Yablargo's questions

I am using a WMI query as part of a general diagnostic script, and I query the following:

strComputer = "." 
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\CIMV2") 
Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery( _
"SELECT * FROM Win32_PnPEntity",,48) 
For Each objItem in colItems 
Wscript.Echo "-----------------------------------"
Wscript.Echo "Win32_PnPEntity instance"
Wscript.Echo "-----------------------------------"
Wscript.Echo "Caption: " & objItem.Caption
Wscript.Echo "ClassGuid: " & objItem.ClassGuid
Wscript.Echo "ConfigManagerErrorCode: " & objItem.ConfigManagerErrorCode
Wscript.Echo "Description: " & objItem.Description
Wscript.Echo "DeviceID: " & objItem.DeviceID
Wscript.Echo "Manufacturer: " & objItem.Manufacturer
Wscript.Echo "Name: " & objItem.Name
Wscript.Echo "PNPDeviceID: " & objItem.PNPDeviceID
Wscript.Echo "Service: " & objItem.Service
Wscript.Echo "Status: " & objItem.Status
Next

Whenever I run this on a workstation with PS/2 ports, I get that both a PS/2 Keyboard and Mouse (not present) are showing the error code for [Not Present, Not Working, No Driver Installed].

Is there any way to differentiate this from other devices that are actually failed? I'd like to still show PS/2 Errors, if possible, but dont see what I could use to separate these from the real entries.

I am working on a pet project, and I am trying to figure out where I should start with achieving the following functionality:

I have a PXE boot rom that wlil do burn-in tests, my burn in test sets a flag on the PXE/DHCP server.

If a client is booting and does not have the flag, I want to offer my PXE boot rom.

If a client does have the flag, I want to just skip pxe boot.

I can do this via pxe config -- but for entire subnets. how do i manage this per MAC?

Edit: I suppose it is worth mentioning, that I can do this via linux or windows server 2008 and it really comes down to which is an easier time to implement this. I'd probably prefer to write the interface for managing the DHCP settings in .net than java or something, but I imagine the dhcpd.conf is going to be more straightforward.

I'm trying to plot the course for my organization and am currently looking at (not exclusively so, but so far research leads to these):

Zenoss

Nagios

OpenNMS

Our requirements is that this must be freely licensed, support SNMP/WMI monitoring, as well as alternative monitoring for situations where firewalls block SNMP/WMI (eg: webservice, TCP, agent)

At a minimum we're looking for graphical network map with uptime statistics, traffic stats, service availability, and hardware monitoring.

We have a custom agent that collects very detailed/granular hardware information on our supported systems , and will be making efforts to tie this into whatever NMS we choose. That sort of piqued my interest on OpenNMS as we might be able to directly forward our data to our NMS system without a lot of fidgeting.

Can someone help elaborate what I can do with Zenoss vs nagios? Any product will be likely used as the "free' version.

I suppose VMWare/Virtualization support for monitoring VMs is something that should be considered as well.

Trying to digest a lot of information and any help/guidance is appreciated!