get computer description from computer in network

Question

Hello,

i have a list of Hostnames from computers in my network and now i want to know how i can get the computer-description from these computers.

Anybody an idea?

Kind regards Nico

Answer 1

You can try this:

string name = 
    System.Net.Dns.GetHostByName("localhost").HostName

Answer 2

I don't have a solution but a few pointers that might help you get going.

In general, you can access the computer description using WMI, in particular, by getting \\nameOfTheRemoteComputer\root\cimv2, executing SELECT * FROM Win32_OperatingSystem and querying the Description property.

• Here is an example in "old" VB accessing this data: http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=344879, and
• here is an example of accessing WMI with VB.NET: http://nishantpant.files.wordpress.com/2006/11/wmivb.txt.

By combining these examples, you should get what you need.

Answer 3

All these methods use PowerShell -

You could use a one-liner.

gwmi -query "select Description from Win32_OperatingSystem" | select-object Description

Remote computer.

gwmi -computer computername -query "select Description from Win32_OperatingSystem" | select-object Description

Remote computer, passing credentials.

gwmi -computer computername -credentials domain\username -query "select Description from Win32_OperatingSystem" | select-object Description

Or from the registry

$Machine = "MachineToCheck" $reg = [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenRemoteBaseKey("LocalMachine",$Machine) $regKey= $reg.OpenSubKey("System\CurrentControlSet\Services\lanmanserver\parameters") $regkey.GetValue("srvcomment")