Using TEM Relevance to inspect hardware
Technote (troubleshooting)
Problem(Abstract)
The Microsoft Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) is leveraged, which allows you to inspect a wide variety of characteristics of a computer.
Resolving the problem
The general form of a WMI query is as follows:
selects "<property> from <class>" of wmi
For instance, if you wanted to query the serial number of a computer, you would have to know that this information can be found in the SerialNumber property of the Win32_Bios class. Here is what the query would look like:
Using the Fixlet Debugger (QnA) tool on the system;
Q: selects "SerialNumber from Win32_Bios" of wmi
A: SerialNumber=DMHLX42
If you wanted the query to return just the value of the property and not its name, you would say:
Q: string value of selects "SerialNumber from Win32_Bios" of wmi
A: DMHLX42
To find a specific property using WMI, you will need to sort through the WMI for information, it is very well-documented. Links to all available WMI classes with their properties can be found here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa394572%28v=vs.85%29.aspx
Possibly the most useful are the Win32 Computer System Hardware Classes. You can find information about those here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa389273%28v=vs.85%29.aspx
Note: If you want to see all properties of a certain class, you can use an asterisk as a wild card. For instance, the following query will output all the properties of the Win32_Bios class:
Q: selects "* from Win32_Bios" of wmi
Next, since non-Windows computers and older windows comptuers may not have WMI, it's good form to use an If/Then/Else statement in the relevance to check for this:
Q: if (exists wmi) then (string value of selects "SerialNumber from Win32_Bios" of wmi) else "N/A"
Finally, if WMI is corrupt or broken on a computer, a WMI query may not work or could even cause problems on the system. Although these problems are very rare, it's a good idea to exercise some caution when making WMI queries. Also note that WMI is generally not available on Win9x computers or WinNT 4.0 computers.
Related information
Fixlet Debugger (QnA) can be downloaded from here
Historical Number
256
Document information
More support for:
IBM BigFix family
Software version: All Versions
Operating system(s): Platform Independent
Software edition: All Editions
Reference #: 1505855
Modified date: 24 September 2014