Support for Existing apps in Monad

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Monad provides strong support for existing apps and technology. If you use native cmdline exes, vbscripts, batch files, perl scripts etc to manage and maintain windows, you can pretty much use them the same way from monad as you would from cmd.exe.

For example, I am used to findstr.exe and xcopy.exe. I can use them from monad as is.

MSH C:\> findstr Monad monad.txt

"Monad Rocks"

MSH C:\>

MSH C:\> xcopy monad.txt monad2.txt

Does monad2.txt specify a file name

or directory name on the target

(F = file, D = directory)? f

C:monad.txt

1 File(s) copied

MSH C:\>

You can also use get-command cmdlet to discover them if they are in your PATH.

MSH C:\> get-command findstr

CommandType Name Definition

----------- ---- ----------

Application findstr.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\findstr.exe

MSH C:\>

Let’s look at a vbscript example. Script Center website has a good collection of useful vbscripts. Today we will play with this one. The script uses WMI to query the machine for computer system and processor information. You can run it in Monad as follows

MSH C:\> cscript processor.vbs

Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.6

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 1996-2001. All rights reserved.

Computer Name: ABHISHEK1

System Type: X86-based PC

Number Of Processors: 2

Manufacturer: GenuineIntel

Name: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz

Description: x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 9

Processor ID: BFEBFBFF00000F29

Address Width: 32

Data Width: 32

Family: 2

Maximum Clock Speed: 2992

Manufacturer: GenuineIntel

Name: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz

Description: x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 9

Processor ID: BFEBFBFF00000F29

Address Width: 32

Data Width: 32

Family: 2

Maximum Clock Speed: 2992

MSH C:\>

If you look at the vbscript example above, it is using WMI to query for some system properties. WMI is a useful existing management technology and Monad provides strong support for it. The primary interface to WMI in Monad is the get-wmiobject cmdlet. Let’s use it to get the same information we got from the vbscript.

First we query for an instance of the win32_ComputerSystem class

MSH C:\> get-wmiobject win32_computersystem | format-list SystemType,Name,NumberOfProcessors

SystemType : X86-based PC

Name : ABHISHEK1

NumberOfProcessors : 2

MSH C:\>

How did the get-wmiobject cmdlet discover the namespace? The default namespace used by the cmdlet is root\cimv2. But you can supply the namespace via the –Namespace parameter. The cmdlet also supports accessing information via WMI from remote machines and can also be used to browse the namespace for class information. But more on this cmdlet later; let’s complete the task at hand. We need to query WMI for instances of win32_processor class.

 

MSH C:\> $processor = get-wmiobject win32_processor

MSH C:\> $processor | format-list Name,ProcessorID,MaxClockSpeed,AddressWidth,Description

Name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz

ProcessorID : BFEBFBFF00000F29

MaxClockSpeed : 2992

AddressWidth : 32

Description : x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 9

Name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz

ProcessorID : BFEBFBFF00000F29

MaxClockSpeed : 2992

AddressWidth : 32

Description : x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 9

Using get-wmiobject and about 3 lines of monad script we have ported the above vbscript to monad! Monad will also provide support for COM interop. You will be able to use Monad scripts for COM automation.

That’s all I have time for today. Hope you find it useful!

-Abhishek