WMI.Net 2.0

[GuyO]

Is there going to be Beta for Wmi.Net 2.0 -- it's been a couple of months


I can't believe more folks aren't screaming for this. We have 1/2 of an API
with the existing WMI.Net - no writeable properties or invokeable methods
from managed code...

Where are the new bits.. I'll take anything to avoid having to go back to a
vulgar C++ implementation.

since it was annonced at TechEd -- I'd really like to be able to write a
managed code provider for an upcoming project.

MMC 3.0 was released as a beta almost 6 months before it went final -- Maybe
the powers the be could cut the WMI 2.0 bits loose -- it's been almost 3
months the public announcement of WMI.net 2.0 at Teched...

 

[Gerry Hickman]

Hi,

Are you saying future versions of WMI will only be available from
managed code? If that's the case I think it's a step backwards. COM is
much better than .NET, and unmanaged code is much better than managed code.

I agree the current system is not very good. System.Managment is a poor
relation to WMI under COM. Class interop between the two is not so good
when you look at the data types.

As I see it, the solution is to get rid of .NET, not to turn WMI into a
bunch of .NET wrapper classes.

You certainly don't need to use C++ for any of this. I use ECMAScript.

 

[Guy Cox]

I think you'll have a tough time writing a WMI provider in ECMAScript --
suppose I want to reconfigure an application remotely -- a dynamic WMI
instance created by the application would certainly be the way to go.

Cheer,

Guy

 

[Gerry Hickman]

Hi Guy,

Did the original poster say he was trying to create a "WMI provider"? I
thought he just wanted to use WMI to manage his Windows computers.

 

[Willy Denoyette [MVP]]

Not explicitly but, with this <... no writeable properties or invokeable
methods
from managed code...> he meant to say that currently it was not possible to
implement method providers and writable property providers.
And as far as I know there are no direct plans to provide that support
either, at least the upcoming Framework v3 does not change that.
Note that I never heard about WMI.Net 2.0 either (nor about WMI.Net 1.0 for
that matter).

Willy.




| Hi Guy,
|
| Did the original poster say he was trying to create a "WMI provider"? I
| thought he just wanted to use WMI to manage his Windows computers.
|
| Guy Cox wrote:
| > I think you'll have a tough time writing a WMI provider in ECMAScript --
| > suppose I want to reconfigure an application remotely -- a dynamic WMI
| > instance created by the application would certainly be the way to go.
| >
| > Cheer,
| >
| > Guy
| >
| > | >> Hi,
| >>
| >> Are you saying future versions of WMI will only be available from
managed
| >> code? If that's the case I think it's a step backwards. COM is much
better
| >> than .NET, and unmanaged code is much better than managed code.
| >>
| >> I agree the current system is not very good. System.Managment is a poor
| >> relation to WMI under COM. Class interop between the two is not so good
| >> when you look at the data types.
| >>
| >> As I see it, the solution is to get rid of .NET, not to turn WMI into a
| >> bunch of .NET wrapper classes.
| >>
| >> You certainly don't need to use C++ for any of this. I use ECMAScript.
| >>
| >> GuyO wrote:
| >>> Is there going to be Beta for Wmi.Net 2.0 -- it's been a couple of
months
| >>>
| >>>
| >>> I can't believe more folks aren't screaming for this. We have 1/2 of
an
| >>> API with the existing WMI.Net - no writeable properties or invokeable
| >>> methods from managed code...
| >>>
| >>> Where are the new bits.. I'll take anything to avoid having to go back
to
| >>> a vulgar C++ implementation.
| >>>
| >>> since it was annonced at TechEd -- I'd really like to be able to write
a
| >>> managed code provider for an upcoming project.
| >>>
| >>> MMC 3.0 was released as a beta almost 6 months before it went final --
| >>> Maybe
| >>> the powers the be could cut the WMI 2.0 bits loose -- it's been almost
3
| >>> months the public announcement of WMI.net 2.0 at Teched...
| >>>
| >>>
| >>>
| >>
| >> --
| >> Gerry Hickman (London UK)
| >
| >
|
|
| --
| Gerry Hickman (London UK)

 

[clyclopedic]

There were hints even before. At PDC05 they had a hands-on lab that walked
you through the process of coding a .NET WMI provider that exposed
read-write properties and callable methods. For me, it was the highlight of
the conference. The only that would have made it better would be to have Mr.
Denoyette rolling on the floor screaming "That's impossible!"

