Microsoft Windows devices scanning process

Technology

Total Software Deployment borrows its scanning technology from Total Network Inventory. However, unlike TNI, TSD only provides information from the Software category. This information can be used to help make a decision about software deployment on a remote computer. All other information is collected to guarantee usage of the Network storage across multiple software.

Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) is Microsoft’s implementation of the Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) standard for Windows operating systems.

Using WMI technology, TSD obtains software information, as well as computer registry data.

There are three methods for scanning Windows-based computers that are used in Total Network Inventory, however TSD does not use remote scanning via the RPC protocol.

Remote scanning via the SMB protocol

How it works

Executable tniwinagent.exe (an agent) is uploaded to the administrator’s shared folder admin$ on a remote computer.
TSD’s main unit connects to the Service manager on the target PC, installs the agent as a service and starts it.
The agent collects the information and saves it into a compressed file. Then it stops.
The main unit imports the resulting file into the Storage.
The agent service is uninstalled, and the executable is deleted.

No traces of scanning will remain on the target PC after the scan is complete.

Requirements for the target machine


CPU	500 MHz
RAM	64 Mb
HDD Space	0,5 Mb
TCP ports	139, 445
Services	Server Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) Remote Registry
Resources	ipc$ admin$
Protocols	SMB NetBIOS (for Windows NT4) TCP/IP
Windows version	7, 8, 8.1, 10, 11, Server 2008/2012 (incl. R2)/2016/2019/2022/2025

Manual scanning

How it works

Executable tniwinagent.exe (an agent) is copied to the target PC manually and run. Upon completion of its work, the agent creates a file containing the collected data.
The created file is manually moved to the TSD Network storage.

Additionally

The agent can be run by a domain logon script, by the task scheduler or on Windows startup.

Command line parameters of the agent tniwinagent.exe:

/path:"\\server\share" allows to set a path to a folder where the data file will be placed;
/delay:XX specifies the gap in seconds between the agent’s launch time and the start of the scan;
/overwrite overwrites the data file in case the target folder already contains its older version (otherwise, new files appended with (2), (3), etc. will be created after each scan).

Requirements for the target machine


CPU	500 MHz
RAM	64 Mb
HDD Space	0,5 Mb
Services	Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)
Windows version	7, 8, 8.1, 10, 11, Server 2008/2012 (incl. R2)/2016/2019/2022/2025

Scanning overhead

All scanning methods require CPU time and execution of a variety of disk operations, which is why an insignificant loss of efficiency may occur while scanning a computer. Scanning usually takes 1-2 minutes.

Network traffic generated (on demand):

Method	To remote computer (upload)	From remote computer (download)
SMB	0,31 Mb	0,06 Mb

Numbers in the table represent average values including service data size (i.e. packet headers, etc.).

Collected information

Operating system

Name, version, architecture, registered user, install date, country code, locale;
OS type, product key, suite, SKU, supply channel;
Internet Explorer version, DirectX version;
Etc.

Installed software

Name, publisher, version, install date and source, uninstall string;
For Microsoft Office: service pack, product ID, product key, supply channel.