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May 25, 2006

For network admins - System inventory tools: LanSweeper and Winventory

Winventory



Winventory is a personal favorite of mine, since it's all open source, VBScript based, and seems to have some functionality in the Linux and Mac arena as well. I have been watching silently in the "bleachers" as this product has matured over the last couple years.

A quote from the website: http://winventory.sourceforge.net/

"Do you want to know exactly what hardware is in your PCs ? What software is installed ? What are the Serial Numbers? When was it installed ? What "Other" devices are out there on your network? Windows Inventory could be just what you need. All data is retrieved using Windows built in VBScript and stored in a MySQL database. Data is displayed in a web browser, generated using PHP. "


Development is very active now, and the feedback from the community is very positive. My only wish is that it would also run in SQL..., but hey - that's not such a terrible thing, is it?

I've seen this in action, and it is a very nice system for free.

The response of the community has been positive (judging by the forums), and Mark Unwin, the lead developer seems to have a solution or is always working on the next version. Kudos, Mark!

In my corporate environment, we are on track to install Altiris as our systems management tool, but I am itching for a reason to use this anyway. My wife works for a school, so I might be able to work it in there.

Update: The newest incarnation of this software is now called 'Open-Audit', but I've not had a chance to evaluate it. Go to http://www.open-audit.com

Alternates:

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have you seen Spiceworks?. Its another free option and the development work on it is pretty prolific.

maximillian_x said...

Wow! Now that looks like a GREAT system! I'm downloading it now, and a review will be forthcoming!

Great find, anon...