From time-to-time, you may wish to perform an “agent-less” inventory of your machines. Maybe you don’t want to install a client on specific computers (such as servers or test machines), but you still want to collect inventory data. Or perhaps some of your computers have limited network access and therefore can’t report directly to the Express Database. You can collect hardware and software inventory data on such machines by running the inventory from a network share. When you perform an inventory using this approach, you’ll need to set up a network share location that your client machine can access.

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If you need to review detailed network inventory information across your organization, the Custom Hardware Inventory report is the place to find it. 

Prior to running the Custom Hardware Inventory report, you’ll be asked to select the attributes you wish to report on (Screenshot 1).  The Fixed Attributes column to the left shows the default hardware attributes Express Software Manager collects.  The Custom Attributes column shows additional hardware or software values that can be selected by the administrator to include within the report.  These items are collected by a variety of methods including WMI, the registry, imported list, or manual entry of data. 

If you’re an Express Metrix customer planning to upgrade to Windows 7, don’t forget that Express Software Manager has rich hardware and software asset management functionality that will help you plan, budget for, and manage your migration.  One principal area of focus for your pre-migration planning relates to determining which of your existing applications will work with the new OS, and whether your PCs have the capacity to support the upgrade.

From a hardware readiness standpoint, Express Software Manager can inventory all your PCs to determine their CPUs, amount of memory, disk space, and any other hardware attributes that may be important to your migration.  With this information, you can determine whether you need to upgrade your machines, free up space, or replace them altogether.  Here’s just one of Express Software Manager’s hardware inventory reports you may find useful for your upgrade planning (click the thumbnail to enlarge): (more…)