Finding information in WMI can be quite challenging, especially if you do not know where to look. There are several tools out there for finding this information and some are built right into the latest Windows operating systems. This article will be talking about WMIC. WMIC is a command line driven tool for obtaining information from WMI. It is quite powerful, yet not many administrators use it and very few know about it.There are built in aliases for looking up information in WMI. Custom aliases can also be created, but that is beyond the scope of this article. In order to discover the available aliases simply open up a command prompt and type WMIC. This will bring up the WMIC command line and look something like this:
wmic:root\cli>
Simply entering /? will display the overall help options and also list out the built in aliases. Some of these aliases are intuitive with regards to the WMI class that they represent (i.e. ComputerSystem maps to Win32_ComputerSystem), whereas others are not (i.e. RDToggle maps to Win32_TerminalServiceSetting). If you are like me, then you probably have a hard time remembering things and it would be nice if there was a published document somewhere that you could reference from time to time. Listed below is a table for each mapping. The nice thing is that you can easily get this information from the WMIC command line by entering ALIAS LIST BRIEF.
| Alias Name | WMI Class | Description |
| ALIAS | Select * from Msft_CliAlias | Access to the aliases available on the local system |
| BASEBOARD | Select * from Win32_BaseBoard | Base board (also known as a motherboard or system board) management. |
| BIOS | Select * from Win32_BIOS | Basic input/output services (BIOS) management. |
| BOOTCONFIG | Select * from Win32_BootConfiguration | Boot configuration management. |
| CDROM | Select * from Win32_CDROMDrive | CD-ROM management. |
| COMPUTERSYSTEM | Select * from Win32_ComputerSystem | Computer system management. |
| CPU | Select * from WIN32_PROCESSOR | CPU management. |
| CSPRODUCT | Select * from Win32_ComputerSystemProduct | Computer system product information from SMBIOS. |
| DATAFILE | Select * from CIM_DataFile | DataFile Management. |
| DCOMAPP | Select * from WIN32_DCOMApplication | DCOM Application management. |
| DESKTOP | Select * from WIN32_DESKTOP | User’s Desktop management. |
| DESKTOPMONITOR | Select * from WIN32_DESKTOPMONITOR | Desktop Monitor management. |
| DEVICEMEMORYADDRESS | Select * from Win32_DeviceMemoryAddress | Device memory addresses management. |
| DISKDRIVE | Select * from Win32_DiskDrive | Physical disk drive management. |
| DISKQUOTA | Select * from Win32_DiskQuota | Disk space usage for NTFS volumes. |
| DMACHANNEL | Select * from Win32_DMAChannel | Direct memory access (DMA) channel management. |
| ENVIRONMENT | Select * from Win32_Environment | System environment settings management. |
| FSDIR | Select * from Win32_Directory | Filesystem directory entry management. |
| GROUP | Select * from Win32_Group | Group account management. |
| IDECONTROLLER | Select * from Win32_IDEController | IDE Controller management. |
| IRQ | Select * from Win32_IRQResource | Interrupt request line (IRQ) management. |
| JOB | Select * from Win32_ScheduledJob | Provides access to the jobs scheduled using the schedule service. |
| LOADORDER | Select * from Win32_LoadOrderGroup | Management of system services that define execution dependencies. |
| LOGICALDISK | Select * from Win32_LogicalDisk | Local storage device management. |
| LOGON | Select * from Win32_LogonSession | LOGON Sessions. |
| MEMCACHE | Select * from WIN32_CACHEMEMORY | Cache memory management. |
| MEMORYCHIP | Select * from Win32_PhysicalMemory | Memory chip information. |
| MEMPHYSICAL | Select * from Win32_PhysicalMemoryArray | Computer system’s physical memory management. |
| NETCLIENT | Select * from WIN32_NetworkClient | Network Client management. |
| NETLOGIN | Select * from Win32_NetworkLoginProfile | Network login information (of a particular user) management. |
| NETPROTOCOL | Select * from Win32_NetworkProtocol | Protocols (and their network characteristics) management. |
| NETUSE | Select * from Win32_NetworkConnection | Active network connection management. |
| NIC | Select * from Win32_NetworkAdapter | Network Interface Controller (NIC) management. |
| NICCONFIG | Select * from Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration | Network adapter management. |
| NTDOMAIN | Select * from Win32_NTDomain | NT Domain management. |
