System Information

Abbas_Riazi

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19 Aug 20032 min read

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Obtaining Information from Computer Hardware/Software

Screen shot of program

Introduction

This program shows you a very simple way to determine your PC hardware and software. It queries operating system for the following Hardware/Software:

Operating System Version (Thanks to PJ Naughter)
Computer Name
IP Address of Computer
User Name
Internet Explorer Version
Total RAM
Free Memory
Number of Hard Disk Drives
Hard Disk Total Space/Free Space/Used Space
CDROM Drives
Monitor Resolution
Color Depth
Number of CPUs (Thanks to Iain Chesworth)
CPU Speed
CPU Identifier
CPU Vendor Identifier
Operating System Folder
System Folder

Program structure

By clicking the combo box and changing it's item, selected item is determined and it's ID passed to Process member function of dialog. The Process member function takes ID of query and returns the proper result. Body of Process has a lot of code to prepares result and if any error has occurred, the error string will be returned.

How to use

Add the following header and implementation files to your project:

cup_info.h, cpu_info.cpp: For CPU Information like Speed, ID, Vendor ID,...
dtwinver.h, dtwinver.cpp: For Operating System Version (e.g. Build Number and Service Packs)
SysInfoDefs.h, SysInfoDefs.cpp: For General System Information like Total RAM, Number of Hard Disk Drives, Disk Space/Free Space/Used Space
SmartDef.h: For IDE S.M.A.R.T. commands to query from IDE hard disks that support SMART.

Functions

Below table shows all functions that are used to determine Hardware/Software of the computer.

`CString DetermineIEVer();`	Determining Internet Explorer Version (Build Number)
`CString QueryHardDisks();`	Calculating Number of Hard Disks and Number of Cylinders, Tracks per Cylinders, Sectors per Tracks, Bytes per Sector and Total Capacity for each Hard Disks
`CString QueryDriveSpace();`	Calculating Drive Space/Free Space/Used Space of All Hard Drives
`CString QueryCDDrive();`	Determining Number of CD Drives
`CString QueryTotalRAM()`	Calculating Total Physical RAM (Random Access Memory)
`CString QueryFreeRAM();`	Calculating Free Physical Memory
`CString QueryUserName()`	User Name of current user
`CString QueryComputerName();`	Computer Name
`CString QueryCPUInfo();`	Number of CPU Installed on Mother Board
`CString QueryCPUSpeed();`	Speed of each CPU
`CString QueryCPUID();`	ID of each CPU
`CString QueryCPUVendorID();`	ID of CPU Vendor
`CString QueryResolution();`	Calculating Monitor Resolution in Pixel
`CString QueryPixelDepth();`	Calculating Color Depth of any Pixel
`CString QueryOS();`	Determining Operating System Version (Build Number) and it's Service Pack
`CString QueryLocalIPAddress();`	Determining IP Address of Computer
`CString QueryHDDSmartCommand();`	Query IDE hard disks that support SMART (Self-Monitoring Analysis & Reporting Technology).
`CString QueryDirectory(char* sFolder,int iFolder);`	Determining Full Path of Specified Folder where `sFolder` is Folder Name and `iFolder` is Folder Shell ID Number
`CString GetCommandError();`	Determining last occurred error

Requirements

Latest Platform SDK
Visual Studio 6.0 with service pack 5

License

This article has no explicit license attached to it but may contain usage terms in the article text or the download files themselves. If in doubt please contact the author via the discussion board below.

A list of licenses authors might use can be found here

Written By

Abbas_Riazi

CEO Solaris Electronics LLC

United Arab Emirates

I was born in Shiraz, a very beautiful famous city in Iran. I started programming when I was 12 years old with GWBASIC. Since now, I worked with various programming languages from Basic, Foxpro, C/C++, Visual Basic, Pascal to MATLAB and now Visual C++.
I graduated from Iran University of Science & Technology in Communication Eng., and now work as a system programmer for a telecommunication industry.
I wrote several programs and drivers for Synthesizers, Power Amplifiers, GPIB, GPS devices, Radio cards, Data Acquisition cards and so many related devices.
I'm author of several books like Learning C (primary and advanced), Learning Visual Basic, API application for VB, Teach Yourself Object Oriented Programming (OOP) and etc.
I'm winner of January, May, August 2003 and April 2005 best article of month competition, my articles are:

