C# - Checking For Device Problems and System Problems

Question

In C#, How Could I go about checking for device and systems errors? Would it be simple to use PowerShell Scipts, or would that add to the complexity and difficulty?

Answer 1

For Windows 7 clients check out the Windows Troubleshooting Platform. Here is a download on it with more details. It uses PowerShell scripts to do exacty what you're talking about. This blog post shows how to author a troubleshooting pack - it's pretty easy.

I don't think WTP works on downlevel platforms. In this case, I would just write some PowerShell scripts to detect and fix root causes. If you want to wrap that up in a nice UI, check out PowerBoots - an easy way to create a WPF GUI on top of your script. If you want to host PowerShell in your on C#-based GUI it is very simple. Here's a code snippet from a Forms app:

    private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        string cmd = @"Get-ChildItem $home\Documents -recurse | " +
                      "Where {!$_.PSIsContainer -and " +
                      "($_.LastWriteTime -gt (Get-Date).AddDays(-7))} | " +
                      "Sort Fullname | Foreach {$_.Fullname}";

        using (Runspace runspace = RunspaceFactory.CreateRunspace())
        {
            runspace.Open();
            using (Pipeline pipeline = runspace.CreatePipeline(cmd))
            {
                this.Cursor = Cursors.WaitCursor;

                pipeline.Commands.AddScript(cmd);
                Collection<PSObject> results = pipeline.Invoke();
                foreach (PSObject obj in results)
                {
                    listBox1.Items.Add(obj);
                }

                this.Cursor = Cursors.Default;
            }
        }
    }

You need to add a reference to the System.Management.Automation assembly. If you have installed the Windows/.NET SDK that should be in ProgramFiles\ReferenceAssemblies\Microsoft\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0. You will also need a couple of using statememets:

using System.Collections.ObjectModel;
using System.Management.Automation;
using System.Management.Automation.Runspaces;