Need Open Source solution for inventory

[Nophix]

We have about 400 machines we need to inventory. We're trying to get our SMS guy to write a script for it, but we do have a huge surplus of idle machines as well.

I was wondering if there is something I could slap on a 2gb USB key to help with this. What I need to pull off if possible is the machine network name, model or serial #, user account names, and system specs. No passwords or anything, just the basic info that resides in the bios and system info. I would like it to export to some sort of spreadsheet if that could happen.

Basically, what I want to do is walk up to the thing, hit the power button, let it get to the logon screen, slap the usb key in there, pull it out a few seconds later and power it down.

Alternatively, I could boot to a USB stick and do the same if need be. I just don't want to have to log in to each machine.

This would be used on all Windows XP Pro machines, running SP2. They are primarily HP/Compaq desktops, and IBM.Lenove laptops, with a few Dells sprinkled through.

[Mat]

you could add something to the domain login script to take the audit, but then you would need to complete a login to get the info. MS security baseline tool will audit the powered up systems for you too.

System internals psinfo will pull decent information from powered up computers too. The problem may come with getting the serial number as the method used to retrieve it may be vendor specific.

[VaKo]

System Information for Windows + some U3 scripting should do what you want. I'm not sure about the specifics of running something without a logged in profile, but as you have admin privs this shouldn't be to much of a road block. SIW will get you more info than you possibly could use so be specific.

If you can get these machines attached to a network and powered on then Remote System Information will be of use to you. I've recently had to audit our domain in UA and this proved invaluable.

Neither of these are free, but more importantly they work, and work well.

[Nophix]

All the computers are connected, but we have a lot that are powered down and unused due to coporate restructuring. Basically they moved a bunch of jobs and people to another location.

The question is whether or not they are still loaded in AD. After 60 days of inactivity, they are purged. I do have admin rights on all machines.

Would the systems need to be loaded in AD and logged on for Remote System Information to work?

[VaKo]

You would either need domain privs or local admin privs, I assume that you have a standard local admin password on your images otherwise things could get tricky. If it is a mish-mash of different builds and non-ad machines you are looking at a boot disc/stick (winPE2+SIW might be worth a look).

[Bit Hunter]

If i remember it right Matt did a segment on something like this... The app is called SpiceWorks, but it is more for remote usage...

[Nophix]

You would either need domain privs or local admin privs, I assume that you have a standard local admin password on your images otherwise things could get tricky. If it is a mish-mash of different builds and non-ad machines you are looking at a boot disc/stick (winPE2+SIW might be worth a look).

Local admin is the same on all machines. Same base image, and mostly the same machines.

[VaKo]

This script + these commands will allow you to do what you want. You will have to login, but you can use the U3 usb trick to run an audit and email you the results as a csv file just by plugging in the stick for a few seconds.

Using the above method but using winPE2 instead of booting into XP will be a better solution as you can just power on the machine and using Windows Depolyment Services do a PXE boot of your scripted SIW audit. Then have it issue a shutdown command when finished. All you would need to do in this case would be boot the system and hold down F12. This would avoid having to login 400 times or piss about with a usb stick. Not sure if it will capture all the software though, so you may need to login to the machines under there own OS if that is the aim here.

If that is the case, create a login script which automatically audits the machine and emails it to yourself upon any users login. Just put everything on a network share. But if the machine has fallen out of the domain this will not work, requiring you to login as a local user and run the script manually.

I might possibly be wrong here, but I think that with XP you have to configure an application to run as a service under the SYSTEM or administrator accounts if you want to have it start before anyone logs in. The kids down in the U3 section will know if its possibly to run stuff from a USB stick before login but I doubt it. This approach obviously requires more time and effort to setup all the machines to do this and isn't worth it.

Spiceworks is a nice idea, but its designed to monitor systems in situe. While you could do an audit, its the wrong tool for this job.

Lots of options and a fun project.