WMIC: the best command line tool you've never used Page 1

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WMIC: the best command line tool you've

never used
By Mike Williams Published 12 months ago

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Some people say command line tools are obsolete, out of date, no
longer necessary when you can "point and click," instead. But the reality is very different. Every
version of Windows sees the command line given new powers and abilities, and if you don't
explore these then you really are missing out.

Take the WMIC command, for instance. It has astonishing scope and a huge set of features: the
program can return useful information about your system, control running programs and
generally manage just about every aspect of your PC -- all from the command line or a
convenient shortcut.

How might this work? Let's suppose you need to know the model of the motherboard used in
your PC. You could poke around in a system information program, but it's easier to open a
command window (elevated, on Windows Vista or 7 -- click "Start," type "CMD," right-click the
link to cmd.exe and select "Run As Administrator") and enter the command:

wmic baseboard get product,manufacturer

-- and WMIC will then give you the answer right

away.

Or maybe you're wondering if your BIOS needs

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WMIC: the best command line tool you've never used Page 2

something like:

wmic bios get name

-- and let WMIC tell you more.

System Information

The program can also provide details on many other aspects of your system. Commands like:

wmic product list brief

wmic service list brief

wmic process list brief

wmic startup list brief

will list your installed software, services, running processes and Windows startup programs, for
instance.

Obviously these details can be found elsewhere, but one advantage of WMIC is that it can save
its output for reference later. Use the command:

wmic service get /format:hform > c:\folder\services.html

-- and WMIC will create a formatted HTML page detailing your running services (replace "C:
\folder" with an appropriate path for your system). If you have PC problems a few months later
you can then look back at this record and see what's changed.

Uninstall Automatically

WMIC isn't just about reporting on system information, though. Use the appropriate CALL
command and it can also carry out a variety of useful maintenance tasks.

Do you regularly have to uninstall and reinstall particular programs, for instance? Doing this
manually via Control Panel is tedious, but WMIC can automatically uninstall many applications
with a single command. To see how, enter:

wmic product get name

-- and look for the name of the program you'd like to remove. Then enter the name as it
appears in that list, in a second command, like this:

wmic product where name="windows live writer" call uninstall

-- and your specified program will be uninstalled automatically, without you even seeing the
uninstall program. (Which is convenient, but also risky as there probably will be no chance to
cancel your action, so use this with extreme care.)

Process Management

WMIC can, say, also close all the instances of a particular program. So if you want to shut down

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-- would do the trick, closing every instance immediately. (Though again, beware, programs
closed in this way probably won't prompt you to save files you're working on, so use the
command carelessly and data may be lost.)

Or maybe you'd prefer to optimise your system by setting your process CPU priorities? WMIC
can handle that, too. Entering:

wmic process where name="notepad.exe" call setpriority 64

-- will set every running Notepad process to the Idle priority, for instance (see MSDN for the
numbers to use to set other priorities).

This is barely scratches the surface. WMIC can also give you useful information about your PCs
user accounts, change the Start mode of particular services, retrieve useful information from
your event logs, change a static IP address, reboot or shut down a PC, and a whole lot more.

And best of all, you can even apply the commands to a remote system by applying the NODE
switch and a network name, like:

wmic /node:steve-pc service list brief

There's a huge amount of power on offer here, then. See the Tech-Wreck InfoSec Blog for more
great WMIC examples, then open a command window and try a few for yourself.

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spider31
spider 31

I think this should be a blog entry, its not news.

MS have got lots of non powershell commandline tools this is just one of them, they are with us
to allow us to support windows 2008 CORE. eg the NON GUI version of windows. Windows 2008
core does not support powershell (R2 does, i think you can get it working on non R2).

More tools

http://technet.microsoft.com/e...

jc_
jc_ lvngstn

Very interesting article, thanks!

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