All the System Info You Need, via PowerShell

6:45 PM, Friday. A ticket lands: “Something’s wrong with SRV-FILE01, users are complaining about slowness.” You don’t have RDP handy, just WinRM access, and five minutes until a call where you need to say something concrete. Opening a dozen windows — System Properties GUI, Device Manager, “About” — is a luxury you don’t have. You need one screen that answers every question at once.

Here’s the script I keep bookmarked for exactly these moments. Not a toy one-liner — a working version that answers not just “what system is this” but “is it time to panic”: how much disk space is left, when updates were last applied, whether the server is stuck waiting on a pending reboot.

The full script

PowerShell

$os = Get-CimInstance Win32_OperatingSystem
$cs = Get-CimInstance Win32_ComputerSystem
$lastHotfix = Get-HotFix | Sort-Object InstalledOn -Descending | Select-Object -First 1
$rebootPending = Test-Path "HKLM:SOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionComponent Based ServicingRebootPending"

[PSCustomObject]@{
    "Computer name"      = $env:COMPUTERNAME
    "Domain / workgroup" = if ($cs.PartOfDomain) { $cs.Domain } else { "$($cs.Workgroup) (not domain-joined)" }
    "IP address"         = (Get-NetIPAddress -AddressFamily IPv4 -AddressState Preferred -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select-Object -First 1).IPAddress
    "Windows version"    = (Get-ItemProperty "HKLM:SOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersion").ProductName
    "Install date"       = (Get-Date "1970-01-01").AddSeconds((Get-ItemProperty "HKLM:SOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersion").InstallDate)
    "Uptime"             = (New-TimeSpan -Start $os.LastBootUpTime)
    "Last update"        = if ($lastHotfix) { "$($lastHotfix.HotFixID) — $($lastHotfix.InstalledOn.ToShortDateString())" } else { "no data" }
    "Reboot pending"     = $rebootPending
} | Format-List

Write-Host "`nDisk space:" -ForegroundColor Cyan
Get-PSDrive -PSProvider FileSystem | Where-Object { $_.Used -gt 0 } | ForEach-Object {
    $freeGB = [math]::Round($_.Free / 1GB, 1)
    $totalGB = [math]::Round(($_.Used + $_.Free) / 1GB, 1)
    $pctFree = [math]::Round(($_.Free / ($_.Used + $_.Free)) * 100, 1)
    "{0}: {1} GB free of {2} GB ({3}%)" -f $_.Name, $freeGB, $totalGB, $pctFree
}

On a real server the output looks something like this:

Computer name       : SRV-FILE01
Domain / workgroup  : contoso.local
IP address          : 10.20.4.15
Windows version     : Windows Server 2022 Standard
Install date        : 2/3/2023 9:14:02 AM
Uptime               : 47.03:12:41.5012340
Last update          : KB5040442 — 9/8/2025
Reboot pending        : True

Disk space:
C: 4.2 GB free of 120 GB (3.5%)
D: 812.6 GB free of 2000 GB (40.6%)

Now the call can start with facts, not “let me check.” Drive C: is 96.5% full and the server has been waiting two weeks for a post-patch reboot — that’s your first working theory for the slowdown, before you’ve even opened Task Manager.

How it works

The script does exactly one “expensive” thing — it hits CIM/WMI for Win32_OperatingSystem and Win32_ComputerSystem — and stashes the result in variables so it doesn’t re-query for every field. Everything after that is just assembling the report:

• Domain / workgroup: $cs.PartOfDomain is a boolean. If the server isn’t domain-joined, the script flags it right away instead of silently showing an empty field — a frequent reason a “required” GPO never applied.
• Last update: Get-HotFix pulls the list of installed patches from the Windows Update log; sorting by date and taking the first entry gives you the most recent one. A date three months old here isn’t a diagnosis by itself, but it’s a reason to ask about WSUS/Intune.
• Reboot pending: RebootPending isn’t a made-up field — it’s a real registry key that Windows creates after installing certain updates and doesn’t remove until the next restart. A huge share of “unexplained slowness” turns out to be a server that’s been sitting for two months in a post-patch transitional state.
• Disk space: Get-PSDrive -PSProvider FileSystem returns every mounted volume, including network drives — the Where-Object { $_.Used -gt 0 } filter strips out empty/unreachable ones so they don’t clutter the output.

Remotely, across the whole fleet

The point of this script isn’t to run it by hand on one machine at a time. Wrap it in Invoke-Command and get the same summary from dozens of servers at once:

PowerShell

# servers.txt — one server name per line
$servers = Get-Content servers.txt

Invoke-Command -ComputerName $servers -ScriptBlock {
    # the full script body goes here
} | Select-Object PSComputerName, "Reboot pending", "Last update" |
    Sort-Object "Reboot pending" -Descending |
    Format-Table -AutoSize

Sorting by “Reboot pending” isn’t an accident: it floats every problem server to the top of the table, instead of getting lost among thirty rows that all say “fine.”

Three ways to take this further

1. Save it as a .ps1 and schedule it via Task Scheduler — the Windows-world equivalent of a systemd.timer — logging output to a file. That way, by the time a complaint arrives, you already have history, not just a current snapshot.
2. Export for a ticket: swap the final Format-List for | ConvertTo-Html -Head "" | Out-File report.html — you get a page you won’t be embarrassed to attach to a ticket.
3. Alert threshold: add a simple check at the end and let the script decide whether to notify Zabbix/Telegram itself: if ($pctFree -lt 10) { Send-MailMessage ... } — don’t wait for the disk to hit zero on its own.

The difference between an “admin” and an “architect” is extremely concrete here: the admin opens RDP and clicks through tabs; the architect runs one command and already knows the answer before the chat with their manager even opens.

Tags: #powershell #windows #sysadmin #automation #monitoring

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