| NTEVENT | Select * from Win32_NTLogEvent | Entries in the NT Event Log. |
| NTEVENTLOG | Select * from Win32_NTEventlogFile | NT eventlog file management. |
| ONBOARDDEVICE | Select * from Win32_OnBoardDevice | Management of common adapter devices built into the motherboard (system board). |
| OS | Select * from Win32_OperatingSystem | Installed Operating System/s management. |
| PAGEFILE | Select * from Win32_PageFileUsage | Virtual memory file swapping management. |
| PAGEFILESET | Select * from Win32_PageFileSetting | Page file settings management. |
| PARTITION | Select * from Win32_DiskPartition | Management of partitioned areas of a physical disk. |
| PORT | Select * from Win32_PortResource | I/O port management. |
| PORTCONNECTOR | Select * from Win32_PortConnector | Physical connection ports management. |
| PRINTER | Select * from Win32_Printer | Printer device management. |
| PRINTERCONFIG | Select * from Win32_PrinterConfiguration | Printer device configuration management. |
| PRINTJOB | Select * from Win32_PrintJob | Print job management. |
| PROCESS | Select * from Win32_Process | Process management. |
| PRODUCT | Select * from Win32_Product | Installation package task management. |
| QFE | Select * from Win32_QuickFixEngineering | Quick Fix Engineering. |
| QUOTASETTING | Select * from Win32_QuotaSetting | Setting information for disk quotas on a volume. |
| RDACCOUNT | Select * from Win32_TSAccount | Remote Desktop connection permission management. |
| RDNIC | Select * from Win32_TSNetworkAdapterSetting | Remote Desktop connection management on a specific network adapter. |
| RDPERMISSIONS | Select * from Win32_TSPermissionsSetting | Permissions to a specific Remote Desktop connection. |
| RDTOGGLE | Select * from Win32_TerminalServiceSetting | Turning Remote Desktop listener on or off remotely. |
| RECOVEROS | Select * from Win32_OSRecoveryConfiguration | Information that will be gathered from memory when the operating system fails. |
| REGISTRY | Select * from Win32_Registry | Computer system registry management. |
| SCSICONTROLLER | Select * from Win32_SCSIController | SCSI Controller management. |
| SERVER | Select * from Win32_PerfRawData_PerfNet_Server | Server information management. |
| SERVICE | Select * from Win32_Service | Service application management. |
| SHADOWCOPY | Select * from Win32_ShadowCopy | Shadow copy management. |
| SHADOWSTORAGE | Select * from Win32_ShadowStorage | Shadow copy storage area management. |
| SHARE | Select * from Win32_Share | Shared resource management. |
| SOFTWAREELEMENT | Select * from Win32_SoftwareElement | Management of the elements of a software product installed on a system. |
| SOFTWAREFEATURE | Select * from Win32_SoftwareFeature | Management of software product subsets of SoftwareElement. |
| SOUNDDEV | Select * from WIN32_SoundDevice | Sound Device management. |
| STARTUP | Select * from Win32_StartupCommand | Management of commands that run automatically when users log onto the computer system. |
| SYSACCOUNT | Select * from Win32_SystemAccount | System account management. |
| SYSDRIVER | Select * from Win32_SystemDriver | Management of the system driver for a base service. |
| SYSTEMENCLOSURE | Select * from Win32_SystemEnclosure | Physical system enclosure management. |
| SYSTEMSLOT | Select * from Win32_SystemSlot | Management of physical connection points including ports, slots and peripherals, and proprietary connections points. |
| TAPEDRIVE | Select * from Win32_TapeDrive | Tape drive management. |
| TEMPERATURE | Select * from Win32_TemperatureProbe | Data management of a temperature sensor (electronic thermometer). |
| TIMEZONE | Select * from Win32_TimeZone | Time zone data management. |
| UPS | Select * from Win32_UninterruptiblePowerSupply | Uninterruptible power supply (UPS) management. |
| USERACCOUNT | Select * from Win32_UserAccount | User account management. |
| VOLTAGE | Select * from Win32_VoltageProbe | Voltage sensor (electronic voltmeter) data management. |
| VOLUME | Select * from Win32_Volume | Local storage volume management. |
| VOLUMEQUOTASETTING | Select * from Win32_VolumeQuotaSetting | Associates the disk quota setting with a specific disk volume. |
| VOLUMEUSERQUOTA | Select * from Win32_VolumeUserQuota | Per user storage volume quota management. |
| WMISET | Select * from Win32_WMISetting | WMI service operational parameters management. |
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Very good article!! it saves a lot of pointless research!
Thank you!!
Great information. I was looking for it for several days!