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PC inventory software

S

sphinx99

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Dec 23, 2006
Messages
1,187
I see plenty of software out there that can take an inventory of what software is installed on PCs in a network. What I haven't seen (but am looking for) is one that maintains a database of which software is free, which software is commercial, etc., so that I can keep an eye out for pirated software in a network.

Any suggestions?
 
Lansweeper collects an inventory of installed software, making it easy to go through and see what applications people have installed (WeatherBug, etc.). It can also keep track of software licenses so you can make sure you're not over the limit.
 
I can't praise LANSweeper enough, especially for a free product. The detailed information you gather from it is incredible.

They have a free version, and pay for add-on components. The free version is ad/spyware free (unlike spiceworks).

All you need is a server with IIS and SQL Express (or full SQL)
Deploy a little scanner file via group policy, and as computers reboot over the next week...view the impressive results. Shows you all sorts of details, hardware, software, user, when joined to the domain. Can be used for hardware inventory also, it will snag serial numbers and even Dell Service Tags.
 
Thanks!

Any idea how it uniquely identifies an asset to inventory? Some of the tools I've been experimenting with either identify an asset (e.g. computer, laptop, server, etc.) by its Active Directory name (which makes it useless for devices not managed by AD or whose AD names might change) or by its IP address, which makes them useless for devices using DHCP without reservations. I'm looking for something that can (hopefully) track assets by something more unique to them - a serial number, a code unique to the agent installation or something else.
 
As far as I know, Lansweeper uses WMI queries to retrieve the service tags among other info. I know it works for our Dell machines, but what info it pulls probably depends somewhat on the manufacturer.
 
sphinx99 said:
Thanks!

Any idea how it uniquely identifies an asset to inventory? Some of the tools I've been experimenting with either identify an asset (e.g. computer, laptop, server, etc.) by its Active Directory name (which makes it useless for devices not managed by AD or whose AD names might change) or by its IP address, which makes them useless for devices using DHCP without reservations. I'm looking for something that can (hopefully) track assets by something more unique to them - a serial number, a code unique to the agent installation or something else.
Click to expand...

Right off the bat, by active directory name. But you have columns and columns of other information you can sort by. It takes only a few hours at the most to download, peruse the setup instrux, install, and deploy. Then you'll spend days and days trying to wrap your arms around all the information it gives you. Very in depth tool, amazing for free. As for those workstations not in active directory...dunno what to tell you there...if you want to control them, get them in active directory. If you want peer to peer workgroup..ugh, have fun. Go to each of those manually and run a berlarc advisor report.
 
There is not a unique field that you can use to identify a device uniquely. In our product JDisc Discovey (http://www.jdisc.com), we use some heuristics depending on the device type and its operating system (Windows, HP-UX, Solaris, Linux, AIX, MAC OS X).

As a strong identifier, we use a device's MAC address(es). For Windows computers, we also use the computer name and its domain. Using MAC addresses might for identification might get into trouble when moving network cards from one server/PC to another. However in combination with other attributes (such as computer name, serial number), this issue can be resolved. For some other well known devices (mainly servers from HP, or IBM), we are using the serial number.

You might also use unique ids of the operating systems (each Windows computer has a unique UUID for its installation). Some other operating systems (such as Solaris with its hostid) have similar ids.

If we cannot determine the MAC addresses, computer names, or serial numbers, then we use the IP address as a last fallback (knowing, that it is not a good identifier for DHCP environments).

So alltogether, there is not one single attribute that identifies a device. You always have to use a combination of attributes (partly even depending on the device type or operating system).

BTW: The lack of a unique identifier for devices makes it so complicated to match devices in a CMDB with devices from a inventory or discovery product. An initial population of a CMDB is pretty easy, but matching devices on an ongoing basis is getting complicated.
 
Lansweeper ( http://www.lansweeper.com ) is inventory software in which you can also enter the price of your software, and the number of licenses you currently hold, in that way, you can easily track the total license cost which still needs to be paid.
 
pykes said:
Lansweeper ( http://www.lansweeper.com ) is inventory software in which you can also enter the price of your software, and the number of licenses you currently hold, in that way, you can easily track the total license cost which still needs to be paid.
Click to expand...

Notice how spammers coming in from Google searches never notice what's actually been mentioned in a thread?
 
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