Keeping an Inventory - Retrieving Machine Specs

One thing that can be a real pain is having to crawl under a desk, hunt around a server room, or pore through file cabinets in order to find out what the hardware specifications are for your Windows computer. One way to avoid this is to keep a list of all your machines with these specs and service tags handy. Unfortunately, unless you started this list when you first purchased your computer(s), you are dreading all the crawling, hunting, and poring that will be required to compile an initial list.

Fear not! There are a few simple commands that you can run from the comfort of your desk that will allow you to get a lot of this information without having to get out the dust mask. The first two are run from a command line (Start -> Run -> cmd):

systeminfo - This command will return all kinds of useful information, including your OS version, install date, computer model, processor information, amount of memory, domain name, and patches installed.

ipconfig /all - This command will give you information on your network adapters, including your IP address and your network card model.

There is also quite a bit of information that can be found in the graphical interface. By going to your "My Computer" icon, right-clicking on it, and choosing "Manage", you can access the Disk Management applet that will give you all the information about your disk drives (both physical and logical).

With the information from these three places, you can build a pretty good database of what hardware you have installed, which is a very handy thing to have on hand before your computer crashes... especially handy if the hardware is under warranty, as you can call the manufacturer and give them all the information that they need without having to get your hands dirty!