You can see list of my articles, by clicking here

Comments and Discussions

Small mistake for Total memory

cpsworld11-Jan-06 7:08

cpsworld

11-Jan-06 7:08

At line 286 in SysInfoDefs.cpp you wrote:
ceil(memoryStatus.dwTotalPhys/1024/1024)

It should be:
ceil(memoryStatus.dwTotalPhys/1024.0/1024.0)
if you want the ceil function to have an effect.

The best would be:
ceil(memoryStatus.dwTotalPhys/1048576.0)
One division less Smile | :)

Crayon

Re: Small mistake for Total memory

Abbas_Riazi12-Jan-06 0:10

Abbas_Riazi

12-Jan-06 0:10

Thanks for your comment. Smile | :)

Best regards,
A. Riazi

Harddisk and drive name

ugur_basak23-Nov-05 20:56

ugur_basak

23-Nov-05 20:56

is it possible for a certain drive name (for example "C:\") on which IDE Hard drive. For computers that have more than one harddrive.
Thanks Ugur Basak

Re: Harddisk and drive name

ugur_basak23-Nov-05 21:57

ugur_basak

23-Nov-05 21:57

I've modified QueryHDDSmartCommand, i use a variable strDriveName="\\\\.\\c:"
and changed

if ((hSMARTIOCTL = CreateFile(strDriveName, 0,0,0,
CREATE_NEW, 0, 0)) == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE)
and
if ((hSMARTIOCTL = CreateFile(strDriveName,GENERIC_READ | GENERIC_WRITE,FILE_SHARE_READ|FILE_SHARE_WRITE,NULL,
OPEN_EXISTING,0,NULL)) == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE)
its working. Thanks anyway, your article is really excellent.

Memory Leak detected

Juri Barthel24-Jun-05 1:05

Juri Barthel

24-Jun-05 1:05

Hi,

i know it is not that serious but maybe someone will get disturbed by a Detected Memory Leaks message during debugger mode.
It is caused by a missing delete Speed; in the CPUInfo deconstructor. The Speed member is allocated using the new operator.

Greetings,
Juri

Re: Memory Leak detected

Abbas_Riazi24-Jun-05 1:13

Abbas_Riazi

24-Jun-05 1:13

Hi,

Thanks for your comment.

Best regards,
A. Riazi

More features

Hachaso30-May-05 1:09

Hachaso

30-May-05 1:09

Hi!

I like this small app.
I'm wondering if it's possible to also display the OS Language used, User language, keyboard settings etc.
Are there any API's for this?

Thanks!

Structure misalignment

smedlytonker21-Feb-05 9:06

smedlytonker

21-Feb-05 9:06

You need to add the pack paragma to your code. I noticed that the data in your structures was misaligned when I was modifying your code to retrieve the temperature of the hard drive.

#pragma pack(1)
//---------------------------------------------------------------------
// The following structure defines the structure of a Drive Attribute
//---------------------------------------------------------------------
typedef struct _DRIVEATTRIBUTE {
BYTE bAttrID; // Identifies which attribute
WORD wStatusFlags; // see bit definitions below
BYTE bAttrValue; // Current normalized value
BYTE bWorstValue; // How bad has it ever been?
BYTE bRawValue[6]; // Un-normalized value
BYTE bReserved; // ...
} DRIVEATTRIBUTE, *PDRIVEATTRIBUTE, *LPDRIVEATTRIBUTE;

//---------------------------------------------------------------------
// The following structure defines the structure of a Warranty Threshold
// Obsoleted in ATA4!
//---------------------------------------------------------------------
typedef struct _ATTRTHRESHOLD {
BYTE bAttrID; // Identifies which attribute
BYTE bWarrantyThreshold; // Triggering value
BYTE bReserved[10]; // ...
} ATTRTHRESHOLD, *PATTRTHRESHOLD, *LPATTRTHRESHOLD;

