Windows Management Instrumentation

Windows Management Instrumentation
Original author(s)	Microsoft
Developer(s)	Microsoft
Operating system	Microsoft Windows
Platform	IA-32, x86-64, and ARM (historically Itanium, DEC Alpha, MIPS, and PowerPC)
Type	Systems management
License	Proprietary
Website	learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/desktop/wmi_v2/windows-management-infrastructure

Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) consists of a set of extensions to the Windows Driver Model that provides an operating system interface through which instrumented components provide information and notification. WMI is Microsoft's implementation of the Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) and Common Information Model (CIM) standards from the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF).

WMI allows scripting languages (such as VBScript or Windows' PowerShell) to manage Microsoft Windows personal computers and servers, both locally and remotely. WMI comes preinstalled in Windows 2000 through Windows 11 OSes. It is available as a download for Windows NT and^[1] Windows 95 to Windows 98.^[2]

Microsoft also provides a command-line interface to WMI called Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line (WMIC).^[3] However, WMIC is deprecated starting with Windows 10, version 21H1, Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022.^[4]

^ "WMI Redistributable for Windows NT". microsoft.com. Archived from the original on 24 February 2010. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
^ "WMI Redistributable for Windows 95 and Windows 98". microsoft.com. Archived from the original on 23 April 2007. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
^ "A Description of the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) Command-Line Utility (Wmic.exe)". Archived from the original on 2007-05-02.
^ "WMIC: WMI command-line utility". Microsoft. 8 March 2023. Archived from the original on 14 October 2023.