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WMIC aliases

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Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

WMIC aliases

Aliases are intermediary facilitators that help you access the WMI infrastructure when you are running WMIC. Aliases are friendly names used to capture the features of a WMI class that are relevant to some specific task such as disk or network administration.

Aliases can be used to provide:

  • Clearer names for WMI classes, properties, and method.

  • Useful output formats of arranged properties.

    The output formats can include specific property values or can be formatted in a manner appropriate to some specific presentation strategy or function. For example, an alias might have a "BRIEF" format that will list only property values essential for the identification of the objects visible through the alias. Management data is retrieved in XML format and processed by built-in or custom XSL output formats. For more information, see Creating and editing formats in WMIC.

WMIC provides aliases for the most commonly used classes of management information. You can add aliases for other classes. Thus, aliases in WMIC may be of the following types:

  • Default aliases in the root\cli namespace.

    • For a list of aliases included with WMIC, type /? at the WMIC command prompt.

    • For more information about a specific alias, type: alias_name /?

    • For more information about alias schema, type: Alias alias_name list brief

  • Aliases added by you in the root\cli namespace.

  • Aliases defined by you in other namespaces. If you define aliases in other namespaces, you must use the /ROLE switch to specify the namespace when using it with WMIC. For more information, see Creating and editing aliases.

For information about WMI security, see Managing WMI security.

For information about WMIC security, see Security with WMIC.

For more information, see Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line.