Whether it is supporting your techie, recovering from a disaster, handing over to a new staff member or dealing with accusations that you are running unlicensed software, the need to know what hardware, software, versions and licenses you have becomes absolutely vital at critical moments in you organisational history.

Most suggestions are to create some kind of table and manually figure it all out, but there is another possibility, letting the machines do the work for you. All you need is the right software, preferably free.

This may be it, its called SystemHound via PC asset managementThe two keys to this deal are that the machines do the donkey work and the licenses (up to 10 per organisation) are free. Disclaimer, I have never used it, but the features look like something that many NFPs would be able to use and the price is perfect. Free. The PR page says:

systemhound is a comprehensive, scalable PC inventory solution for Windows networks. It offers detailed hardware and software inventory reports via a web interface and over your intranet, enabling you to track changes to your infrastructure and ensuring software license compliance.

Latest features

• Fantastic graphing and drill down facilities
• Audits all Windows versions including Windows Vista
• Easy stand-alone auditing of disconnected PC's
• Export customised inventory reports to your favorite spreadsheet application
• More deployment options via MSI Windows Installer technology

Key Features

Enterprise Hardware Inventory

Shows a summary for each PC in the enterprise with sorting, graphing, searching and drill down options. You can sort by user, by PC, by Operating System, by Manufacturer, by Model, by Memory, by Processor and by date with select and search features by Manufacturer.

Enterprise Software Inventory

Shows all the software installed across the enterprise with the registered user, the version numbers, the manufacturer, the number of copies installed and the number of licenses purchased if you have entered this with a warning if more copies are installed than purchased. You can select by manufacturer and search by application, show Windows patches separately, graph the results and drill down to PCs that have specific software/versions installed

Hardware Report by PC

For each PC in the enterprise, full hardware details are shown including monitors, serial numbers, network information, device, printer and database drivers and user defined fields such as department, supplier, date purchased etc. From here you can link to the Software Report or the Hardware or Software Changes for this PC.

Software Report by PC

For each PC, details of each software application found are displayed with the version number and serial number and whether it has been found via Add/Remove, as a service or in the Registry. The database can easily be searched for particular applications and manufacturers.

Hardware Changes

New and removed hardware is shown across the enterprise or for individual PCs for specified date ranges either in total or for selected categories such as Processor, Disk, Memory or Network.

Software Changes

New, upgraded and removed software is across the enterprise or for individual PCs for specified date ranges either in total or just showing installed or uninstalled software.

Software Grouping

Modules of the same software application can be grouped together for reporting. This is "out of the box" for common applications from manufacturers such as Microsoft, Adobe and Lotus, and can also be set up by the user for any other applications.

These next three seem to me absolutely key to NFP use of this tool.

Gather your own custom information

Custom data collection can be configured to retrieve specific entries from registry & Ini files and WMI can be used for advanced asset collection.

Export the database to another tool such as Microsoft Excel or Access

The whole database hardware and/or software can be exported to CSV, Excel or Access via a simple wizard for additional reporting and graphing. In addition, there is an option on most reports to export just that report to CSV.

Auditing non-networked PCs

For PCs that are not on the network, onsite audits can be carried out on CD or flash memory and the data integrated with the main systemhound reports.

Customise the database with user defined fields and notes

For each PC, you can add unlimited additional information. This can be in the form of extra fields such as department, location, asset id, supplier, date purchased etc or as a free format note which could be used for service history or fault recording

As I say, I haven't tried it, but it certainly looks like the right idea and the ability to work with disconnected machines as well as networked ones would be perfect for a small organisation.  The last option could also carry login details so that handovers or maintenance would be seamless as possible.

If you do choose to give it a try, keep me informed and we'll report back on your experience.

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