{"id":51113,"date":"2010-03-04T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-04T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.technet.microsoft.com\/heyscriptingguy\/2010\/03\/04\/hey-scripting-guy-can-i-create-a-windows-form-to-select-computer-names-and-run-wmi-queries\/"},"modified":"2010-03-04T00:01:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-04T00:01:00","slug":"hey-scripting-guy-can-i-create-a-windows-form-to-select-computer-names-and-run-wmi-queries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/hey-scripting-guy-can-i-create-a-windows-form-to-select-computer-names-and-run-wmi-queries\/","title":{"rendered":"Hey, Scripting Guy! Can I Create a Windows Form to Select Computer Names and Run WMI Queries?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bookmark<\/a> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Hey,Hey, Scripting Guy! I had this idea. I would like to have a Windows Form that had a list of computer names in it. I would then like to be able to select one of the computers, and run a WMI query against it. My idea is that I could give the Windows Form to the Help Desk, and I would not need to tell them how to run a script, give them access to Windows PowerShell, or have them attempt to edit a script. Point and click—<\/span>that is my goal. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

— MT<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Microsoft Scripting Guy Ed Wilson here. It has been a really nice day in Charlotte, North Carolina, today. I am sitting here, checking the e-mail sent to scripter@microsoft.com<\/font><\/a>, and watching my Twitter client go crazy. Because it is later in the evening, I am drinking a natural peppermint tea that has no caffeine in it. And my ANZAC biscuits, which are never far from my cup of tea, are just wishing to be consumed. I first had peppermint tea in Rothenburg, Germany<\/font><\/a>, several years ago when I was in Munich teaching a VBScript class. I had a schneeballen<\/font><\/a> with my tea due to the absence of ANZAC biscuits in Rothenburg. I took the following picture in the town square as we waited for the clock tower glockenspiel. <\/p>\n

\"Photograph<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

MT, use the ListBox<\/b> project from yesterday’s Hey, Scripting Guy! post<\/font><\/a> as a starting point, and you are halfway to having your script completed. <\/p>\n

The first thing to do is to add an additional text box. Name the new text box tb_WMIOutput<\/b>. In the Behavior<\/b> section, make the text box accept multiple lines of output by setting the Multiline<\/b> property to true. When the form loads, we do not want the WMI Output box to be visible; therefore, change the Visible<\/b> property to false, as shown in the following image. <\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

After you have set the Multiline<\/b> property to true, you can resize the text box, and drag it out until it is as wide as the tb_Path<\/b> box and nearly touches the bottom of the Windows Form. Under Appearance, make sure you change the Scrollbars<\/b> property to vertical or you will not be able to scroll up and down to see all of your output. <\/p>\n

Drag a new Button<\/b> control to the Windows Form, and line it up with btn_Update<\/b>, as shown in the following image.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

In the Design<\/b> section, set the Visible<\/b> property to false so that the button will not be present when the Windows Form loads. Name the button btn_WMI<\/b>, as shown in the following image. Change the Text property of the button to Get WMI<\/b>. <\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

After you save your PrimalForms project and generate your Windows PowerShell code, open the Windows PowerShell code in a script editor. You will need to modify the OnClick<\/b> event handler for the btn_FillLb<\/b> button. After the list box has been filled with the names of the computers from the text file, make the WMI<\/b> button visible. To do this, set the Visible<\/b> property of $btn_WMI<\/b> to $true<\/b> as seen here:<\/p>\n

$btn_WMI.visible = $true<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

The complete ev\nent handler for the $btn_FillLB<\/b> button uses code from yesterday’s Hey, Scripting Guy! article<\/font><\/a>, and is seen here:<\/p>\n

$btn_FillLb_OnClick=
{
#TODO: Place custom script here
 <\/span>$computerNames = Get-Content -Path $tb_Path.Text
 <\/span>$lb_Computers.BeginUpdate()
 <\/span>     <\/span>foreach($computer in $computerNames)
 <\/span>     <\/span>  <\/span>{
 <\/span>     <\/span> <\/span>  <\/span>$lb_Computers.Items.add($computer)
 <\/span>     <\/span>  <\/span>}
 <\/span>$lb_Computers.EndUpdate()
 <\/span>$btn_WMI.visible = $true
}<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

You also need to add code to the OnClick<\/b> event for the btn_WMI<\/b> button. The first thing you need to do is to add the results of a WMI query to the Text<\/b> property of the tb_WMIOutput<\/b> text box. The WMI query uses the computer name from the selected computer from the lb_Computers<\/b> list box. Because Windows PowerShell returns a Management Object, pipe the results to the Out-String<\/b> cmdlet before assigning it to the Text<\/b> property of the lb_Computers<\/b> list box. This is shown here:   <\/span><\/p>\n

$tb_WMIOutput.Text = Get-WmiObject -Class win32_computersystem `
   <\/span>-ComputerName $lb_computers.SelectedItem | Out-String<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

The last thing that we need to do is to make the tb_WMIOutput<\/b> text box visible. Do this by assigning $true<\/b> to the Visible<\/b> property as shown here:<\/p>\n

$tb_WMIOutput.Visible = $true<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

The complete OnClick<\/b> event handler is shown here:<\/p>\n

$btn_WMI_OnClick=
{
#TODO: Place custom script here
 <\/span>$tb_WMIOutput.Text = Get-WmiObject -Class win32_computersystem `
   <\/span>-ComputerName $lb_computers.SelectedItem | Out-String
 <\/span>$tb_WMIOutput.Visible = $true
}<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

When you run the script, the Path<\/b> text box, the Computer Name<\/b> list box, and the Update<\/b> button are visible. Once you type the path to your text file and click Update<\/b>, the List Computer<\/b> list box is populated. The btn_WMI<\/b> button then becomes visible, as shown here.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

After you make your selection of a specific computer from the list box, clicking the btn_WMI<\/b> button causes the WMI query to execute and the tb_WMIOutput<\/b> box to appear with the results from running the WMI query. This is shown in the following image.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

The complete listbox3.ps1 script is on the Scripting Guys Script Repository<\/font><\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

MT, that is all there is to using a Windows Form with Windows PowerShell to select computer names and to run WMI queries. This concludes Graphical Windows PowerShell Week. Join us tomorrow for Quick-Hits Friday. <\/p>\n

If you want to know exactly what we will be looking at tomorrow, follow us on Twitter<\/font><\/a> or Facebook<\/font><\/a>. If you have any questions, send e-mail to us at scripter@microsoft.com<\/font><\/a> or post your questions on the Official Scripting Guys Forum<\/font><\/a>. See you tomorrow. Until then, peace.<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Ed Wilson and Craig Liebendorfer, Scripting Guys<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

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

    Hey, Scripting Guy! I had this idea. I would like to have a Windows Form that had a list of computer names in it. I would then like to be able to select one of the computers, and run a WMI query against it. My idea is that I could give the Windows […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":595,"featured_media":87096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[71,3,4,45],"class_list":["post-51113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripting","tag-graphical","tag-scripting-guy","tag-scripting-techniques","tag-windows-powershell"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

    Hey, Scripting Guy! I had this idea. I would like to have a Windows Form that had a list of computer names in it. I would then like to be able to select one of the computers, and run a WMI query against it. My idea is that I could give the Windows […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51113","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\/595"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51113\/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=51113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}