It sounds like dell have changed their site layout yet again.
I’ll do my best to take a peek at this and update the script.

I really hate saying this, but, again I am going to be of little use other than basic troubleshooting as I no longer have XP clients and the script has never worked (via SCCM only) for me due to our security setup.
If I get a chance I’ll have a poke about and see, of all the OSs I’d have expected XP to have no problems due to it’s lack tiered security.

Regards,

Ryan

Here’s my question (dilemma)i’ve run Ryans script on 3 windows 7 machines and have had great success. The files are created, the class is created and it gets picked up by the server and i can run the report and see the info that I am looking for.
When I run this on an XP box, I can see that the log files are created and the class is created in WBEMtest, but I cannot get the info into the DB.
I did notice that wbemtest in 7 points to root\cimv2 and in Xp it points to root\default, so I added an entry to the mos_def file to reflect that difference, I also modified the script to point to root\default for my xp machines, this did created the warranty info class but will not export the data to the DB…
Any Ideas,

Thanks in Advance,
Tony

I’m afraid I am going to be unable to help you as I actually have no usb connected printers, here in work or at home. I’ve configured all mine so that the shares are restricted and can only be accessed by those with permissions. Additionally I don’t have any Dell printers, so even if I could communicate with mine you still might not be able to with yours.

You can use the wmi query “Select * from win32_printer” which will list all printers that a computer knows about and includes details such as port (be it tcp/ip or usb). Downside to this is that printers are a “per user” device not a system wide device so the query would need to be run as the user that has the printers in their profile (which may or may not be all users of a system).

Another idea which jumps to mind is that a lot of printers support telnet for management, perhaps those connected via usb expose a serial type connection you could use Putty to connect to?
You might be able to connect via telnet/serial and capture the output.

I personally think your best solution is the 3rd party one, this is not a cop out, it’s simply a case of it’s not a problem I have nor can replicate in order to look into so I cannot be of any real help in this instance.

If you can get the service tags the above scripts can be easily modified to parse a file containing them and return a CSV of the warranties of each.

Keep an eye on the site though, I will have an interesting custom program coming up soon which will of interest to those that use Cisco for networking & SCCM for systems management.

Regards,

Ryan

So, any hints or clues as to how to “tickle” the printer (via USB001, for example), to dump out its Service Tag, would be greatly appreciated. Since they are not networked via the LAN port, we cannot use the Web interface – if we could, it would be a no-brainer.

That said, we did indeed ‘share’ all printers, so we were able to do a “copy /b firmware.??? \\remote-box\printer-share” – and that worked; so, clearly, there is the possibility of communicating to the printer ‘remotely’ even though we have no LAN printers; they are USB-ONLY. I hope I have clarified.

So, there should be a way to ‘query’ over the printer share and/or a redirected LPT1: –> USB001, to “send a command” to the printer, to get it to output (or send back) it’s “Serial Number” – ideally, we want the Service Tag and, from what I am seeing, printing these Asset Report and Device Satistics pages shows only a “Serial Number” (beginning with “72″) and NOT the Service Tag (which begins with “52″). So, clearly the Serial Number is stored somewhere in the printer.

So, again, any help or clues about getting printer info from printers that are USB-ONLY – would be greatly appreciated.

Most or ALL servers/desktops/laptops have the Service Tag and/or Serial Number in BIOS – this was “a long time coming” and did not used to be the case (back in days of old); and now, we MUST push the vendors to always put PRINTER SERIAL # also in a retrievable, WMI-exposed location – Is that too much to ask for? I think not. It is THE ONE THING that most system admins direly need, in order to maintain asset inventories – and PLEASE don’t steer me to 3rd party solutions – this SHOULD BE AN *INDUSTRY STANDARD*; just like PrinterName, DriverName, ShareName – those values that already are avaiable.

So let’s hear it for a standard, printer management, callable interface for EVERY manufacturer’s printer; where the interface always will be able to be polled for; and will return; the printer Service Tag and Serial Number; EVEN if the printer is ‘local’ and not LAN-connected. — end soap-box. Thanks.

I think you have misunderstood the purpose of these scripts.

They have nothing to do with printers.

They get the serial number of a computer from WMI, connect to the dell site supplying the serial and grab the warranty info for the computer.

In saying that, a bit of tweaking could do something for printers. Most printers have a web interface which, in the case of dell, has the serial number of the printer on it. So you could supply a list of printer names to a script which parses those printer interfaces, grabs the serial then use parts of the script here to do the rest.

Ryan

Upon reading Technect/Microsoft blogs, various comments led me to believe these items could allow me to gather and populate the PRINTER SERIAL # into WMI – but no such thing – at least not Kissinger’s standalone vbscript – it only lists the COMPUTER service tag – which is good, but not what i needed.

I will try your suggested SMS/SCCM report and see what that turns up, but clearly I was misled to believe this might do the trick (at least in the interim) – but, how would my PC know to query Dell’s site for the particular printer attached to the PCs USB port?

Now, yes, if we ‘networked’ the printers, it would be a no-brainer, because Dell (LexMark re-branded printers) HAVE the printer asset tag in the firmware – just print off a settings page – you will see it, but no way to get that info via USB – in other secure institutions, I’m sure this need for asset/service tag info is just as prevalent – Dell does provide a Lexmark firmware update piece, where I can share the printer on the PC itself, then copy /b \\box\share.
So, clearly, I can UPDATE (write) the firmware/bios; wouldn’t it be simple enough for them to modify that fimrware update and/or allow a copy/b “BIOSConfig-info.???” FROM the PC share (print share) to the local c:\ drive and then provide a utility to parse that binary config for the Service Tag?

I just had lunch with our Dell sales rep and he said to send the suggestion to Frank Mok, our local and/or regional engineer – he is going overseas to talk with the developers, and it might be something they can accomplish.

Clearly, there’s no clean/standard interface for talking directly to/from the USB001 port, for example, like there was in the days of LPT1: (serial) port communication – there are workarounds, where we can share the printer locally on the machine, then redirect LPT1: to that share; and THEN we can sort of communicate and/or push firmware to the printer port.

Any thoughts appreciated – and PLEASE don’t direct me to whatever 3rd party company is providing services to accomplish this – that’s a lazy thing to do – this needs to be ” thought out” and FIXED – locally, by Dell, Lexmark, and other manufacturers, so that we have some way to interface with PRINTER FIRMWARE/BIOS and gather Service Tag / Serial # info from printers! (YES, even “non-networked;” i.e., local USB-based printers!) Thanks for listening!

First thing I would do is uncomment the wscript.echo statements. That will show you all the calls and which functions you are in.

Try changing from “C:\warrantyinfo” to “C:\Documents and Settings\administrator\Desktop\warrantyInfo.csv”

C:\ can be protected from writes by the OS (definitely Vista/7/2008).

I recommend opening a command prompt as admin and then using “cscript.exe warrantyinfo.vbs”, all the output will be in the command window and you won’t be clicking OK every 5seconds.

You can use http://pastebin.com/ if you want to post output for me to see or if you are worried about confidentiality then use the contact form on the site to contact me and I’ll mail you back with my email address and you can mail me directly.

Regards,

Ryan