.NET System Management Services 
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Author Alexander Golomshtok
Publisher APress
Length 456 pages
vbRad Rating: 4 fingers up. (4 out of 5)
Reviewed by Robert Gelb

This book is intended for both system administrators and developers. If you work in a small company, chances are you have been recruited to be an administrator and a DBA and the software developer and the guy who goes to Fry's to pick up parts, etc… So, even if you are a developer, this information might be useful to you.

Just about entire book focuses in some way on the System.Management namespace of the .NET framework. The said namespace is both simple and complicated, but always incredibly powerful. For those that don't know, it is partly a wrapper around WMI. For those that don't know, WMI stands for Windows Management Instrumentation (which itself is a WBEM implementation on Windows) and is used to access just about any component of the system (both hardware and software). WMI even includes a SQL-like language, called WQL, which can be used to query system components. For instance, you can find out the Executable path of a process based on a handle.

SELECT ExecutablePath from Win32_Process where Handle=100

You can also query hardware components:

Update [ALL PCs] Set NetworkCard=False Where Os in ('Win95', 'Win98', 'WinMe', 'Linux', 'Mac') and Domain='COMPANY'

The command above will turn off the network cards for all the PS running Win9x, Linux and Mac on the Domain called COMPANY.

In all seriousness, the book just breathes technical knowledge, skill and acuity. If you are ever in a position where you have to deal with these issues, this book could provide an invaluable resource.


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