Windows Tip: Using WMIC for customer support

January 21, 2008 —

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Last week's tip had a short excerpt from the upcoming Windows Server 2008 Security Resource Kit from Microsoft Press that highlighted how you can use Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line (WMIC) to get detailed information concerning all the services currently running on a Windows server. Michael Morrison, the Director of Business Development at Solution-Soft.com was kind enough to email me afterwards with a detailed explanation of how he used WMIC to support his company's customers. "We support customers of our software worldwide and due to time-zone & language differences we have found that asking users to run a specific command is far easier than asking them for the information verbally. Below is an example of the commands we would send to a Windows customer when we need to track down obscure issues."
One command Michael's support people ask customers to run is this:

wmic /record:os.xml OS

This gathers a ton of info about the operating system installed on the computer (much more than using the winver command) and outputs it to an XML file named os.xml. Michael says that when their support people receive this XML file from a customer, they open it in Internet Explorer and use it "to verify that people are at the correct service pack level. We've seen times where they were 'sure' that all their machines were at SP2 but some were not. Having them run this wmic command allows us to avoid asking them "...are you sure you are SP2?" Believe me it happens more that one would imagine."

Another command customers are told to run is the following, which gets a list of Windows updates and hotfixes installed on the system and saves them in a textfile the customer then sends to the support person helping them:

wmic /node:servername qfe GET description,FixComments,hotfixid,installedby,installedon,servicepackineffect > QFElist.txt

In the above command, replace servername with the name of the server you want to query.

Finally, Michael says this command can be "used to verify whether our system driver/s are loaded" on the customer's machine:

wmic sysdriver list status

WMIC is definitely a useful tool, and using it to support customers running
your applications is just one more example of its power and versatility. Have
you used WMIC in your enterprise for some purpose? Email me and I'll share your
suggestions.

One final tip: I just got a really cool book in the mail called Cisco
Networking Simplified, Second Edition from Cisco Press. This beautifully
illustrated full-color book is a comprehensive guide to networking protocols,
standards, and technologies, and it's fun to read as well as informative. It
might be too simple for experienced IT pros like me, but if you've got marketing
people or business decision makers in your company who need a better understanding
of basic networking technologies, this is the book for them. I had a laugh when
I read the full-page cartoon explaining how Quality of Service (QoS) features
of Cisco routers enables packets to be prioritized, but I also learned something
reading it. Well worth the money for your IT department's bookshelf, or a stocking
stuffer for that marketing gal or guy down the hall.

ITworld