Unused computers - PDQ Inventory

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Frank

Hello everyone !

I recently used PDQ Inventory as well as PDQ Deploy (pro version).


We are receiving a growing demand for new machines in our institute.
But on the other hand, we noticed that some machines were not or little used.

Are there any PDQ Inventory options that can display machines that connect very little to the inventory server?

 

Thanks a lot for your answers.

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14 comments

Date Votes
  • Mike B.

    Hi Frank,

    If I'm understanding your question correctly, I don't think there is a way to do "very little" in any fashion, usually your looking at last known connection/online dates.

    Perhaps more of what you are looking for would be clean up your stale computers in active directory manually or my preferred PowerShell depending on the size of your organization, then inside of PDQ Inventory go into the Active Directory section and Sync with AD without Syncing disabled computers.

    Hopefully this helps or at least leads you into the right direction!

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  • Stephen Valdinger

    I think I see what he's wanting to get after. I don't believe the machines being stale in AD is the issue, I think he is trying to see if he can pinpoint some machines that are under-utilized in his environment so that he can repurpose them in some other area.

     

    That being said a SQL Report that pulls out the Computer's Name, Update, and Last Successful Scan date is what I'm going to say he is looking for. 

     

    Is this correct, Frank?

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  • Mike B.

    If that's the case that would be easy as that information is already displayed in PDQ Inventory.

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  • Stephen Valdinger

    I concur, we just need to push him in that direction and help with the SQL if he needs it :)

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  • Mike B.

    What SQL help? Are we talking about the Last Successful Scan Date already displayed?

    Attached screenshot.

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  • Stephen Valdinger

    Ha, look at that. Sorry, had a brain fart. Forgot all that info was displayed right in the collection! Yes, this is incredibly easy information to get at then.

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  • SelfMan

    There might be a way to calculate the total uptime, but it will need some programmer skilz ;-) and a NOT cleaned event log.

    When the computer starts the EventLog fires event 6005 - with The Event log service was started. Then later few times 6013 - The system uptime is xxxxx seconds.And finaly 6006 - The Event log service was stopped.

    By calculating the time between event 6005 a 6006 you get the uptime for the period the computer was running. (it wont tell you if it was used, but hey... who cares ;-) its about the uptime.)

    A help might be the Exploring Event Logs with Get-EventLog article.

    This script can be deployed by PDQ Deploy nad the result stored in a text file in a file share.
    AFAIK - PDQ Inventory does not collect this information (yet).

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  • Mike B.
    • Edited

    Total uptime is displayed along with Successful Scan Date.

    Attached Screenshot.

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  • SelfMan

    Mike, I don't think thats the Total uptime of a computer. Its the uptime at the time of the scan.
    Something you can see in the Task manager's "Performance" tab.

    If there is a restart after the scan the remaining time would be lost. The new scan will return a value since the reboot.

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  • Mike B.

    Ah I understand the question now.

    Personally I'm not sure how to determine that through CMD or PS but I do know there are a few free software programs out there that have total uptime listed. No programming required =)

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  • SelfMan
    • Edited

    Ok, I might get my nuts kicked, but this will help you to archieve what you need to do.

    Download WinAudit (its freeware), load it in to PDQ Deploy and set the following parameters:

    /r=U /f=\\server\share\uptime-audit-%computername%.csv

    When you deploy this task, a buch of scv files will get created which you can merge later and load in to Excel where you can perfome some Excel-ent magic.

    Other allowed file types are RTF, CSV2 and HTML There is also an information about the date since the data is available and the result calculated..

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  • Frank
    • Edited

    Hello all !

     I see that my question leads to debate :)

     


    Yes, you have understood.
    In our institute we would like to avoid buying new machines because here the employees are capricious and want a new pc for a yes or a no.

    I want to locate machines that are underutilized and remove them from the computer pool for later re-use.

    I'm sorry for my bad english: /
     
    Anyway, thanks for your answers !
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  • Sobo
    • Edited

    Is there a solution to this?  I was just tasked to locate underutilized Windows 10 workstations and pull them back if need be, to re purpose.  Thanks for any info!

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  • Colby Bouma

    @Sobo: This forum has been deprecated. Please post your question to https://community.pdq.com

     

    It looks like this particular thread got moved here: https://community.pdq.com/posts/2516-unused-computers---pdq-inventory

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