Diary of a Network Geek

I lost one of my USB thumbdrives this weekend.

As cheap as they are, it’s not a big deal, really, except for the lost data. And one or two of the programs on it. In particular, the one that I was concerned about was the Mouse Tracks Windows Domain Report Manager tool.

One of the many things I’ve seen change over the years in the world of corporate computing is how portable and mobile and just plain fluid things have become. Now, I’m not complaining about that, not at all, but from my point of view, that kind of environment presents certain challenges. One of those is inventory of hardware, software and assorted configurations. In the event of a catastrophic disaster, it’s nice to be able to have a current list of hardware with what’s installed on it and how it’s all configured.

Now, there’s quite a market for computer inventory systems at every end of the market, but most of us don’t have a budget that allows for a project team from IBM, so we have to find some other solution. I started to try and work up a Perl solution, but, frankly, my Perl Fu is weak these days, so, I went looking for a cheap (ie. free) solution that was ready made. What I found was the Mouse Tracks Windows Domain Report Manager tool. It’s based on Windows Script Host, so it only works on Windows machines and, really, only finds devices that are part of your Windows Domain, but that’s all most of us have anyway and it is, after all, free. And, it was on that USB drive that I lost this weekend. So, yes, that means I carry an inventory tool in my pocket with me everywhere I go, just in case. Because, that’s just who I am.

So, really, dear readers, you’re benefiting from my loss, since I had to go find it again this week and, therefore, was thinking about it when it came time to post.
Enjoy!