Monday, May 5, 2014

Detecting Windows hardware configurations

If you want to detect information about the hardware configuration of your computer without cracking open the case (especially for laptop computers), then it is useful to have some utilities in your toolbelt that can provide this type of information.

One particularly useful tool for detecting the number of memory slots (both used and available) is the Crucial System Scanner: http://www.crucial.com/systemscanner/

Once the Crucial System Scanner scans your computer, you will get a report similar to the following:


As you can see from the above report, the Crucial System Scanner can even provide some basic information about your hard drives and your storage utilization.

Another useful utility is the Belarc Advisor (http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html) which provides overall system information about the hardware manufacturer including the model information of your PC and even the model of the motherboard!  It can even provide information regarding the software installed on your machine as well as the devices on your local area network (LAN).  You can then use the information provided in the report to look up additional details about your hardware on the manufacturer's website.

For even further details about your hardware configuration, you should definitely check out Astra32 http://www.astra32.com/download.htm.  This tool provides even more information than the Belarc Advisor and even provides a portable version that you can put on a USB stick or even include on a Windows PE boot disk.  While Astra32 only offers a trial version and requires purchase after the trial period is over, it can definitely be worthwhile to any individual or system administrator that frequently needs to obtain hardware configuration about various computers.




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