Assessing the Current State of Your Hardware

Windows 2000 is designed to run on a wide range of computers. However, there have been so many different models of computers and components manufactured over the years, that it is reasonable to think that not all computers will be ready for Windows 2000. SMS can help to identify those computers.

Hardware Capacity

Recently purchased computers probably have sufficient capacity for Windows 2000, but older computers might lack the required resources. Insufficient resources are typically considered to be a lack of computer memory, lack of disk space, an excessively slow processor, lack of a CD-ROM drive, or a particularly old processor.

You will have to find computers with insufficient resources so that you can upgrade or replace them. Also, your process for upgrading computers will be more efficient if you pre-plan your distribution and know specifically where the computers are that need upgrades. Then when you arrive at a site, you will have the correct components and can go directly to the computers requiring work.

Hardware Compatibility

A wide variety of hardware details can be important to your upgrade planning. In addition to the usual disk space, computer memory, and processor speed issues, you might need to consider the following:

• BIOS
• Video card
• Network card
• Disk controller
• Power management
• Other hardware, such as CPU chipset

It is unusual for these components to be incompatible with Windows 2000, but it is possible. If you have purchased computers that are certified by the vendor as being Windows 2000 compatible, or if they are on the Windows 2000 Hardware Compatibility List, then you should have no problems. The Hardware Compatibility List can be found at http://www.microsoft.com using the keyword "HCL." Otherwise, you should do a pilot test to discover any such issues. Pilot testing involves testing a reasonable number of each model of computer that your company uses prior to upgrading users who rely on them.

When you have identified models or components that are incompatible, you can then use the SMS inventory feature to find all of the other computers in your company that have the same problem.

By examining the SMS hardware inventory details of the components that cause problems with Windows 2000, you can select characteristics that specifically identify those components, and thus computers with those components that will fail. You can then adjust your hardware reports to find other computers with the same problems. It is recommended that further testing be done to verify that all computers identified in this way do indeed have problems and that all problems have been found. As your confidence in testing and test results increases, you can be more confident that upgrades done on the basis of these reports are successful.

Using Systems Management Server Hardware Inventory

When you have SMS deployed in your organization, enabling SMS Hardware Inventory is relatively straightforward. The SMS client software that collects hardware inventory details works with Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) components to explore the computer for hardware details. WMI is part of SMS, and is also available from other sources. The client computers automatically report the hardware inventory details to the SMS servers, and the data is transferred up the hierarchy. You can then access the data from a central location. By default, the data is updated once a week, but you can change the frequency.

Note

SMS finds computers through processes called discovery methods. Discovery does provide some basic information about your computers, including the fact that they exist, their names, their network addresses, and where they are located. This might be sufficient for some hardware inventory types of queries and reports. Discovery has the advantage that less resources are required for it than for hardware inventory. However, the differences in resources are often not significant.

SMS collects a very rich set of hardware inventory details, which includes most of the information you require. SMS hardware inventory can be readily extended if you require additional details. A typical extension is to ask users which floor they are on, which office they are located in, and so forth. Another typical extension is to collect vendor-specific information that might be included in the BIOS, such as serial number or model number. These kinds of data are often difficult to collect electronically, are not available using standardized techniques, or are dependent on subjective preferences; therefore, customer-specific extensions are required. However, such extensions are readily implemented, as described in the SMS documentation.

Table 8.1 provides hypothetical examples of hardware components that might have Windows 2000 capacity or compatibility issues. It includes the SMS class and properties that are used to check them. How the classes and values are used is discussed in the following section on reporting, analyzing, and using the collected data.

Table 8.1 Example Windows 2000 Hardware Requirements

The values listed in the table as requirements are hypothetical values only, as might be used at some companies. Requirements will vary based on different types of users and different upgrade paths, and similar computer configurations will perform differently. Therefore, it is important you make your own judgement as to minimum requirements for Windows 2000. Also, video cards do not generally have compatibility problems with Windows 2000. Selecting systems for upgrade based on whether or not their video cards have been identified by SMS is only used as an example of one hardware compatibility criterion — you might find that you have to exclude computers because of a particular video card chip, or because of any number of other hardware details for which SMS can provide data.

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