grant remote enable permission.

We have about 12 printers in a single floor. I went through the scripts and got as far as the printer objects showing up on the floor map in the correct locations. The part that’s not working for me is when I click on the printer icon, it brings up a broken link for all the printers. If I move the mouse cursor over the printer, the display shows http://print_server/share name. Looking at the status bar on the browser, the following is displayed: http//print_server/share. If the queues were to be displayed, shouldn’t the path be \\print_server\share?

If this is incorrect, how can I query the http://print_server/printers/ directory for the correct printer when clicking a specific printer icon in the floor map?

A note from Ethan: I don’t know if this will help, but take a look at the Microsoft article “Cannot Install IIS 5.1 Printers Virtual Directory Subcomponent through Add/Remove Windows Components” (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;304544).

Also, in Internet Explorer (IE), you should be able to type http://print_server/printer_share_name, where print_server is the name of your print server and share_name is the name of the printer share. IIS on the print server will redirect the request to the appropriate URL. I successfully tested this on a Windows 2000 Server with Service Pack 3 installed and with the configuration change suggested in the Microsoft article I mentioned.

I really enjoyed this article about the hardware inventory. It will probably get lots of use here. I have been looking for this exact code. We’ve been using a third-party software package for this, but since we’ve upgraded our security, that package no longer works.

I do have a few questions, though: What code should I put in if I want to collect the username on the Computer Systems tab in the Excel report? What needs to go in the hardware script AND what should I put in the report generator?

A note from Ethan: The Computer Systems tab is populated with information from the Win32_ComputerSystem class. In this class, there are two additional properties that will probably provide you with what you’re looking for: UserName and PrimaryOwnerName.

In hrdwrInv.vbs, you need to add these two properties to the strProperties variable for Win32_ComputerSystem. You’ll see the properties listed on lines 64 - 66. In buildReport.vbs, you need to add column heads for the two new properties. The column heads are specified for Win32_ComputerSystem on lines 49 and 50.