{"id":12581,"date":"2011-09-26T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-26T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.technet.microsoft.com\/heyscriptingguy\/2011\/09\/26\/use-powershell-and-wmi-to-get-processor-information\/"},"modified":"2011-09-26T00:01:00","modified_gmt":"2011-09-26T00:01:00","slug":"use-powershell-and-wmi-to-get-processor-information","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/use-powershell-and-wmi-to-get-processor-information\/","title":{"rendered":"Use PowerShell and WMI to Get Processor Information"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary<\/strong>: Learn how to get the number of processor cores via WMI and Windows PowerShell.<\/p>\n

\"Hey,Hey, Scripting Guy! I need to perform an audit of computers on our network. Specifically, I am tasked with obtaining CPU information. I need the processor speed, number of cores, and number of logical processors. I feel like I should be able to use Windows PowerShell to do this, but I am not certain. Can you help?<\/p>\n

—RS<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Hey,Hello RS,<\/p>\n

Microsoft Scripting Guy Ed Wilson here. This has been a rather crazy time. This week I am in Seattle, Washington, talking to customers about Windows PowerShell. Later in the week, I will be talking to Windows PowerShell writers on campus at our Microsoft Office in Redmond. I fly back to Charlotte, and then I head north to Canada for a couple of weeks. I really enjoy the opportunity to meet with people who are using Windows PowerShell to solve real world problems. It is cool.<\/p>\n

RS, to find out information about the CPU, I use the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) class Win32_Processor<\/b>. In Windows PowerShell, a single line of code that uses the Get-WmiObject<\/b> cmdlet to do the heavy lifting is all that is required. The syntax of a command to query WMI and return CPU information is shown here:<\/p>\n

Get-WmiObject Win32_Processor<\/p>\n

And I can shorten that command by using the gwmi<\/b> alias:<\/p>\n

gwmi win32_Processor<\/p>\n

In the following figure, I illustrate using the Get-WmiObject<\/b> command and the default output from the command.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

The Win32_Processor<\/b> WMI class is documented on MSDN<\/a>, and the article describes what all of the properties and coded values mean. But RS, for your requirements, I do not need that article. What I do need is a good way to select only the information you require. To do this, I am going to choose which properties I need. I then pipe the returned object to the Select-Object<\/b> cmdlet. The reason for this is to remove the system properties that are automatically included with the returned WMI object. To avoid typing the properties twice (once for the Get-WmiObject<\/b> cmdlet and once for the Select-Object<\/b> cmdlet), I store the array of properties in the $property<\/b> variable. The revised command is shown here:<\/p>\n

$property = “systemname”,”maxclockspeed”,”addressWidth”,<\/p>\n

            “numberOfCores”, “NumberOfLogicalProcessors”<\/p>\n

Get-WmiObject -class win32_processor -Property  $property |<\/p>\n

Select-Object -Property $property <\/p>\n

RS, you mentioned wanting to query computers on your network. The easy way to do this is to use the Active Directory cmdlets. I have an entire series of articles that talk about how to get the Active Directory cmdlets<\/a>, and how to load and use them. You should refer to that series if you have questions about using Active Directory cmdlets.<\/p>\n

RS, I wrote a script called GetAdComputersAndWMIinfo.ps1. The complete text of this script appears here.<\/p>\n

GetAdComputersAndWMIinfo.ps1<\/b><\/p>\n

Import-Module ActiveDirectory<\/p>\n

$pingConfig = @{<\/p>\n

    “count” = 1<\/p>\n

    “bufferSize” = 15<\/p>\n

    “delay” = 1<\/p>\n

    “EA” = 0 }<\/p>\n

$computer = $cn = $null<\/p>\n

$cred = Get-Credential<\/p>\n

 Get-ADComputer -filter * -Credential $cred |<\/p>\n

 ForEach-Object {<\/p>\n

                 if(Test-Connection -ComputerName $_.dnshostname @pingconfig)<\/p>\n

                   { $computer += $_.dnshostname + “`r`n”} }<\/p>\n

$computer = $computer -split “`r`n”<\/p>\n

$property = “systemname”,”maxclockspeed”,”addressWidth”,<\/p>\n

            “numberOfCores”, “NumberOfLogicalProcessors”<\/p>\n

foreach($cn in $computer)<\/p>\n

{<\/p>\n

 if($cn -match $env:COMPUTERNAME)<\/p>\n

   {<\/p>\n

   Get-WmiObject -class win32_processor -Property  $property |<\/p>\n

   Select-Object -Property $property }<\/p>\n

 elseif($cn.Length -gt 0)<\/p>\n

  {<\/p>\n

   Get-WmiObject -class win32_processor -Property $property -cn $cn -cred $cred |<\/p>\n

