Originally released in 1998 as an add-on component with Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 4, WMI (
Windows Management Instrumentation) is the core management-enabling technology built into Windows 2000, Windows XP, and the Windows Server 2003 family of operating systems. Based on industry standards overseen by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF (http://www.dmtf.org/home)), WMI is the instrumentation and plumbing through which all—well, almost all—Windows resources can be accessed, configured, managed, and monitored.
With WMI you can manage computers both locally and remotely over a network. It uses databases formatted according to the Common Information Model (CIM).
Windows XP Professional comes with
WBEMTest a general-purpose GUI tool for viewing and modifying WMI classes, instances, and methods during the development of Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) providers and WMI applications. You can also use WBEMTest to troubleshoot WMI and programs that depend on WMI.
The executable file for WBEMTest, Wbemtest.exe, is installed in the WBEM directory of your Windows system directory. On Windows XP systems, this is the %WINDIR%\system32\Wbem folder.
(http://www.jose.it-berater.org/images/WBEMTester.jpg)
WBEMTest comes with good documentation. Click the Help button to access to it.
Another tool available is the Windows Management Instrumentation command-line (
WMIC), that provides you with a simple command-line interface to Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), so you can take advantage of WMI to manage computers running the Windows Server 2003 family of operating systems. WMIC interoperates with existing shells and utility commands, and can be easily extended by scripts or other administration-oriented applications.
To run WMIC in interactive mode click Start, Run, type WMIC, and then press ENTER. You can also use WMIC in non-interactive mode, which is useful if you use WMIC for a batch procedure, or if you only need to execute one WMIC command.
WMIC Documentation: Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line (http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServer/en/Library/ea5d7f04-07e8-4b96-bda3-a2b2cc15391e1033.mspx)
WMI SDK Documentation: Windows Management Instrumentation (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/wmisdk/wmi/wmi_start_page.asp)
Tutorial: Windows Management Instrumentation Tutorial (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=720F0CAE-64A7-457F-BB95-E4F33E0CBC55&displaylang=en)
For further reading:
WMI Scripting Primer: Part 1 (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms974579.aspx)
WMI Scripting Primer: Part 2 (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms974592.aspx)
WMI Scripting Primer: Part 3 (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms974547.aspx)
WMI Administrative Tools (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=6430F853-1120-48DB-8CC5-F2ABDC3ED314&displaylang=en) (WMITools.exe) (Microsoft Download Center): WMI Tools include: WMI CIM Studio: view and edit classes, properties, qualifiers, and instances in a CIM repository; run selected methods; generate and compile MOF files. WMI Object Browser: view objects, edit property values and qualifiers, and run methods.
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