Listing Desktop Settings
We’ll begin with a command that collects information about the desktops on the local computer. PowerShell
Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_Desktop -ComputerName .
This returns information for all desktops, whether they are in use or not.
PowerShell
Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_Desktop -ComputerName . | Select-Object -ExcludeProperty "CIM*"
To filter out the metadata, use a pipeline operator (|) to send the results of the Get-CimInstance command to Select-Object -ExcludeProperty "CIM*".
Listing BIOS Information
The WMI Win32_BIOS class returns fairly compact and complete information about the system BIOS on the local computer: PowerShell
Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_BIOS -ComputerName .
Listing Processor Information
You can retrieve general processor information by using WMI’s Win32_Processor class, although you will likely want to filter the information: PowerShell
Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_Processor -ComputerName . | Select-Object -ExcludeProperty "CIM*"
For a generic description string of the processor family, you can just return the SystemType property: PowerShell
Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_ComputerSystem -ComputerName . | Select-Object -Property SystemType SystemType ---------- X86-based PC
Listing Computer Manufacturer and Model
Computer model information is also available from Win32_ComputerSystem. The standard displayed output will not need any filtering to provide OEM data: PowerShell
Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_ComputerSystem
output
Name PrimaryOwnerName Domain TotalPhysicalMemory Model Manufacturer ---- ---------------- ------ ------------------- ----- ------------ MyPC Jane Doe WORKGROUP 804765696 DA243A-ABA 6415cl NA910 Compaq Presario 06
Your output from commands such as this, which return information directly from some hardware, is only as good as the data you have. Some information is not correctly configured by hardware manufacturers and may therefore be unavailable.
Listing Installed Hotfixes
You can list all installed hotfixes by using Win32_QuickFixEngineering: PowerShell
Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_QuickFixEngineering -ComputerName .
This class returns a list of hotfixes that looks like this: output
Source Description HotFixID InstalledBy InstalledOn PSComputerName
------ ----------- -------- ----------- ----------- --------------
Security Update KB4048951 Administrator 12/16/2017 .
For more succinct output, you may want to exclude some properties.
Although you can use the Get-CimInstance‘s Property parameter to choose only the HotFixID, doing so will actually return more information, because all the metadata is displayed by default:
PowerShell
Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_QuickFixEngineering -ComputerName . -Property HotFixID
output
PSShowComputerName : True
InstalledOn :
Caption :
Description :
InstallDate :
Name :
Status :
CSName :
FixComments :
HotFixID : KB4048951
InstalledBy :
ServicePackInEffect :
PSComputerName : .
CimClass : root/cimv2:Win32_QuickFixEngineering
CimInstanceProperties : {Caption, Description, InstallDate, Name...}
CimSystemProperties : Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure.CimSystemProperties
The additional data is returned, because the Property parameter in Get-CimInstance restricts the properties returned from WMI class instances, not the object returned to Windows PowerShell.
To reduce the output, use Select-Object:
PowerShell
Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_QuickFixEngineering -ComputerName . -Property HotFixId | Select-Object -Property HotFixId
output
HotFixId -------- KB4048951
Listing Operating System Version Information
The Win32_OperatingSystem class properties include version and service pack information. You can explicitly select only these properties to get a version information summary from Win32_OperatingSystem: PowerShell
Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_OperatingSystem -ComputerName . | Select-Object -Property BuildNumber,BuildType,OSType,ServicePackMajorVersion,ServicePackMinorVersion
You can also use wildcards with the Select-Object‘s Property parameter.
Because all the properties beginning with either Build or ServicePack are important to use here, we can shorten this to the following form:
PowerShell
Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_OperatingSystem -ComputerName . | Select-Object -Property Build*,OSType,ServicePack*
output
BuildNumber : 16299 BuildType : Multiprocessor Free OSType : 18 ServicePackMajorVersion : 0 ServicePackMinorVersion : 0
Listing Local Users and Owner
Local general user information — number of licensed users, current number of users, and owner name — can be found with a selection of Win32_OperatingSystem class’ properties. You can explicitly select the properties to display like this: PowerShell
Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_OperatingSystem -ComputerName . | Select-Object -Property NumberOfLicensedUsers,NumberOfUsers,RegisteredUser
A more succinct version using wildcards is: PowerShell
Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_OperatingSystem -ComputerName . | Select-Object -Property *user*
Getting Available Disk Space
To see the disk space and free space for local drives, you can use the Win32_LogicalDisk WMI class. You need to see only instances with a DriveType of 3 — the value WMI uses for fixed hard disks. PowerShell
Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_LogicalDisk -Filter "DriveType=3" -ComputerName . DeviceID DriveType ProviderName VolumeName Size FreeSpace PSComputerName -------- --------- ------------ ---------- ---- --------- -------------- C: 3 Local Disk 203912880128 65541357568 . Q: 3 New Volume 122934034432 44298250240 . Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_LogicalDisk -Filter "DriveType=3" -ComputerName . | Measure-Object -Property FreeSpace,Size -Sum | Select-Object -Property Property,Sum Property Sum -------- --- FreeSpace 109839607808 Size 326846914560
Getting Logon Session Information
You can get general information about logon sessions associated with users through the Win32_LogonSession WMI class: PowerShell
Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_LogonSession -ComputerName .
Getting the User Logged on to a Computer
You can display the user logged on to a particular computer system using Win32_ComputerSystem. This command returns only the user logged on to the system desktop: PowerShell
Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_ComputerSystem -Property UserName -ComputerName .
Getting Local Time from a Computer
You can retrieve the current local time on a specific computer by using the Win32_LocalTime WMI class. PowerShell
Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_LocalTime -ComputerName . Day : 15 DayOfWeek : 4 Hour : 12 Milliseconds : Minute : 11 Month : 6 Quarter : 2 Second : 52 WeekInMonth : 3 Year : 2017 PSComputerName : .
Displaying Service Status
To view the status of all services on a specific computer, you can locally use the Get-Service cmdlet.
For remote systems, you can use the Win32_Service WMI class.
If you also use Select-Object to filter the results to Status, Name, and DisplayName, the output format will be almost identical to that from Get-Service:
PowerShell
Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_Service -ComputerName . | Select-Object -Property Status,Name,DisplayName
To allow the complete display of names for the occasional services with extremely long names, you may want to use Format-Table with the AutoSize and Wrap parameters, to optimize column width and allow long names to wrap instead of being truncated:
PowerShell
Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_Service -ComputerName . | Format-Table -Property Status,Name,DisplayName -AutoSize -Wrap
Getting Computer Model As Reported by the System BIOS
Here you will find various ways of getting the computer hardware models, as reported by the BIOS, of computers in a domain in a corporate, educational or similar environment. This is an absolute overkill, batter-to-death solution for a slightly obscure use case.
To see how to get a list of computers from Active Directory, see the following article: Getting Computer Names From AD Using PowerShell.
Here is the quick one-liner some of you might be looking for, so I will put it at the top:
PS C:\> (gwmi Win32_ComputerSystem).Model LIFEBOOK S7010 PS C:\>
Or a slight variation, as demonstrated below.
Side note: Most vendors like HP, Dell, Fujitsu-Siemens, etc. do label their motherboards, but with home-built computers you will often find that there’s a default or non-descriptive name, like in this example. It’s actually an Asus motherboard.
PS C:\> Get-WmiObject Win32_ComputerSystem | Select -Expand Model System Product Name PS C:\>
To target a remote computer, simply add the parameter “-ComputerName server01” to gwmi/Get-WmiObject.
Pipe to Get-Member instead of Select to see all properties, or Select * – or Format-List *.