I can’t get any WMI data from the remote asset

Solution #1 – Asset has to be online:  Is remote asset online? Turned on? Available on the network? If the remote asset you are trying to inventory does not appear in reports but is ping’ed easily and without severe losses, there might be something wrong with its configuration.

Solution #2 – Admin rights: You might have no local administrator rights on the remote computer. You must have the rights of the domain administrator to be able to connect to your assets. If you are inventorying a Vista or Windows 2008 machine, the good idea would be to disable UAC (User Account Control), some of our clients reported that it helped to bypass some issues they had with auditing networks with Windows Vista installed in remote systems. If you don’t want to disable UAC completely, please, refer to FAQ #17.

Solution #3 – Firewall: You should check for a firewall blocking access to the remote computer. While configuring it, note that remote computer’s firewall should allow DCOM protocol and remote computer management. If there’s a Windows firewall interfering, please, read on for more instructions.

Solution #4 – Sharing model: Sometimes it may seem that everything is configured correctly, but the connection still fails. If you are using Windows XP, Vista or 2003, you should check for the default sharing and security model for local accounts: open the Local Security Policy editor (e.g. type ‘secpol.msc’ in the Run box); go to “Local Policies” and select “Security Options”. Now scroll down and find “Network access: Sharing and security model for local accounts” (or its localized analog). If this is set to “Guest only”, change it to “Classic” and restart the computer.

Solution #5 – Blank password: Starting with Windows XP you can no longer use admin accounts with blank passwords for remote administration and management. This can be turned off in Local Security Policies, but it’s not the right way to do this. It’s better to set a password for the admin account you will be using.

Solution #6 – WMI/RPC/etc not available: Windows NT, Windows 95, and Windows 98 do not support WMI. If “Windows Management Instrumentation Driver Extensions” (or other WMI-related service, like RPC) is disabled on the remote computer you are inventorying, you won’t be able to get any data from such an asset. However, you can easily fix this by installing the needed software.

Solution #7 – Compatibility restriction: Basically, you can’t connect to/from some versions of Windows OS:

  • Windows XP Home does not support remote management, you won’t be able to inventory it from a remote PC
  • Windows NT computers cannot connect to operating systems newer than Windows 2000, so you won’t be able to inventory Windows XP, Windows 2003, or Vista from a Win NT system
  • Windows 9x will not connect to Windows 2003 Server
  • Windows 2000 assets need Service Pack 2 to be able to communicate successfully to Windows XP or newer Windows OS

Solution #8 – Network connection properties: You may be getting “No such host is known” or “An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host” errors and scanning may fail if you have NetBIOS disabled in your network connection properties. You should check this on the nodes producing the same or similar errors when scanned in “Network connection properties – Internet protocol (TCP/IP) – Properties – Advanced – Wins tab”. The general recommendation is to simply enable NetBIOS.

.updated: December 28, 2016 author: jeff