<%NUMBERING1%>.<%NUMBERING2%>.<%NUMBERING3%> PRTG Manual: System Information

The System Information feature can show you various information about a device such as connected hardware, installed software, connected user accounts, running processes, and available Windows services with their current status. This is a great possibility to see at a glance what is currently running on the systems in your network. Together with your everyday monitoring you will receive a really profound knowledge about your IT infrastructure from only a single source—your PRTG Network Monitor!

System information is available for all devices which you add to PRTG and run with an officially supported Windows version. You can also retrieve system information from other devices with enabled Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). On the overview page of a device, click the System Information tab to see available information.

Basically you do not have to configure anything special to use the system information feature. PRTG uses the same technologies to request system information data as sensors that receive monitoring data from a device. If you already monitor a device with WMI and SNMP sensors, the main preconditions for retrieving system information for this device are already met. The data will be displayed in the corresponding table automatically. Section Preconditions below shows in detail what you need to get system information.

System information is not supported by the Enterprise Console. Please use the PRTG web interface to access the system information of a device.

System information for your devices only has informational purposes. We cannot guarantee that the display in PRTG fully corresponds to the device parameters.

You cannot use this feature with local probes in PRTG on demand. You can use this feature on remote probes.

System Information Tab on a Windows Device (Snippet)

Click here to enlarge: https://media-s3.paessler.com/prtg-screenshots/systeminfo-tab.png

Prerequisites

Fulfill the following requirements to show all available system information data for a device. It is not necessary to meet every single prerequisite but then some tables will not show all data or may even remain empty. For example, if you do not configure SNMP on the target device, you will get less information for the System table.

Valid credentials in the device settings (or inherited): Enter correct settings for the target device in the sections Credentials for Windows Systems and Credentials for SNMP Devices.
Remote Registry Windows service: Enable the Remote Registry Windows service on the target computer, for example, via services.msc, and set the start type to automatic.
Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Windows service: Enable the RPC Windows service on the target computer, for example, via services.msc, and set the start type to automatic.
WMI on probe and target computer: Configure Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) on the target computer and on the computer that runs the PRTG probe with the device. Especially configure the firewall of the target computer to allow WMI. For more details, see manual section Monitoring via WMI and the Knowledge Base article General Introduction to WMI and PRTG.
SNMP on target computer: Configure Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) on the target computer. For more details, see manual section Monitoring via SNMP and the Knowledge Base article General Introduction to SNMP and PRTG.

Usually you will see data for a system information table after a few minutes, depending on the used protocols (WMI takes longer than SNMP). A system information table will show an according error message if PRTG cannot get data for a table because of misconfiguration.

For details about error messages, please see this Knowledge Base article: How can PRTG get data for System Information tables?

To show information data, you need to enable System Information in section Advanced Network Monitoring in the device settings (or inherit it from an object higher in the hierarchy). This is the default setting. If system information is disabled, the System Information tab will not be available for the device.

No Data Available: Check the Preconditions

System Information (Device Tab)

Probe, group, device, and sensor pages have tabs that you can use to navigate between the different options. For example, you can view your network's status, view monitoring results, or change settings.

Tabs Bar on Device Level

On the details page of a device, click the System Information tab to show several tables with information about this device. Each table contains information about one category.

System Information
System	Shows information about the device like BIOS serial number, IP addresses, MAC addresses, and Windows version.
Hardware	Shows hardware connected to the device like disk drives, CD/DVD, video controllers, processors, network adapters, sound devices, printers, and memory. You can see Class and Caption of a hardware device. In the Properties column you can get more information about the hardware (for example, the description).
Software	Shows installed software and the Version number on the device. In the Properties column you can get more information about the software (for example, the size). PRTG uses Uninstall registry keys to retrieve the list of installed software, so the displayed software might differ from the software that the target Windows system shows under Programs and Features. The System Information scan for software on the probe device uses the credentials the probe runs with and ignores credentials from the Settings tab.
Users	Shows the user accounts connected to the device and their Domain.
Services	Shows the available Windows services on the device. This table shows the State of the service (running, stopped) and the start type (Startmode automatic, manual, or disabled). In the Properties column you can get more information about a service (for example, the description).
Processes	Shows the processes that are currently running on the device as listed on the Processes tab of the Windows Task Manager. You can also see the Start Time and Process ID of a process.

Click the refresh button in the upper-right corner of a table to retrieve current information for this system information category. The timestamp shows the time passed since the last table refresh. PRTG automatically retrieves data for all tables, including System, Hardware, and Software, once every 24 hours. The tables Users, Services, and Processes refresh each time you open the System Information tab. PRTG also updates all system information tables when the PRTG server is restarted, for example, after an update.

PRTG can perform up to 24 system information scans simultaneously so it may take some time until the tables are filled after a server restart.

Table Refresh

You can sort each table by clicking the column headers. Please see Working with Table Lists section for more information.

PRTG user accounts with read-only access rights to a device can view system information on this device but they cannot refresh tables manually.

Data Storage

PRTG stores data files with the retrieved system information in the \System Information Database subfolder of the PRTG data folder under the according categories. Please note that if you delete a device in PRTG, the system information files of this device will remain here unless you delete them manually from the folder.

The PRTG uses the following subfolders for system information data.

System Information Database: Data Folders
hardware	Data for the Hardware table
loggedonusers	Data for the Users table
processes	Data for the Processes table
services	Data for the Services table
software	Data for the Software table
system	Data for the System table

Knowledge Base: How can PRTG get data for System Information tables?

https://kb.paessler.com/en/topic/67824

Knowledge Base: General Introduction to WMI and PRTG

https://kb.paessler.com/en/topic/1043

Knowledge Base: General Introduction to SNMP and PRTG

https://kb.paessler.com/en/topic/46863

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