System Information Tool

VERSION 1.1

RELEASE NOTE

Boldon James

August 2017

RN563502

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS

FURTHER INFORMATION

DOCUMENTATION

COMPARISON WITH PREVIOUS RELEASES

CONTACT US

1.   INTRODUCTION

The Boldon James System Information Tool is a diagnostic utility provided to assist in gathering the status of computer systems and configurations for support purposes only. It is supplied in order to help to identify environmental status and system dependencies that may potentially impact the Classifier product suite.

NOTE: This diagnostic tool should be used solely under guidance from the Boldon James Support team.

The System Information Tool applications consist of:

• A Windows Forms application, BJSysInfoController.exe
• A Console application, BJSysInfoConsole.exe

Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of these applications are provided, for different target environments.

Both of these applications, and both versions, make use of the same underlying system information gathering assembly, BoldonJames.SystemInfo.dll.

All software is written using the Microsoft .Net Framework Version 4. Hence there is a requirement that .Net Framework Version 4 is installed on the target machine.

BJSysInfoController forms application

This application provides the following menu items:

System Info menu:

• Collect
  
  This item will collect system information from the computer. The information will be displayed in a human-readable form on the main form, and will also be stored in an xml file named “bjmi<computername>.xml”, where <computername. Is the network name of the computer. This file will be stored wither within the same folder as where the application is being run from, or, if the user does not have permission to write to there, it will be stored in the user’s local application area, e.g. “C:\Users\jsmith\AppData\Roaming\bjmiSLR.xml” for the case where the username is jsmith and the machine name is SLR.
  
  
• Open
  
  This item prompts the user to select a system information xml file to be loaded up.
  
  
• Compare
  
  This item prompts the user to select a system information xml file to be loaded up (i.e. like Open). What it then does is compare the data from the information in that file (typically obtained by running the System Information tool on another machine, and then transferring the xml data file to a location accessible from the current machine) with the current machine, and display a list of the differences on the main form. You could then save that list of differences for future analysis by using the Save item.

MAPI Info menu:

• Collect
  
  This item will collect MAPI information from the computer. This information is essentially the configuration data used by Outlook. The information will be displayed in a human-readable form on the main form, though it will require somebody with a good knowledge of MAPI to analyse it.

File menu:

• Save
  
  This item prompts the user to specify the name of a text file which will be created to store the current contents of the main form.
  
  
• The main windows form has a context menu. This menu allows you to configure which pieces of information are displayed. Click on the various items in the context menu to enable/disable their display; display is enabled when the checkbox associated with an item is shown as being ticked. The application will store this configuration as per-user settings.

BJSysInfoConsole application

This console application is intended to be executed from a Windows command shell. It could also be embedded within some script. As such, it takes command-line parameters as follows:

• gather
  
  This behaves like the “Gather System Info” menu item of the Windows forms application. It will store the system information for the current machine in a text file named “bjmiMAPIinfo-<computername>.txt”, where <computername> is the name of the current machine.
  
  
• mapi
  
  This behaves like the “Gather MAPI info” menu item of the Windows forms application. It will store the mapi information for the current machine in a text file named “bjmiMAPIinfo-<computername>.txt”, where <computername> is the name of the current machine.
  
  
• compare <targetfilename>
  
  This behaves like the “Compare” menu item of the Windows forms application. It will compare the system information from the current machine, against that contained in the supplied xml file. The differences will be written to a file named “bjmiDifferences<sourcename>-<targetname>.txt”, where “sourcename” is the name of the local machine, and “targetname” is the name of the machine being compared against.
  
  
• compare <sourcefilename> <targetfilename>
  
  This will compare the system information from the information contained in the xml data file named sourcefilename, against that contained in the xml data file named targetfilename. The differences will be written to a file named “bjmiDifferences<sourcemachinename>-<targetmachinename>.txt”, where “sourcemachinename” is the name of the source machine, and “targetmachinename” is the name of the target.

Customising the information gathered.

You can customise the behaviour of the tool by modifying an xml file named bjextrastuff.xml, located in the same folder as the program. You should examine this file to see what types of information can be requested, and add entries appropriate for your requirements. In particular, you can specify.

• RegistryKeys
  
  Each keyname entry, specifying the name of a registry key, will cause the entries within that key to be listed.
  
  
• FilesInFolder
  
  Each foldername entry, specifying the name of a folder, will cause all files within that folder to be listed.
  
  
• FoldersInFolder
  
  Each foldername entry, specifying the name of a folder, will cause all subfolders within that folder to be listed.
  
  
• AllItemsUnderFolder
  
  Each foldername entry, specifying the name of a folder, will cause all subfolders, and all files within those subfolders, to be recursively listed.
  Note that folder names can include system environment variables, prefixed by a $ symbol. These environment variables will be automatically expanded at runtime.

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2.   SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

2.1 Pre-requisites

• Microsoft .NET 4 framework

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3.   INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS

Installation

Run the appropriate "setup.exe" from the installation media which will launch the Windows Installer, and follow the on screen instructions.

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4.   FURTHER INFORMATION

• None.

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5.   DOCUMENTATION

• None.

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6.   COMPARISON WITH PREVIOUS RELEASES

6.1 System Information Tool 1.1

• Built using the .Net 4 framework rather than .Net 2.

6.2 System Information Tool 1.0.1

• Fixed issue when starting 64 bit version.

6.3 System Information Tool 1.0.0

• This is the first version.

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7.   CONTACT US

All contact with Boldon James regarding this product should be directed to:

Electronic mail	Phone/Fax	Postal address
support@boldonjames.com (support desk) info@boldonjames.com (general enquiries) sales@boldonjames.com (sales team)	Support: +44(0) 1270 507810 Fax.: +44(0) 1270 507801 Tel.: +44(0) 1270 507800 (general and sales enquiries)	Boldon James Ltd, 1 Westmere Court, Westmere Drive, Crewe, Cheshire, England CW1 6ZE

The support services available are as defined in the current support agreement.

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