//---------------------------------------------------------------------
// The following struct defines the interesting part of the IDENTIFY
// buffer:
//---------------------------------------------------------------------
typedef struct _IDSECTOR {
USHORT wGenConfig;
USHORT wNumCyls;
USHORT wReserved;
USHORT wNumHeads;
USHORT wBytesPerTrack;
USHORT wBytesPerSector;
USHORT wSectorsPerTrack;
USHORT wVendorUnique[3];
CHAR sSerialNumber[20];
USHORT wBufferType;
USHORT wBufferSize;
USHORT wECCSize;
CHAR sFirmwareRev[8];
CHAR sModelNumber[40];
USHORT wMoreVendorUnique;
USHORT wDoubleWordIO;
USHORT wCapabilities;
USHORT wReserved1;
USHORT wPIOTiming;
USHORT wDMATiming;
USHORT wBS;
USHORT wNumCurrentCyls;
USHORT wNumCurrentHeads;
USHORT wNumCurrentSectorsPerTrack;
ULONG ulCurrentSectorCapacity;
USHORT wMultSectorStuff;
ULONG ulTotalAddressableSectors;
USHORT wSingleWordDMA;
USHORT wMultiWordDMA;
BYTE bReserved[128];
} IDSECTOR, *PIDSECTOR;

#pragma pack()

*** The following might be useful updates too:
ULONGLONG PrintSmartAttribRawValue(PCHAR szOut, PDRIVEATTRIBUTE attribute)
{
ULONGLONG rawvalue;
BYTE word[3];
int j;

// convert the six individual bytes to a long long (8 byte) integer.
// This is the value that we'll eventually return.
rawvalue = 0;
for (j = 0; j < 6; j++)
{
// This looks a bit roundabout, but is necessary. Don't
// succumb to the temptation to use raw[j]<<(8*j) since under
// the normal rules this will be promoted to the native type.
// On a 32 bit machine this might then overflow.
ULONGLONG temp;
temp = attribute->bRawValue[j];
temp <<= 8*j;
rawvalue |= temp;
}

// convert quantities to three two-byte words
for(j = 0; j < 3; j++)
{
word[j] = attribute->bRawValue[2*j+1];
word[j] <<= 8;
word[j] |= attribute->bRawValue[2*j];
}

// This switch statement is where we handle Raw attributes
// that are stored in an unusual vendor-specific format,
switch (attribute->bAttrID)
{
// Spin-up time
case 3:
szOut += sprintf(szOut, "%d", word[0]);
// if second nonzero then it stores the average spin-up time
if(word[1])
szOut += sprintf(szOut, " (Average %d)", word[1]);
break;

// Power on time
case 9:
szOut += sprintf(szOut, "%I64u", rawvalue); //stored in hours
break;

// Load unload cycles
case 193:
szOut += sprintf(szOut, "%I64u", rawvalue);
break;
// Temperature
case 194:
szOut += sprintf(szOut, "%d", word[0]);
if (!(rawvalue==word[0]))
{
int min = word[1] < word[2]? word[1]: word[2];
int max = word[1] > word[2]? word[1]: word[2];
// The other bytes are in use. Try IBM's model
szOut += sprintf(szOut, " (Lifetime Min/Max %d/%d)", min, max);
}
break;

default:
szOut += sprintf(szOut, "%I64u", rawvalue);
break;
}

// Return the full value
return rawvalue;
}

// Note some attribute names appear redundant because different
// manufacturers use different attribute IDs for an attribute with the
// same name. The variable val should contain a non-zero value if a particular
// attributes has a non-default interpretation.
PCHAR GetSmartAttribName(BYTE id)
{
PCHAR szName = "Unknown_Attribute";