The same program used in that hands-on lab is demonstrated again in the
archived webcast ".NET Application Instrumentation Using WMI.NET 2.0 (Level
200)", which was recorded in June.

http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032298244

But they spiced it up a little by adding a MOM management pack. At the end
of presentation he throws out some possible timelines for expecting a beta.
I too am eagerly awaiting a beta of WMI Provider Extensions 2.0.

 

[Willy Denoyette [MVP]]

| There were hints even before. At PDC05 they had a hands-on lab that walked
| you through the process of coding a .NET WMI provider that exposed
| read-write properties and callable methods. For me, it was the highlight
of
| the conference. The only that would have made it better would be to have
Mr.
| Denoyette rolling on the floor screaming "That's impossible!"
|


I see they gave that PDC05 child a name Teched 06, unfortunately the webcast
is not available, so I can't comment on what Alain has been talking about
and how it's been implemented.
I never said it wasn't possible (technically it is), all I can say is that
officially it's not there, not in V2 nor in V3 RC1 of the framework (which
is feature complete) and as far as I know not in an external beta. If you
take a look the limitations
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms186136.aspx, you'll see that
managed code providers "must run out-proc to WMI", that is, as a decoupled
provider, and that's one of the core problems, you can't implement property
(read/write) and class providers as 'decoupled' in WMI. As long as this
requirement (imposed by the OS Core team) is not lifted, you won't see any
official support for these kind of providers.

Willy.

 

[clyclopedic]

Maybe if you add this 'culture' parm to the URL you can access the webcast:

http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032298244

Or if you go to Alain's home page:

http://users.skynet.be/alain.lissoir/default.html

and scroll down to the 'CONFERENCES' section and click on 'MSDN Architecture
Webcast' you can get there. I downloaded and watched it on Friday with no
problem.

 

[Willy Denoyette [MVP]]

| Maybe if you add this 'culture' parm to the URL you can access the
webcast:
|
|
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032298244
|
| Or if you go to Alain's home page:
|
| http://users.skynet.be/alain.lissoir/default.html
|
| and scroll down to the 'CONFERENCES' section and click on 'MSDN
Architecture
| Webcast' you can get there. I downloaded and watched it on Friday with no
| problem.
|
|

Seems like it was a temporary issue, I've been watching the webcast since
then.
I will contact Alain, (which is an ex colleague of mine) and come back when
I can get some more info, provided I'm allowed to talk about it in public.

Willy.

 

[GuyO]

Thanks you Thanks you Thank you -- My need for the WMI provider is still
pretty far to the right of my schedule, but if I can't count on at least
beta bits in the next 4 months or so I'm going to have to cobble something
together with remoting -- and as far as I'm converned that's 10 miles of bad
road.

 

[David G]

Hi Guy,
if you dont mind me asking, what kind of WMI provider are you looking for?
Is it specific to managing your application or is it more generic?

 

[Gerry Hickman]

Hi,

Good question! I would like to see the .NET heads write an LSA provider
that can manage per-machine user rights. Better still, let's have a new
".NET based" MSI 4.0 provider that can replace the current deprecated
COM one. How about a .NET based provider that can create shares on
Win2k3 and set caching options? How about a .NET based provider that can
enable and disable a network link or manage a Wireless adapter?

Seriously, are people here suggesting .NET would be a good Framework
with which to write WMI providers?

 

[Willy Denoyette [MVP]]

Replace the Deprecated COM providers? I know you are kidding, but for those
who don't; keep in mind that >90% of the WMI clients are native code (most
scripting language implementations), you don't want to let them pay for the
CLR overhead (think memory space), do you?
But there are "system level" providers, which are the kind you are referring
to, and "user level" providers, the latter are kind of application private.
For obvious reasons, the first kind have to be kept in native COM, point.
For the "private" kind it would be a nice option if they could be
implemented in managed code, as long as they are kept in their own process
and not being shared with any of the native WMI hosting services.


