Identifying badly used computers

[itguy77]

We do a refresh of computers once a year and need to identify computers not used well to be not replaced. My predecessors used some scripts which have broken and I need a software solution that will allow us to do that will give us more than just last login.

I have toyed with changing our classroom management software to something that might have the functionality built in (we used ABtutor) but Impero I found very expensive and it didn't really do this task well and while net support looks like it may do better, i'd prefer a standalone piece of software that does it (with ideally no reoccurring subscription!!!)

 

Any thoughts?

[mdrabble]

Not brill, but this powershell script does show the last logon times for computers

 

I run this from one of my Domain Controllers.

 

Get-ADComputer -Filter * -Properties *  | Sort LastLogonDate | FT Name, LastLogonDate -Autosize | Out-File C:\ComputerLastLogonDate.txt

[Griff]

Do you use Spiceworks? I know it has an inventory system built into it which can scan your network and the computers on it and may give you some information like disk usage, bios version, all network info and pc specs etc.

[itguy77]

Thanks thats useful and I will use that, although our leadership wants to know hours computers used ideally

[browolf]

You could have a line in a logon script that writes "logon - time date" in a file of computername.txt in a public hidden folder on the network and another in the logoff script that writes "logout - time date"

 

When you have a bunch of files with data in then write a vbs script that opens each file and transposes the data for each computer into a single line in a csv file so that you can open the file in excel and make a handy graph.

[LeMarchand]

You could have a line in a logon script that writes "logon - time date" in a file of computername.txt in a public hidden folder on the network and another in the logoff script that writes "logout - time date"

 

When you have a bunch of files with data in then write a vbs script that opens each file and transposes the data for each computer into a single line in a csv file so that you can open the file in excel and make a handy graph.

 

I do this with ComputerName, UserName, Date and Time - but direct to a single .csv. Great for proving that the laptop that was URGENTLY needed in Class X has been used twice in the last 5 months. It's not 100% foolproof, but good enough to show to SMT.

[jthompson]

You could have a line in a logon script that writes "logon - time date" in a file of computername.txt in a public hidden folder on the network and another in the logoff script that writes "logout - time date"

 

When you have a bunch of files with data in then write a vbs script that opens each file and transposes the data for each computer into a single line in a csv file so that you can open the file in excel and make a handy graph.

 

We store logs just like this, and they're really useful for tackling vandalism. As well as computername.txt, we also have username.txt log files. It's surprising what information can be finessed with just the logon/logoff timestamps of a computer or user, timestamps of the computers either side and a teacher with determination to get to the bottom of an offence!

[klavs92]

You can try AD FastReporter - inactive computer reports, but they also rely on the LastLogon attribute.

Another alternative would be to enable login auditing and after some time checking Security logs on domain controllers.

[Sephiroth]

I use a logon script to write the follwing to database: username; pcname; date; time; authServer (DC); logged on

There's another one to write the same for log off events (the last column changes, obviously). I have then got a powershell GUI to read the data out based on search parameters.

 

It's based on code from edugeek (EdugeekLogonTracker) in the first place. I can provide my scripts if anyone wants them.

 

This works well as you can see how many times within a period the machine(s) get(s) used, or to work out use lengths using logon and log off events.

[bald_pig]

Do you have sccm? that has usage logs hidden away in there.

[markwilfan]

I use a logon script to write the follwing to database: username; pcname; date; time; authServer (DC); logged on

There's another one to write the same for log off events (the last column changes, obviously). I have then got a powershell GUI to read the data out based on search parameters.

 

It's based on code from edugeek (EdugeekLogonTracker) in the first place. I can provide my scripts if anyone wants them.

 

This works well as you can see how many times within a period the machine(s) get(s) used, or to work out use lengths using logon and log off events.

We do this too. Works a treat. Also have startup and shutdown logs using the same kind of script to see if PCs are hard reset or not.