switch(id)
{
case 1: szName = "Raw Read Error Rate"; break;
case 2: szName = "Throughput Performance"; break;
case 3: szName = "Spin Up Time"; break;
case 4: szName = "Start Stop Count"; break;
case 5: szName = "Reallocated Sector Ct"; break;
case 6: szName = "Read Channel Margin"; break;
case 7: szName = "Seek Error Rate"; break;
case 8: szName = "Seek Time Performance"; break;
case 9: szName = "Power On Hours"; break;
case 10: szName = "Spin Retry Count"; break;
case 11: szName = "Calibration Retry Count"; break;
case 12: szName = "Power Cycle Count"; break;
case 13: szName = "Read Soft Error Rate"; break;
case 191: szName = "G-Sense Error Rate"; break;
case 192: szName = "Power-Off Retract Count"; break;
case 193: szName = "Load Cycle Count"; break;
case 194: szName = "Temperature Celsius"; break;
case 195: szName = "Hardware ECC Recovered"; break;
case 196: szName = "Reallocated Event Count"; break;
case 197: szName = "Current Pending Sector"; break;
case 198: szName = "Offline Uncorrectable"; break;
case 199: szName = "UDMA CRC Error Count"; break;
case 200: szName = "Write Error Count"; break;
case 201: szName = "Detected TA Count"; break;
case 202: szName = "TA Increase Count"; break;
case 203: szName = "Run Out Cancel"; break;
case 204: szName = "Shock Count Write Opern"; break;
case 205: szName = "Shock Rate Write Opern"; break;
case 206: szName = "Flying Height"; break;
case 207: szName = "Spin High Current"; break;
case 208: szName = "Spin Buzz"; break;
case 209: szName = "Offline Seek Performnce"; break;
case 220: szName = "Disk Shift"; break;
case 221: szName = "G-Sense Error Rate"; break;
case 222: szName = "Loaded Hours"; break;
case 223: szName = "Load Retry Count"; break;
case 224: szName = "Load Friction"; break;
case 225: szName = "Load Cycle Count"; break;
case 226: szName = "Load-in Time"; break;
case 227: szName = "Torq-amp Count"; break;
case 228: szName = "Power-off Retract Count"; break;
case 230: szName = "Head Amplitude"; break;
case 231: szName = "Temperature Celsius"; break;
case 240: szName = "Head Flying Hours"; break;
case 250: szName = "Read Error Retry Rate"; break;
default: szName = "Unknown Attribute"; break;
}

return szName;
}

/****************************************************************************
*
* DoPrintData
*
* FUNCTION: Display the SMART Attributes and Thresholds
*
****************************************************************************/
CString DoPrintData(PCHAR pAttrBuffer, PCHAR pThrsBuffer, BYTE bDriveNum)
{
int i;
PDRIVEATTRIBUTE pDA;
PATTRTHRESHOLD pAT;
BYTE Attr;
CString Result;

//
// Print the drive number
//
char Temp[512]="";
sprintf(Temp,"\r\nData for Drive Number %d\n", bDriveNum);
Result+=Temp;
//
// Print the revisions of the data structures
//
sprintf(Temp, "Attribute Structure Revision Threshold Structure Revision\r\n");
Result+=Temp;

sprintf(Temp," %d %d\r\n\r\n",
(WORD)pAttrBuffer[0],
(WORD)pThrsBuffer[0]);

Result+=Temp;
//
// Print the header and loop through the structures, printing
// the structures when the attribute ID is known.
//
sprintf(Temp, " -Attribute Name- -Attribute Value- -Threshold Value- -Raw Value-\r\n");
Result+=Temp;

pDA = (PDRIVEATTRIBUTE)&pAttrBuffer[2];
pAT = (PATTRTHRESHOLD)&pThrsBuffer[2];

for (i = 0; i < NUM_ATTRIBUTE_STRUCTS; i++)
{
Attr = pDA->bAttrID;

char szOut[64] = {0};
PrintSmartAttribRawValue(szOut, pDA);

if (Attr)
{
sprintf(Temp,"%2X %-29s%d%20c%d %s\r\n",
pDA->bAttrID,
GetSmartAttribName(pDA->bAttrID),
pDA->bAttrValue,
' ',
pAT->bWarrantyThreshold, szOut);

