Monitoring Windows machines

NSClient++ (NSCP) is an open source project that is based on and extends the NSClient concept. The original concept was to create an agent for Windows that, once installed, allows the querying of system information. NSClient has created a de facto standard protocol that offers the ability to query variables with parameters. NSClient++ uses the same protocol, but also offers the ability to perform more complex checks using the NRPE protocol. NSClient++ has to be installed on all Windows machines that will be monitored.

Installing NSClient++

NSClient++ can be downloaded from http://www.nsclient.org/, and it provides client for both 32 bit and 64 bit Windows versions. At the time of writing, the latest stable version of NSClient++ is 0.4.3. It is recommended that you download the version matching your Windows. After downloading it, simply run the installer on one or more machines to be able to monitor them.

The first question shown by the installer is regarding the...