It's worth knowing that Microsoft's implementation WMI is based on an industry standard called "Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM)" - pronounced "Web 'em". In 1996, BMC Software, Cisco Systems, Compaq Computer, Intel, and Microsoft got together to create a standard technology for accessing management information in an enterprise environment and WBEM was the result. Now more than 70 companies publicly support WBEM. Like nearly all standards organizations, this one has a home page you can check out.
Microsoft uses the name WMI for their version of WBEM. WMI uses another WBEM standard called CIM (Common Information Model) to represent systems, applications, networks, devices, and other managed components. So you'll see WBEM, WMI, and CIM as part of the names of things as we develop real scripts in just a few paragraphs.
ADSI, however, is all Microsoft, but it does support some other network directory services including:
* Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)
and
* NetWare 3 bindery (NWCOMPAT)
One final note before we start writing scripts. You can also use both WMI and ADSI with Windows interfaces in both DOS and the Windows GUI. There are a variety of programs that you can use so we'll only talk about those that help us write example scripts here. To see what WMI looks like in Windows (see the screenshot below), simply select Start > Run > services.msc to start the Services "snap in" module and then scroll down until you see Windows Management Instrumentation.