Result+=Temp;
}
pDA++;
pAT++;
}

return Result;
}

lots of compile errors

polunga25-Jan-05 19:06

polunga

25-Jan-05 19:06

hi, im getting 102 errors in the file SysInfoDefs.cpp

D:\Programming\game programming\LEARNING\MFC\1\SysInfoDefs.cpp(7) : error C2065: 'SENDCMDOUTPARAMS' : undeclared identifier
D:\Programming\game programming\LEARNING\MFC\1\SysInfoDefs.cpp(14) : error C2061: syntax error : identifier 'PSENDCMDINPARAMS'
D:\Programming\game programming\LEARNING\MFC\1\SysInfoDefs.cpp(22) : error C2065: 'PSENDCMDINPARAMS' : undeclared identifier
D:\Programming\game programming\LEARNING\MFC\1\SysInfoDefs.cpp(695) : error C2065: 'DRIVE_LAYOUT_INFORMATION_EX' : undeclared identifier
D:\Programming\game programming\LEARNING\MFC\1\SysInfoDefs.cpp(695) : error C2146: syntax error : missing ';' before identifier 'dli'
D:\Programming\game programming\LEARNING\MFC\1\SysInfoDefs.cpp(695) : error C2065: 'dli' : undeclared identifier
D:\Programming\game programming\LEARNING\MFC\1\SysInfoDefs.cpp(709) : error C2065: 'IOCTL_DISK_GET_DRIVE_LAYOUT_EX' : undeclared identifier
D:\Programming\game programming\LEARNING\MFC\1\SysInfoDefs.cpp(718) : error C2228: left of '.PartitionCount' must have class/struct/union type
D:\Programming\game programming\LEARNING\MFC\1\SysInfoDefs.cpp(721) : error C2228: left of '.PartitionCount' must have class/struct/union type

etc...

what could be wrong? thx

Re: lots of compile errors

Abbas_Riazi25-Jan-05 19:48

Abbas_Riazi

25-Jan-05 19:48

As I said in previous messages, you must have the latest Platform SDK (PSDK) and also must included before MFC header file definitions.

Best regards,
A. Riazi

windows xp

strugglingCoder6-Jan-05 18:50

strugglingCoder

6-Jan-05 18:50

hi all,
this is a great app. however, i noticed that for windows xp, the o.s. query returns windows 2000. is there a way to modify the program, so it will return xp as well?

Re: windows xp

Abbas_Riazi6-Jan-05 20:10

Abbas_Riazi

6-Jan-05 20:10

You need to modify the source codes a little. See the header definitions.

Best regards,
A. Riazi

Re: windows xp

strugglingCoder11-Jan-05 10:30

strugglingCoder

11-Jan-05 10:30

amir,
what would the IsWindowsXP function look like. what particular settings would distinguish it???? i know that it is in the windows nt family.

Re: windows xp

Abbas_Riazi11-Jan-05 19:01

Abbas_Riazi

11-Jan-05 19:01

Hi,
I'm Abbas not Amir! The build number is useful for distinguish the Windows XP OS. I used another article from CP (Author: PJ Naughter) to wrote it.

Best regards,
A. Riazi

How to get centrino cpu speed correctly?

Member 223907119-Oct-04 11:36

Member 2239071

19-Oct-04 11:36

The current code seems to be unable to get centrino cpu speed. I have a 1.5GHz, and the returned CPU speed always varies from 500MHz to 1000MHz. What's scoop? Also, a 1.5GHz centrino is said equivalent to 2.4GHz regular cpu(more or less). How do we formally reflect this in the cpu speed?

Re: How to get centrino cpu speed correctly?

Ing-Long Eric Kuo6-Dec-04 23:44

Ing-Long Eric Kuo

6-Dec-04 23:44

I think it is because centrino cpu's have 'SpeedStep'. E.g. their speed changes depending on load.

Slight error and missing SMART infos

Raul Sobon12-Oct-04 15:26

Raul Sobon

12-Oct-04 15:26

All around a good package but.

1. there are missing code to handle *ALL* SMART HD details, because other ID codes are like 0xC2 for temperature. So the code needs to be changed to loop through all values, not just 12. To get the rest download hdtune.com's program, it lists them all. The code could also do with a function to read a specific AttrID of the SMART data but return the rawvalue, NOT THE AttrValue. I did that my self, and added a GetAttrIDValue( id, &result ) function.

