15-Minute Reviews :: 10-Strike Network Inventory Explorer v1.4

Hello all and welcome to anothet 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is 10-Strike Network Inventory Explorer version 1.4 by 10-Strike Software – A Windows network inventory application using the WMI interface.

Software Description

As Giveaway of the Day states:

“10-Strike Network Inventory Explorer is a program for compiling the hardware and software inventory installed on network computers. This program helps system administrators view computers’ configurations remotely, generate a variety of reports, and plan upgrades. Track changes in hardware and software on network computers!

10-Strike Network Inventory Explorer determines the processors running on network computers, how much memory is installed, who uses flash drives, and similar configuration details. A system administrator can obtain information about software installed, including information on operating systems, hotfixes, and programs included in the startup. Each time the program scans the computers on a network, it compares their current state with the previous state and generates a log showing any changes. The program uses WMI technology and does not require the installation of any additional software on users’ computers.

Thus, it is easy to deploy the 10-Strike Network Inventory Explorer tool, even on huge networks.”

Quick Pros

• Can include non-Windows hardware in list for inventory purposes
• Handy for tracking how systems are set up and develop a plan for updates and installs
• Plethora of information is provided when you can get it to talk to a system
• Can add information onto each item in the list; Serials, name, as well as custom fields
• Reports hand way to document network and handle legal documentation

Quick Cons

• Application relies on WMI which can be problematic and awkward to get working
• Can only retrieve information on Windows-based systems
• IP range scan a little on the slow side
• Inventory serial number system defaults are odd – Having to predefine fields limiting
• Took a few tries to get a report to finish
• Would be nice to have functionality such as internet history reporting (or monitoring), remote screen control (for troubleshooting) and so on
• To be useful in a large-scale network, would be nice to be able to categorize or group the hardware for easy reference

Expansion

With the recent Giveaway of Total Network Inventory v1.5.38.1 and my review of the title, the market for these WMI-based applications are beginning to appear. Unfortunately, using WMI isn’t without its flaws and inherent issues.

Upon my first IP scan range, I found the scan was quite slow; Took over 2 minutes to scan my local network. With that said, besides the slowness, it did detect all of the powered-on equipment that’d respond to ping (You can also scan via other TCP ports as well.) I quickly picked up on a major note with this application; Even if this application can’t connect through WMI (See below), it still leaves the found IP address in the list so that you can not only name it for future reference, you can also use the inventory functionality and custom fields to handle this. This is very handy indeed for keeping track of hardware as a whole – Useful for inventory purposes. I must note a few aspects to this; You have to predefine the serial number fields as well as the custom fields – You can not add them as you need for each system. Also, the predefined serial number fields are odd; Specifically the ‘memory’ field. The common fields I would have had would have been something like ‘Computer’, ‘Monitor’ and maybe ‘Keyboard’, ‘Mouse’, ‘Standalone Printer’. It would have been nice to have a straight memo box for notes on the system as well or for logging issues.

When you do manage to get WMI accessible by this application, it does report back a lot of information. Ranging from hardware in use, to software installed, and specifics about the OS as well. I do wish there was more yet though, including the ability to see Internet history files, what is on the hard drive, and would be great to have remote administration functionality. Reports are quite handy, though were troublesome to get running. You essentially can print reports on any or all of the information reported back by WMI for whichever computers would have been good.

While it does what it is supposed to when WMI is set up right to be accessible, it is a pain to get it set up right unless you’ve prepared for WMI from square one. The situation would only get worse with more computers on the network. There is no script or application you can place on remote computers to make your job easier. If you can’t connect to a computer, it gives you a list of what might be wrong and then a link to a pages-long (which in itself is a rough outline on steps as well) troubleshooting guide. I had specifically set up one other system on my network to be WMI accessible, and I could find this other computer as well as the two I work on. Unfortunately, I could only find the one I was currently running on and neither of the other two (To mention: Total Network Inventory v1.5.38.1 picked up and read all three of them) I could not find the specific reason why I could not get information on the other two systems; I assume it is because of the ‘password’ concern relayed in the troubleshooting because the rest is set up. In the end, I was only able to scan the computer I was running the application on (clearly because the application had direct access to WMI) but no others. I tried following all the steps laid out in the troubleshooting guide, even adding an administrator password and some of the other tricks – In the end I just could not connect without wasting too much time getting it set up.

Final Verdict

With this being my second review of WMI-based network inventory applications, I do not know if I would subject myself to using a WMI-based application to track my network. While this application has no issues keeping hardware it found via ping in the list, I found it was far more tempermental with WMI than Total Network Inventory v1.5.38.1 was, and without a separate application that would reside on the remote systems as Total Network Inventory v1.5.38.1 has, I would find it hard to recommend this application for anyone, free or otherwise due to the sheer complexity of setting it up to work right with WMI (And the fact that I didn’t get it working either following their steps.)

Just a quick search online, I quickly found other network inventory-like applications – Lansweeper (WMI-based – Free) was the first I came upon, but there are plenty more out there.

Posted by BladedThoth on Wednesday, July 04, 2007