   Select-Object -Property $property } } <\/p>\n

The first thing to do is to import the ActiveDirectory<\/b> module. In a script, I recommend using the complete name for the ActiveDirectory<\/b> module, instead of using a wildcard character pattern such as *AD*<\/b>. This is because there are many modules available for download from the Internet that would match the *AD*<\/b> pattern. If this is the case, you cannot be certain you have actually loaded the ActiveDirectory<\/b> module. To load the ActiveDirectory<\/b> module, use the Import-Module<\/b> cmdlet as shown here:<\/p>\n

Import-Module ActiveDirectory<\/p>\n

Next, I intend to use splatting to simplify using the Test-Connection<\/b> cmdlet. I wrote an article about splatting last week<\/a>. Splatting uses a hash table for the parameters and associated values. This hash table is shown here:<\/p>\n

$pingConfig = @{<\/p>\n

    “count” = 1<\/p>\n

    “bufferSize” = 15<\/p>\n

    “delay” = 1<\/p>\n

    “EA” = 0 }<\/p>\n

I then initialize a couple of variables. This helps when running the command multiple times inside the Windows PowerShell ISE. I also retrieve credentials via the Get-Credential<\/b> cmdlet. These two commands are shown here:<\/p>\n

$computer = $cn = $null<\/p>\n

$cred = Get-Credential<\/p>\n

Now, I use the Get-ADComputer<\/b> cmdlet to retrieve a listing of computers from Active Directory Directory Services. I use the Foreach-Object<\/b> cmdlet and pass the host names to the Test-Connection<\/b> cmdlet to ensure the computer is online. I then create an array of computernames<\/b> and store the names in the $computer<\/b> variable. This is shown here:<\/p>\n

Get-ADComputer -filter * -Credential $cred |<\/p>\n

 ForEach-Object {<\/p>\n

                 if(Test-Connection -ComputerName $_.dnshostname @pingconfig)<\/p>\n

                   { $computer += $_.dnshostname + “`r`n”} }<\/b><\/p>\n

The array that gets created is an array of single letters. I split the string based on the carriage return and line feed characters “`r`n”<\/b> and create a new array that contains the name of each computer in an array<\/b> element. This process leaves an element at the end of the array; this empty element will be dealt with later in the script. Here is the code that creates the new array of ComputerNames:<\/p>\n

$computer = $computer -split “`r`n”<\/p>\n

I now define an array of property names that are to be collected from WMI. This is a straightforward value assignment:<\/p>\n

$property = “systemname”,”maxclockspeed”,”addressWidth”,<\/p>\n

            “numberOfCores”, “NumberOfLogicalProcessors”<\/p>\n

The online computers are stored in the $computer<\/b> variable. I use the foreach<\/b> statement to walk through the array of computer names. If the computer name matches the local computer name, I do not use credentials because WMI would cause the command to fail. In addition, I check to see if the computer name is greater than 0 in length. This takes care of the empty element at the end of the array. This portion of the code is shown here:<\/p>\n

foreach($cn in $computer)<\/p>\n

{<\/p>\n

 if($cn -match $env:COMPUTERNAME)<\/p>\n

   {<\/p>\n

   Get-WmiObject -class win32_processor -Property  $property |<\/p>\n

   Select-Object -Property $property }<\/p>\n

 elseif($cn.Length -gt 0)<\/p>\n

  {<\/p>\n

   Get-WmiObject -class win32_processor -Property $property -cn $cn -cred $cred |<\/p>\n

   Select-Object -Property $property } }<\/p>\n

When the script runs, output similar to that shown in the following figure is displayed.<\/p>\n

 \"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

RS, that is all there is to using the Active Directory module to retrieve computer names, and to use WMI to query for the processor information.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I invite you to follow me on Twitter<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>. If you have any questions, send email to me at scripter@microsoft.com<\/a>, or post your questions on the Official Scripting Guys Forum<\/a>. See you tomorrow. Until then, peace.<\/p>\n

Ed Wilson, Microsoft Scripting Guy<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summary: Learn how to get the number of processor cores via WMI and Windows PowerShell. Hey, Scripting Guy! I need to perform an audit of computers on our network. Specifically, I am tasked with obtaining CPU information. I need the processor speed, number of cores, and number of logical processors. I feel like I should […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":596,"featured_media":87096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[237,16,22,2,3,4,170,45],"class_list":["post-12581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripting","tag-basic-computer-information","tag-desktop-management","tag-retrieving-input","tag-running","tag-scripting-guy","tag-scripting-techniques","tag-splatting","tag-windows-powershell"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

Summary: Learn how to get the number of processor cores via WMI and Windows PowerShell. Hey, Scripting Guy! I need to perform an audit of computers on our network. Specifically, I am tasked with obtaining CPU information. I need the processor speed, number of cores, and number of logical processors. I feel like I should […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/596"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}