Managing hardware inventory

Most CM admins soon learn that hardware inventory is actually mostly made up of non-hardware related items. It probably should be called WMI inventory instead because data residing in WMI comes back to CM via the hardware inventory.

CM also offers the ability to target collections with distinct inventory requests instead of the entire site (and now hierarchy) at one time. Additionally, the old sms_def.mof has been replaced with a new UI, which we will use to gather some specific data off machines.

We will start with clearing off unneeded default inventory items, and then selectively targeting inventory to show you how to keep unneeded items from bloating your database. Then we'll show how to look for items that CM doesn't even know about.

Getting ready

Preferably before enabling inventory and adding lots of clients, you should remove unneeded inventory classes and class properties. If you've inherited a site from someone else, you should go right in and look to see...