This Powershell thing is kinda useful

A LabTech user says 'Rob, I need to create a search for all Windows Servers that have the Windows
Server Backup feature installed.  How do I do this?'

Well, this is a bit of a problem as the LabTech agent doesn't pull Server Feature metrics.  So we'll need to rely on another metric such as an Extra Data Field (XDF).  The trick is to tie the feature installed/not installed to the XDF.  That way we can provide a search for that (or any other) Windows Server feature.  For this we need a script.

Before we whip out our script editors, we ought to first determine exactly how we plan to pull that metric.  Best case is that we can query the registry for a yes/no.  Unfortunately, if that registry key exists, I couldn't find it.

So we're stuck w/ a WMI call.  Bah, what a hassle!  This requires us to create a .VBS script that queries the namespace, add some logic to iterate thru the MOF and then pull the needed metrics.  Whoops, don't forget the error-handling!

There's got to be a better way.  And sure enough, there is: Microsoft's PowerShell.  We can query WMI thru the PowerShell.  Even better yet, we can actually structure our query to one line.  Like this:

get-wmiObject win32_serverFeature | select ID | where {$_.id -eq "39"}

To paraphrase, this query is looking for an ID where the ID = 39.  Now, check this link.  You'll find a list of all the Win32 Server Features in WMI.  If you go thru the list, you'll see that 39 is just what we're looking for:  'Windows Server Backup Feature'.  If the target computer does have the Backup Features installed, then the query will include an ID of 39.  Of which, of course, the ID will necessarily = 39.  Simple, eh?

So to get a LabTech to offer a Server Feature search, we just need to flip an XDF based upon the output of this script.  In my environment, I created an un-editable, computer-object checkbox XDF and assigned a script to my Windows Servers that:

PowerShell Command (yep, the very same one listed above)
If %powershellresult% contains 39 then :CheckTheBackupCheckbox
If %powershellresult% not contains 39 then :UnCheckTheBackupCheckbox

Take a minute to go thru that Microsoft reference page.  Do you see any Feature types you'd like to have a LabTech search for?

Finally, you may want to create more scripts like this.  What's the best way to test?  Open a target server, open the CMD Prompt tab and send powershell commands right thru LabTech.  Just be sure to preface the command with the tilde (~) and LabTech will display the output.  Pretty cool, huh?