EV Reach - WMI Explorer - Searching For WMI Objects
EV Reach's WMI Explorer has a powerful search feature which allows you to search for objects in any of the available namespaces. The search feature can be used at any time in any of the available views. It allows you to search for WMI objects which include a specified string in its name, or objects which contain a property, or tasks which include the specified string in their names.
To search for an object, enter a string which identifies the object and click on the Search button. The string entered can be the class, property or method name, friendly name, or any string which can be found in the object's description. Once a search is started, it can be stopped at any time by clicking on the Abort Search button.
The WMI Search Tool Options
The Search window includes a set of options which will define the scope of the query. Selecting the appropriate options will provide you with a more accurate result set.
| Search object names | Enable to include the object names in the search. Any object which has a name or friendly name which contains the search string is returned. |
| Search property names | Enable to include the object properties in the search. Any object which owns a property with a name or friendly name which contains the search string is returned. |
| Search methods | Enable to include the object tasks in the search. Any object which owns a task (method) with a name or friendly name which contains the search string is returned. |
| Search descriptions | Enable to include the object, property and method's descriptions in the search. Any object which has a description or has a property or method description which contains the search string is returned. |
| Show Associations | Allow the search results to include Association classes in addition to regular classes. Note: The search window only returns objects which can be accepted by the view that initiated the search. You will not be allowed to modify this property if you started the search from the View by Namespace & Class view. The view itself has a Show Associations option which dictates the value in the Search window. Likewise, the search results will not include any system classes or pure abstract classes if the namespace view has the Simplify View option enabled (See Namespace and Class view).
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| Search the object definitions on the local machine | Searching for WMI objects requires one or more WMI namespace repositories to be opened first. This may take some time if the namespaces to be searched are large and if the target machine is a remote machine (see Remark below). If you are confident that your local machine includes the object you are looking for in its repository, you can enable this option. If this option is enabled, the WMI repository of the local machine is searched instead of the WMI repository of the target machine. If disabled, the WMI repository of the target machine is searched. Note: If you are in the Namespace & Classes view, selecting to set the focus on a resulting object will still require the WMI namespace of the selected object to be opened on the remote machine. |
WMI Search Tool String
The search string can be the full name of the object or its friendly name or part of its name. For instance, if you selected to search for object names only, any of the following search strings will return the Win32_ComputerSystem object in the result set:
- Win32_ComputerSystem
- Computer System
- Computer
Selecting the namespaces to search
If you start the Searching feature from the Browser view or the WMI Query view, the default namespace to be searched is always CIMV2. This namespace contains most of the interesting system component classes. However, if you start a search from the Namespace & Class view, the initial namespace to be searched is the selected namespace in the view (or again CIMV2 if no namespace is selected.)
The namespaces which are queried when you activate the search are displayed to the right of the Search in link. To modify the list of namespaces to search, click on the Search in link, select every namespace you want to search and un-select every namespace you want to exclude from the search.
The Results window
Once you have configured the search string, options and namespaces, click on the Search button. At this stage, every namespace selected is opened and searched for the specified string within the configured scope. As objects are found, they are inserted in the Results window.
The Results window has a set of columns which shows the objects found as well as where the search string was found:
| Column name | Information |
| Object | The display name of the object. |
| Class name | The WMI name of the object. |
| Found in | The name of the object, property or method in which the search string was found. If the search string was found in the description of the object, property or method, it is indicated in this column. |
| Type | Type of member in which the search string was found. This can either be: Object, Property or Method. |
| Object Description | Description of the object found. |
Once the search is over, you can either enter a new search string or scope and start a new search.
To return to the previous view with a selection, double-click on an object in the result set. To select multiple objects from within the result set (if allowed), press and keep pressed the CTRL key and click on the desired entries. While keeping the CTRL key pressed, you can also use the SPACE key to select/un-select entries.
Depending on the view you started the search from, different actions are taken with the selected search result(s).
- The Browser view/ WMI GUI Tool adds every selected result object to the list of root objects.
- The Namespace & Class view sets the focus on the selected result object.
- The WMI Query Tool initializes the default query string using the name of the selected result object.
- The Report Manager Tool adds the selected result objects into the list of objects to be reported in the report template.