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Allow users to easily see their host name and IP address

Post image for Allow users to easily see their host name and IP address

by Steve Wiseman on July 25, 2012 · 17 comments

in Tools,Utility


.

Yesterday I received an email from Andrew:

“Hi Steve. I have been looking for a really simple utility. I am always on the phone with users, and sometimes it takes forever to walk them through and have them find their IP address or host name. I remember your post about BGInfo, but that program puts text all over the desktop. My users would kill me if I had them all run that over their family / cat / dog pictures. Is there anything that can do this without bothering them?”

I looked around. I found some utilities, but many of them bundle adware, and most require a full install. So instead we put one together that is extremely simple.

It requires no install. You just put it in the users logon script and point to a single executable.

Once it launches it shows a star in the task bar:

We picked a star for the icon so you can easily describe it over the phone:

“Please click on the orange/yellow star down by the time”.

Confused User

Once they click it, an information dialog is shown – with big text so it is easy for them to read:

You can download it from here:

SystemInfo.exe

Now when a user calls you on the phone it will be much easier for them to get that system info for you.

This utility is free for personal or commercial use.

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{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Mark July 25, 2012 at 11:19 am

Great stuff steve. Can’t tell you how much time I have wasted on stuff like this. Thanks for the free tool

2 Jeff Doty July 25, 2012 at 4:56 pm

How can I suppress the Open File Security warning?

3 Jeff Doty July 25, 2012 at 5:18 pm

Never mind, I was just running the script manually and it was poping up a warning, when I ran it via a GP logon script it worked fine. Thanks, this is a cool tool.

4 Strauss van Dor July 25, 2012 at 8:28 pm

A most needed tool! Thanks for sharing.

5 Jennifer West July 26, 2012 at 12:20 pm

Any way to show the users public IP on this thing?

6 Mr Hot Dog July 26, 2012 at 12:21 pm

Hey Steve – what about showing it as text on the desktop like bginfo but in a less intrusive way…maybe just the ip and host name down in the corner?

7 Steve Wiseman July 26, 2012 at 12:21 pm

Interesting idea Jennifer…will need to look into this for the next version.

8 Steve Wiseman July 26, 2012 at 12:22 pm

We are actually looking into this. If we update this utility I will post to this article.

If you have any ideas on what else you would like to see in this little utility…send it to support@intelliadmin.com

Thanks

9 CyberCitizen July 26, 2012 at 10:09 pm

@Mr Hot Dog,

You can do this with BGInfo, just edit the amount of text you want displayed, the position, the text size.

This is a great little tool Steve, only issue is if it disappears into the Hidden Icons section, as your calling it via the logon script you have no control based on if its hidden or not, so you would need to modify that via GP or talk the user though clicking on the little arrow near the clock, then onto the star.

10 Frank Ramage July 27, 2012 at 9:13 pm

BGInfo can be customized and a *.bgi file saved with just the info you want displayed (even things like Dell Svc tag through WMI).

You call it like this: bginfo_csm_small.bgi /TIMER:00

Here’s more: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897557.aspx

11 Steve Wiseman August 7, 2012 at 6:16 pm

Hi Everyone,

We have updated the system info app to include the users public ip.

In addition we have added two command line paramters:

/no_public_ip – Disables this new public IP option

/no_url – Removes the intelliadmin link within the main form

I will post a new blog article about it soon.

12 Hamza August 8, 2012 at 3:12 pm

Thanks a lot for the this useful tool. I have three suggestions:

1- Instead of the command line paramters, is it possible to add a button to show or hide the Public IP?!

2- Why not display the same info When we move the mouse around the icon, without the need to click the icon.

3- Is it possible to build a Windows 7 gadget that displays the same information?!

13 Dany November 3, 2012 at 4:28 pm

it’s doesn’t work with windows xp, it’s appear on task manager but icon

Thanks

14 Dany November 3, 2012 at 5:26 pm

ignore my last comment, it’s work fine on XP

15 cosy April 2, 2013 at 9:36 pm

HI Steve,

Can you step me to setup for domain computers?

Cosy

16 ioamous November 20, 2013 at 10:25 am

when it runs via logon script policy “c:\resources\systeminfo.exe” i see a pop up window on my desktop. press ok button and it closes. i want only a star icon in system tray without window.

Thanks

17 Pal November 13, 2014 at 12:13 am

Just for sharing, this is the most basic tool to display both Internal IP address and Public IP address quickly for mobile/tablet/desktop. It supports firefox and google chrome browser only.

http://whatismylocalip.com

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