Auditing Help

[brittaink]

All,
I currently run an access database that has a list of all of the workstations in our active directory. It lists the hardware and software attached to that computer . We have recently performed a survey of all of these computers to confirm all of the hardware serial numbers and make&models. We now want to carry out a survey to get a list of all of the software that is installed on the workstations.

Does anybody know whether there is a way of doing this audit remotely? Also is there a better way to do a hardware audit? Unfortunately I am limited to not purchasing software to do this for me.

Any idea's

Thank You

Keith

 

[rsmonkey]

Ahh well I hope you realise that by doing this you are literally opening a can of worms.... first of all you gotta review whether this is a viable operation. So for each PC you have what is the user install/uninstall capabilities? If the user is free to install then you're gonna find alotta s**t on these machines, everything from 3rd party mp3 players to computer games etc..

Second you've gotta consider whether you want to collect 'every' bit of software from each machine (this will include freeware, demo's, bundled software etc.. etc...)

Third of all are all of these machines connected to a network or connectable to your network? If so then the easiest way to do this is ask your network administrator to run a scanning program that will grab 'all' programs by name, edition, version etc... I forgot what the program is called but google it and as i sed it scans and then dumps all the results into an excel spread sheet. You can then import this into the database and let your logical nightmare begin.

If possible I would stay away from this or if its necessary then get implicit instructions from your boss from factors i've mentioned above. If its just a 'I want to know what people have on their machines' sorta task that will be easy, if its a I wanna see what software is on each machine that the company currently owns licenses for etc.. then it gets messy!

good luck

 

[rsmonkey]

oh and bte they're plenty of auditing db's in Sample db's section so take a gander at those for ideas!

 

[brittaink]

Ahh well I hope you realise that by doing this you are literally opening a can of worms.... first of all you gotta review whether this is a viable operation. So for each PC you have what is the user install/uninstall capabilities? If the user is free to install then you're gonna find alotta s**t on these machines, everything from 3rd party mp3 players to computer games etc..

Second you've gotta consider whether you want to collect 'every' bit of software from each machine (this will include freeware, demo's, bundled software etc.. etc...)

Third of all are all of these machines connected to a network or connectable to your network? If so then the easiest way to do this is ask your network administrator to run a scanning program that will grab 'all' programs by name, edition, version etc... I forgot what the program is called but google it and as i sed it scans and then dumps all the results into an excel spread sheet. You can then import this into the database and let your logical nightmare begin.

If possible I would stay away from this or if its necessary then get implicit instructions from your boss from factors i've mentioned above. If its just a 'I want to know what people have on their machines' sorta task that will be easy, if its a I wanna see what software is on each machine that the company currently owns licenses for etc.. then it gets messy!

good luck

rsmonkey
Thanks for your reply. I am one of the network administrators for the network. User's are very tied down on this network so they will not be able to install any of there own software o. They do not even have access to the run command. I am really looking for a bit of VBS like the one you metioned but can not find this as I can not seem to get the wording right for a google search. If you can give me any clue's then it would be most helpful.

Thanks

Keith

 

[MStCyr]

Hello

CA ( Computer Associates ) do have a utility that will scan the PC's to obtain the info you mentioned ...

 

[The_Doc_Man]

A quick and dirty way to do this is if you have a shared script that everyone runs and your network admin cooperates, you can "sneak in" a script at login time that creates a list of everything on your system. Then e-mail the result.

Otherwise, I don't see how you could do this without buying something.

 

[DJkarl]

For a no cost solution you might want to use the devcon utility from Microsoft. If you are a Network Admin you probably already have this available or it is a free download from MS. The output isn't pretty but will give you a list of hardware devices and virtual devices.

C:\>devcon /?
Device Console Help:
devcon [-r] [-m:\\<machine>] <command> [<arg>...]
-r if specified will reboot machine after command is complete, if needed.
<machine> is name of target machine.
<command> is command to perform (see below).
<arg>... is one or more arguments if required by command.
For help on a specific command, type: devcon help <command>
classfilter          Allows modification of class filters.
classes              List all device setup classes.
disable              Disable devices that match the specific hardware or instance ID.
driverfiles          List driver files installed for devices.
drivernodes          Lists all the driver nodes of devices.
enable               Enable devices that match the specific hardware or instance ID.
find                 Find devices that match the specific hardware or instance ID.
findall              Find devices including those that are not present.
help                 Display this information.
hwids                Lists hardware ID's of devices.
install              Manually install a device.
listclass            List all devices for a setup class.
reboot               Reboot local machine.
remove               Remove devices that match the specific hardware or instance ID.
rescan               Scan for new hardware.
resources            Lists hardware resources of devices.
restart              Restart devices that match the specific hardware or instance ID.
sethwid              Modify Hardware ID's of listed root-enumerated devices.
stack                Lists expected driver stack of devices.
status               List running status of devices.
update               Manually update a device.
updateni             Manually update a device (non interactive).

 

[rsmonkey]

just google 'scan network pc's for installed software' their are plenty there... im just not sure the rules on the forum about posting url's etc! but as i said the problem is not obtaining the informations its organising it!