Slmgr.vbs is an ancient VBScript used to automate Windows license management. In the previous tip we started bypassing slmgr.vbs by reading the WMI directly. Aside from the SoftwareLicensingService WMI class which we already covered, there is another one called SoftwareLicensingProduct which has many instances and takes some time to retrieve:
Get-WmiObject -Class SoftwareLicensingProduct | Out-GridView
The Description column reveals that this class represents the many different license types available for Windows, only some of which are actually licensed. To get useful information, you’d have to filter the information for only the licenses that are in use.
Use a server-side filter with the -Filter parameter in order to considerably speed the query up. Make sure WMI only returns instances that actually have a non-null ProductKeyId:
Get-WmiObject -Class SoftwareLicensingProduct -Filter 'ProductKeyId != NULL' | Select-Object -Property Name, Description, LicenseStatus, EvaluationEndDate, PartialProductKey, ProductKeyChannel, RemainingAppRearmCount, trustedTime, UseLicenseUrl, ValidationUrl | Out-GridView
The result goes to a grid view window and looks similar to this:
Name : Office 16, Office16ProPlusR_Grace edition
Description : Office 16, RETAIL(Grace) channel
LicenseStatus : 5
EvaluationEndDate : 16010101000000.000000-000
PartialProductKey : XXXXX
ProductKeyChannel : Retail
RemainingAppRearmCount : 1
trustedTime : 20190203111404.180000-000
UseLicenseUrl : https://activation.sls.microsoft.com/SLActivateProduct/SLActivateProduct.asmx?c
onfigextension=o14
ValidationUrl : https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=187557
Name : Office 16, Office16ProPlusMSDNR_Retail edition
Description : Office 16, RETAIL channel
LicenseStatus : 1
EvaluationEndDate : 16010101000000.000000-000
PartialProductKey : XXXXX
ProductKeyChannel : Retail
RemainingAppRearmCount : 1
trustedTime : 20190203111404.622000-000
UseLicenseUrl : https://activation.sls.microsoft.com/SLActivateProduct/SLActivateProduct.asmx?c
onfigextension=o14
ValidationUrl : https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=187557
Name : Windows(R), Professional edition
Description : Windows(R) Operating System, OEM_DM channel
LicenseStatus : 1
EvaluationEndDate : 16010101000000.000000-000
PartialProductKey : XXXXX
ProductKeyChannel : OEM:DM
RemainingAppRearmCount : 1001
trustedTime : 20190203111405.221000-000
UseLicenseUrl : https://activation-v2.sls.microsoft.com/SLActivateProduct/SLActivateProduct.asm
x?configextension=DM
ValidationUrl : https://validation-v2.sls.microsoft.com/SLWGA/slwga.asmx
As you can see, dates are returned in WMI format. Use Get-CimInstance instead of Get-WmiObject to return “real” DateTobjects instead:ime
PS> Get-CimInstance -Class SoftwareLicensingProduct -Filter 'ProductKeyId != NULL' | Select-Object -Property Name, Description, LicenseStatus, EvaluationEndDate, PartialProductKey, ProductKeyChannel, RemainingAppRearmCount, trustedTime, UseLicenseUrl, ValidationUrl
Your learning points:
-
- Individual license information for Microsoft products (including Office) are represented by the SoftwareLicensingProduct WMI class
- Use Get-CimInstance instead of Get-WmiObject if you want PowerShell to return readable DateTime objects instead of the cryptic WMI datetime format
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