VB.net 2005 get system time of a remote computer?

Question

I am trying to set up an "AT" job to export some registry keys on a remote computer, the problem is that DOS command requires a time to run. I want to get the system time of the remote computer so i can schedule it to run 1 minute from the time i send the command.

Is there any way to get the system time of a remote computer with VB.Net code?

Thanks

Answer 1

You can use:

net time \\computer_name

You'll just need to shell out to this and parse the result.

---

Here's some sample code. It's in C#, but should be pretty easy to translate.

    static DateTime GetRemoteDateTime(string machineName)
    {
        machineName = @"\\" + machineName;
        System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo startInfo = new System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo("net", "time " + machineName);
        startInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
        startInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
        System.Diagnostics.Process p = System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(startInfo);
        p.WaitForExit();

        string output = p.StandardOutput.ReadLine();
        output = output.Replace("Current time at " + machineName + " is ", "");
        return DateTime.Parse(output);
    }

I didn't bother adding any error handling (if the machine is not found, etc) - you can add in whatever you need to suit your purposes.

Answer 2

here is what i got to work, thanks for all your help Jon B.

    Dim p As New System.Diagnostics.Process
    Dim pinfo As New System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo
    Dim pout As String
    pinfo.FileName = ("C:\WINDOWS\system32\net.exe")
    pinfo.Arguments = ("time \\computername")
    pinfo.RedirectStandardOutput = True
    pinfo.UseShellExecute = False
    pinfo.CreateNoWindow = True
    p = Diagnostics.Process.Start(pinfo)
    p.WaitForExit()
    pout = p.StandardOutput.ReadLine
    MsgBox(pout)

Answer 3

..and maby do a little check if you use

    ...
    startInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
    startInfo.RedirectStandardError = true;
    ...

    string shellOut = "";
    if (p.ExitCode == 0)
    {
        shellOut = p.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd();
        Console.WriteLine("Operation completed successfully.");
    }
    else
    {
        shellOut = p.StandardError.ReadToEnd();
        Console.WriteLine(shellOut);
    }