How to Find Model of Multiple PC's?

Posted by Dwonathon@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 13 comments

Hey guys, I was tasked with finding the models of about ~100 PC's in our organization and I'm looking for an easier method than what I was/am planning on doing. My only idea would take a pretty long time. We use LogMeIn, so essentially I would remote into every PC one by one, and use the command prompt in the background to use "wmic csproduct get name" and type their model, along with PC name into an Excel sheet. You could see how that could take a while. Do you guys know of any other free methods? We use a DC, so I was hoping to find a powershell script that might get that info and export it into a .txt file or something but wasnt having any luck with what I found. Which was using this: > $WindowsComputers = (Get-ADComputer -Filter * | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Name) | Sort-Object foreach ($computerName in $WindowsComputers) { Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_ComputerSystem -ComputerName $computerName | Select-Object Name, Manufacturer, Model | Out-File -Append -FilePath "$HOME\Desktop\Model Log.txt" } But got this error a bunch: > Get-WmiObject : The RPC server is unavailable. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x800706BA) At line:2 char:5 + Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_ComputerSystem -ComputerName $computer ... + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + CategoryInfo : InvalidOperation: (:) [Get-WmiObject], COMException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : GetWMICOMException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetWmiObjectCommand But I am open to whatever might work. Keep in mind I am pretty new at this position and unfortunately don't have much help here at the office. Thanks a bunch!

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13 Comments

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juskom95@reddit

Is this a domain environment?

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Dwonathon@reddit (OP)

It is!

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juskom95@reddit

So, what you can do is: - Create a file share that allows writing to it - Create a powershell script taht pulls the information you need - Have that powershell script create that txt or csv to a file share. I might have something that can do this. . . . I'm not sure.

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Dwonathon@reddit (OP)

So essentially make a folder in our network drives that allows all users to write to it. Then create a powershell script that gathers the info I want and exports to that folder. But what confuses me is how to actually run that powershell script on all ~100 users without remoting in one by one. I guess I could make a GPO to do that for each user, but we dont even really use those lol. I've messed around with GPO so I could manage it Im sure. Or did you have another method in mind? Then if I have the script run individually for each user, I would have an individual document with the info for each user right? Which would still require me to open up each one and copy and paste that info into one. Unless I can figure out a powershell code to that too lol.

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juskom95@reddit

Make a folder somewhere, you may have to tweak permissions some. Worst case, give the 'Everyone,' group rights. That is NOT the best practices, but since there won't be anything sensitive, no worries. As to getting the PS script to run, have it set as a startup script through windows GPO. In the same GPO use task scheduler to schedule a weekly reboot or similar. Potentially, write a second script and GPO to run at logon, to do the same thing. --------------------------- You know what, there might be an easier way: [https://www.pdq.com/blog/what-you-can-do-with-pdq-inventory-free-mode/](https://www.pdq.com/blog/what-you-can-do-with-pdq-inventory-free-mode/) This is easier than the craziness I recommended above. I'm going to leave it, as it might help someone do something else.

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Dwonathon@reddit (OP)

Nice! I had PDQ at a previous job and thought it was really nice to have. It's very cool of them to have a free mode for PDQ Inventory. I will be looking into that. Looks very promising.

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Background-Look-63@reddit

Just get psexec from Microsoft it’s part of the sysinternals tool kit. Assuming you know all the computer names, you can tell psexec to run through a list and execute a script against all the computers on a list. You have to run psexec with admin rights. I can’t remember if you can just pipe the output from the script to a txt file. Maybe someone knows.

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juskom95@reddit

I've used it at three locations. Not as good as SCCM, but MUCH cheaper.

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GeneMoody-Action1@reddit

If you go to /r/msp in the lower right you will find their RMM sheet [http://rmm.msp.zone/](http://rmm.msp.zone/) OR go over to G2 and see what products do this, ability to sort and compare features, ranked by easiest to use. [https://www.g2.com/categories/remote-monitoring-management-rmm?tab=easiest\_to\_use](https://www.g2.com/categories/remote-monitoring-management-rmm?tab=easiest_to_use) In there you will find products that do this, and for < 100 endpoints, some even for free. The problem with the script push approach, is you have to see the machine at the time you are doing it, some like PDQ will at lest keep trying until you get them all and have record of which ones you are still waiting on. PDQ is a very nice product no shade there. But others will report in at interval and keep this information in a DB regardless of where they are, so when you need to know things like this or anything form how much ram does this system have, or what kind of processor does it have, what is installed on it, what version. YOU just go run a report. If it is on at that time or not.

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mfinnigan@reddit

Write a one-liner like you already have, make sure it works on the OS(es) you have, and run it as a login script, writing to network share. Then, within a few days, you'll have every active machine populated.

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Verisimillidude@reddit

Or run it via the free version of PDQ deploy.

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Parlett316@reddit

I guess you don't have any endpoint montoring solution, Intune or PDQ?

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Dwonathon@reddit (OP)

I wish! All we have would be LogMeIn. But its the "Central Base" version so its pretty limited. The only thing my boss (the only other IT person) has used it for is remoting in to fix issues on a users pc.