discover and query WMI classes on the local machine with Get-CimClass and Get-CimInstance instead of the deprecated WMI cmdlets
domain: learn.microsoft.com · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
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Steps
List available classes in a namespace with `Get-CimClass -Namespace root/CIMV2 | Where-Object CimClassName -like 'Win32_*'` to discover what's queryable before writing a query.
Fetch instances of a known class directly with `Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_Process`.
Run a full WQL query for more selective filtering with `Get-CimInstance -Query "SELECT * FROM Win32_Process WHERE Name LIKE 'p%'"`.
Omit `-ComputerName`/`-CimSession` to query the local machine over a local COM session (no WinRM required), which works even when remoting is disabled.
Explore a specific instance's available methods with `Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_Service -Filter "Name='Spooler'" | Get-Member`.
Known gotchas
`Get-CimInstance` is the modern replacement for `Get-WmiObject`, which is removed from PowerShell 7+; scripts ported from Windows PowerShell 5.1 calling `Get-WmiObject` fail outright on PowerShell 7.
The default namespace is root/CIMV2; many useful classes (networking, storage) live in other namespaces and won't show up in `Get-CimClass` output unless -Namespace is set explicitly.
Invoking methods on CIM instances requires `Invoke-CimMethod` rather than calling `.MethodName()` directly as with the old WMI COM objects; code ported naively from Get-WmiObject syntax silently breaks.
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