About the PowerShell WMI Extensions module
Expose WMI classes as rich PowerShell commands with detailed documentation and manage local and remote systems using WMI via the wmix module for PowerShell.The PowerShell WMI Extensions module is a project that I wish I had started as soon as PowerShell 2.0 was released in 2009. It has been in development since late 2011, after I had been working on my pspx module for many months, and it is one of the most ground-breaking modules I have ever produced. The purpose of this module is simple: to auto-generate advanced functions that look and feel like cmdlets, complete with rich parameters, help documentation, examples, remoting support, security customizability support, and everything that you would expect from top-notch PowerShell commands by harvesting the rich data that is stored inside WMI, reducing as much as possible (or ideally eliminating) the need to dig through WMI documentation or to use more complicated WMI cmdlets to manage your infrastructure.
WMI is a very broad and powerful management interface that has been exposed to PowerShell since it was first released. Unfortunately, the manner in which this rich management interface was exposed to PowerShell was through a very small set of generic commands. Figuring how to use these generic commands to manage WMI is challenging at best. None of the documentation embedded in WMI is exposed. Objects returned from the WMI cmdlets don't look or behave the same as objects returned from .NET classes. WMI management classes are not easily discoverable. WMI contains many classes that you will never need to know about or think about, and this large pool of classes makes it difficult to find what you are looking for. These opportunities, and many more, were the inspiration behind the wmix module.
Installation
The module can be installed by downloading and running the MSI package (recommended) or by downloading a ZIP file and setting up the module yourself.
By default the MSI package will install the module under your Documents folder in the following location:
%USERPROFILE%\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\wmix
However, you can choose to install the module in another location if you prefer.
The ZIP file contents need to be manually extracted to one of the paths that is included as part of the PSModulePath environment variable. Typically users will unzip the contents of the ZIP file into the following folder:
%USERPROFILE%\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules *
- Note that if the directory does not exist then you need to manually create it if you aren't using the MSI package.
It is also worth mentioning that you must also manually install all software identified in the prerequisites below. Future releases should take care of this for you, but for now make sure to install the prerequisites before you load the module (although the module is designed such that it will inform you if anything is missing when you try to use it).
PowerShell Compatibility
Windows PowerShell 2.0
Windows PowerShell 3.0 (this module has been verified as working on the release preview)
Prerequisites
PowerShell Proxy Extensions
Getting Started
To check if the module is installed correctly, invoke the following PowerShell command:
PS > Get-Module -Name wmix -ListAvailable
ModuleType Name ExportedCommands
---------- ---- ----------------
Manifest wmix {}
If you don't see the above result then the module was not installed correctly.
Once you have verified that the module was installed correctly, load it by invoking Import-Module.
PS > Import-Module wmix
When you first import the wmix module, you will be asked if you want wmix to create a WMI command library for you. Accepting this will cause a progress window will appear and wmix will interrogate WMI on your local system, creating a new, dynamic module called wmifx. Wmifx is a module containing hundreds of commands that expose the richness of WMI as consistent and easily discoverable commands complete with parameters, objects complete with properties and methods, and help documentation. These commands can be used to manage local and remote systems, and they expose much of the same connection- and security-related parameters that are exposed on the *-WMIObject cmdlets.
If you decide that you don't want the module created for you by default, you can create it yourself (or extend it if you want to add commands to it) by using the Update-WmiFunctionLibrary command. With this command you can interrogate WMI on the local system as well as on remote systems, giving you complete coverage over WMI in your environment from one module while masking most of the complexities that are encountered when working with WMI.
It is recommended that you allow wmix to create the initial wmifx module for you by default.
With the module import now complete, you can see the new commands that are available to use by invoking this command:
PS > Get-Command -Module wmix | Format-Table CommandType,Name CommandType Name ----------- ---- Function Get-WmiClass Function Update-WmiFunctionLibrary
Also, since a the dynamic wmifx module was generated, you can import it using the following command:
PS > Import-Module wmifx
With the wmifx module loaded, you can see the commands that it contains by using this command:
PS > Get-Command -Module wmifx | Format-Table CommandType,Name CommandType Name ----------- ---- Function Get-1394Controller Function Get-ApplicationService Function Get-AutochkSetting Function Get-BaseBoard Function Get-Battery Function Get-Binary Function Get-BIOS Function Get-BootConfiguration Function Get-Bus Function Get-CacheMemory Function Get-CDROMDrive Function Get-ClassicCOMClass Function Get-ClassicCOMClassSetting Function Get-ClusterShare Function Get-CodecFile Function Get-CommandLineAccess Function Get-ComponentCategory Function Get-ComputerSystem Function Get-ComputerSystemProduct Function Get-Condition Function Get-CurrentProbe Function Get-DataFile Function Get-DCOMApplication Function Get-DCOMApplicationSetting Function Get-Desktop Function Get-DesktopMonitor ...
Now that your command library is loaded, you can get help on any of these commands by using Get-Help:
PS > Get-Help Get-BIOS
NAME
Get-BIOS
SYNOPSIS
Gets instances of Win32_BIOS Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) class. The Win32_BIOS class represents the at
tributes of the computer system's basic input/output services (BIOS) that are installed on the computer.
SYNTAX
Get-BIOS [[-Name] [<String[]>]] [[-SoftwareElementID] [<String[]>]] [[-Property] [<String[]>]] [[-SoftwareElementSt
ate] [<UInt16[]>]] [[-TargetOperatingSystem] [<UInt16[]>]] [[-Version] [<String[]>]] [-JobName [<String>]] [-Search
Property [<Hashtable>]] [-ComputerName [<String[]>]] [-Impersonation [<ImpersonationLevel>]] [-AsJob [<SwitchParame
ter>]] [-Filter [<String>]] [-EnableAllPrivileges [<SwitchParameter>]] [-ThrottleLimit [<Int32>]] [-Credential [<PS
Credential>]] [-Authority [<String>]] [<CommonParameters>]
DESCRIPTION
The Get-BIOS command gets instances of Win32_BIOS WMI class.
The Win32_BIOS class represents the attributes of the computer system's basic input/output services (BIOS) that are
installed on the computer.
The ComputerName parameter can always be used to specify a remote computer.
...
You can also invoke any of the WMI commands you like:
PS > Get-OperatingSystem SystemDirectory : C:\Windows\system32 Organization : BuildNumber : 7601 RegisteredUser : Windows User SerialNumber : 54321-678-9876543-12345 Version : 6.1.7601
Today this module only generates Get-* commands for WMI on local and remote systems. I'm working on adding generation of actionable commands as well (Set-*, Rename-*, Remove-*, etc.) and I will post that update once I have it ready. I'm also looking at how I can make this module support both WMI remoting as well as PowerShell 2.0 remoting so that you would be able to use the commands through WinRM and a much smaller hole in a firewall.
With this information under your belt, I encourage you to experiment with this module and share your feedback on the Discussion board. Let me know what you think! Also, if you encounter any problems, please log them using the Issue Tracker.
Thanks for giving wmix a try!
Kirk "Poshoholic" Munro