2. one structure used a BYTE, then a WORD which stuffed up the auto padding with visual C++. I suggest that you ALWAYS use a BYTE halfs if your WORD is on an ODD boundary.

structure in question should be; (in smartdefs.h)

typedef struct _DRIVEATTRIBUTE {
BYTE bAttrID; // Identifies which attribute
BYTE wStatusFlagsL; // see bit definitions below
BYTE wStatusFlagsH; // see bit definitions below
BYTE bAttrValue; // Current normalized value
BYTE bWorstValue; // How bad has it ever been?
BYTE bRawValue[6]; // Un-normalized value
BYTE bReserved; // ...
} DRIVEATTRIBUTE, *PDRIVEATTRIBUTE, *LPDRIVEATTRIBUTE;

This GURANTEES it to work no matter what compiler you have, besides you dont even use that status flags any how.

Thats all... Enjoy the fix.

Hows the skiing in IRAN btw?

_______________________________
Raul Software Engineer (www.ac3dec.com

Re: Slight error and missing SMART infos

Abbas_Riazi12-Oct-04 21:06

Abbas_Riazi

12-Oct-04 21:06

Thanks Raul,
Would you please to send me your code that I can share it with others?

Best regards,
A. Riazi

Re: Slight error and missing SMART infos

Orkblutt28-Sep-05 18:09

Orkblutt

28-Sep-05 18:09

hummm... that part is just a "bad" copy/paste from the Microsoft example "smartapp":
http://download.microsoft.com/download/winddk/sample3/9x/W9X/EN-US/SmartApp.exe

why bad? cause it's not doing correctly the job... (founding 4 hard drives with your tool but 2, the real number, with the microsoft example)

next time try to copy/paste better Wink | ;)

some good SMART sources there:
http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

cheers

-- modified at 0:12 Thursday 29th September, 2005

Re: Slight error and missing SMART infos

Abbas_Riazi28-Sep-05 19:59

Abbas_Riazi

28-Sep-05 19:59

In the first release of the code, I didn't provide the S.M.A.R.T. infos but after some suggestions from others (like Raul Sobon) that you see under previous threads, I grabbed their source codes and add to mine.
Then it is not copy/paste, I didn't know that Microsoft has this!

Best regards,
A. Riazi

Re: Slight error and missing SMART infos

Orkblutt29-Sep-05 2:12

Orkblutt

29-Sep-05 2:12

ok ok... if you have some free time maybe can you try to correct your code and add SMART scan on other disk than PhysicalDrive0 (when more than 1 drive... on NT based here)

cheers
bruno

Re: Slight error and missing SMART infos

Abbas_Riazi29-Sep-05 2:22

Abbas_Riazi

29-Sep-05 2:22

I'm working on WMI version of my app. This new version queries all hardwares and give you more detailed info.
Unfortunately I haven't enough time now, may in future.

Best regards,
A. Riazi

Centrino Unsupported

Guoshima23-Aug-04 23:40

Guoshima

23-Aug-04 23:40

is it possible that the check gives a wrong value when you want to know the CPU speed of a centrino. And any idea how you can get the correct one? Thanx.

MATLAB & C++ or JAVA

ama200019-Aug-04 7:49

ama2000

19-Aug-04 7:49

Hi all,

I am a student, at Staffordshire University, UK, my
area of interest is mobile agent at wireless environment (mobile
computing). I would like to ask whether you have any information how
to use MATLAB tools to simulate a mobile computing system. In other
words, I want to build a wireless system (client/server) where data(an object user-defined) can be sent between mobile terminal and a server in order to carry out some tasks at the server and return with some results.

Any help would be appreciated

Regards,

Adel

Missing comma

Dimitris Vasiliadis9-Aug-04 22:51

Dimitris Vasiliadis

9-Aug-04 22:51

In SysInfoDefs.h line 131 you miss a comma after (S.M.A.R.T.)" Smile | :)

...Plug & Pray... Dead | X|

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