Willy.


| Hi,
|
| Good question! I would like to see the .NET heads write an LSA provider
| that can manage per-machine user rights. Better still, let's have a new
| ".NET based" MSI 4.0 provider that can replace the current deprecated
| COM one. How about a .NET based provider that can create shares on
| Win2k3 and set caching options? How about a .NET based provider that can
| enable and disable a network link or manage a Wireless adapter?
|
| Seriously, are people here suggesting .NET would be a good Framework
| with which to write WMI providers?
|
| David G wrote:
| > Hi Guy,
| > if you dont mind me asking, what kind of WMI provider are you looking
for?
| > Is it specific to managing your application or is it more generic?
| >
| >
| > | >> Thanks you Thanks you Thank you -- My need for the WMI provider is
still
| >> pretty far to the right of my schedule, but if I can't count on at
least
| >> beta bits in the next 4 months or so I'm going to have to cobble
something
| >> together with remoting -- and as far as I'm converned that's 10 miles
of
| >> bad road.
| >>
| >> | >>> | >>> | Maybe if you add this 'culture' parm to the URL you can access the
| >>> webcast:
| >>> |
| >>> |
| >>>
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032298244
| >>> |
| >>> | Or if you go to Alain's home page:
| >>> |
| >>> | http://users.skynet.be/alain.lissoir/default.html
| >>> |
| >>> | and scroll down to the 'CONFERENCES' section and click on 'MSDN
| >>> Architecture
| >>> | Webcast' you can get there. I downloaded and watched it on Friday
with
| >>> no
| >>> | problem.
| >>> |
| >>> |
| >>>
| >>> Seems like it was a temporary issue, I've been watching the webcast
since
| >>> then.
| >>> I will contact Alain, (which is an ex colleague of mine) and come back
| >>> when
| >>> I can get some more info, provided I'm allowed to talk about it in
| >>> public.
| >>>
| >>> Willy.
| >>>
| >>>
| >>>
| >>>
| >>
| >
| >
|
|
| --
| Gerry Hickman (London UK)

 

[Guy Cox]

Hmmm -- hypothetically speaking mind you.. Suppose there were several dozed
guard stations and a couple of hundred surveillance cameras... Each guard
stations, for purposes of discussion, could monitor 5 cameras. The video
feed to guard station mapping needs to be centrally maintained. So, a video
channel assignment provider seems to me to be a good match.

I would extend the computers and users active directory UI to expose the
video channel provider dynamic class instance, and provide each channel
exposed by the channel assignment provider, the port and IP address of the
video stream.

Think of it as very similar to assigning the screen save or background image
to a computer using the desktop class.

Guy

 

[David G]

Hi Gerry,
since .NET 2.0 doesnt support methods providers and part of managing often
means being able to make configuration changes and method calls to allow for
this, I agree that using the COM interfaces is the only viable approach in
these cases. I know that the WMI Team is working on having these
capabilities in a addon for .NET in the near future as I spoke to Alain
Lissoir at MMS last April about it and they were well underway. So, on that,
we will wait for MS.

As for creating a WMI provider for managing user rights via the LSA API (via
the COM WMI intefaces), that should be fairly trivial. In general, all of
the providers you are talking about would be fairly straighforward to
develop. Does someone want these?

 

[Gerry Hickman]

Hi David,

As for creating a WMI provider for managing user rights via the LSA API (via
the COM WMI intefaces), that should be fairly trivial. In general, all of
the providers you are talking about would be fairly straighforward to
develop. Does someone want these?

Yes, but I thought he was saying he could create them in pure managed
code - or at least that he'd be able to once WMI.Net 2.0 was released?

 

[Guest]

WMI.NET 2.0 was shipped in the pre-release versions of the .NET 3.5
supporting coupled and decoupled providers, writable properties, methods and
so on, almost as powerfull as the native model. Unfortunatelly the
documentation did not make it to MSDN hence the quiet time. There should be
an update released around the time .NET 3.5 gets released that will fix the
doc problem.