Win32 Classes


Win32_BIOS Class

The Win32_BIOS WMI class represents the attributes of the computer system's basic input/output services (BIOS) that are installed on a computer.

The following syntax is simplified from Managed Object Format (MOF) code and includes all of the inherited properties. Properties are listed in alphabetic order, not MOF order.

Syntax

class Win32_BIOS : CIM_BIOSElement
{
  uint16   BiosCharacteristics[];
  string   BIOSVersion[];
  string   BuildNumber;
  string   Caption;
  string   CodeSet;
  string   CurrentLanguage;
  string   Description;
  string   IdentificationCode;
  uint16   InstallableLanguages;
  datetime InstallDate;
  string   LanguageEdition;
  String   ListOfLanguages[];
  string   Manufacturer;
  string   Name;
  string   OtherTargetOS;
  boolean  PrimaryBIOS;
  datetime ReleaseDate;
  string   SerialNumber;
  string   SMBIOSBIOSVersion;
  uint16   SMBIOSMajorVersion;
  uint16   SMBIOSMinorVersion;
  boolean  SMBIOSPresent;
  string   SoftwareElementID;
  uint16   SoftwareElementState;
  string   Status;
  uint16   TargetOperatingSystem;
  string   Version;
};

Methods

The Win32_BIOS class does not define any methods.

Properties

The Win32_BIOS class defines the following properties.

BiosCharacteristics
Data type: uint16 array
Access type: Read-only

Array of BIOS characteristics supported by the system as defined by the System Management BIOS Reference Specification.

ValueMeaning
0

Reserved

1

Reserved

2

Unknown

3

BIOS Characteristics Not Supported

4

ISA is supported

5

MCA is supported

6

EISA is supported

7

PCI is supported

8

PC Card (PCMCIA) is supported

9

Plug and Play is supported

10

APM is supported

11

BIOS is Upgradable (Flash)

12

BIOS shadowing is allowed

13

VL-VESA is supported

14

ESCD support is available

15

Boot from CD is supported

16

Selectable Boot is supported

17

BIOS ROM is socketed

18

Boot From PC Card (PCMCIA) is supported

19

EDD (Enhanced Disk Drive) Specification is supported

20

Int 13h - Japanese Floppy for NEC 9800 1.2mb (3.5, 1k Bytes/Sector, 360 RPM) is supported

21

Int 13h - Japanese Floppy for Toshiba 1.2mb (3.5, 360 RPM) is supported

22

Int 13h - 5.25 / 360 KB Floppy Services are supported

23

Int 13h - 5.25 /1.2MB Floppy Services are supported

24

Int 13h - 3.5 / 720 KB Floppy Services are supported

25

Int 13h - 3.5 / 2.88 MB Floppy Services are supported

26

Int 5h, Print Screen Service is supported

27

Int 9h, 8042 Keyboard services are supported

28

Int 14h, Serial Services are supported

29

Int 17h, printer services are supported

30

Int 10h, CGA/Mono Video Services are supported

31

NEC PC-98

32

ACPI is supported

33

USB Legacy is supported

34

AGP is supported

35

I2O boot is supported

36

LS-120 boot is supported

37

ATAPI ZIP Drive boot is supported

38

1394 boot is supported

39

Smart Battery is supported

40:47

Reserved for BIOS vendor

48:63

Reserved for system vendor

 

BIOSVersion
Data type: string array
Access type: Read-only

Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP:  Array of the complete system BIOS information. In many computers there can be several version strings that are stored in the registry and represent the system BIOS information.
BuildNumber
Data type: string
Access type: Read-only

Internal identifier for this compilation of this software element. This property is inherited from CIM_SoftwareElement.

Caption
Data type: string
Access type: Read-only

Short description of the object—a one-line string. This property is inherited from CIM_ManagedSystemElement.

CodeSet
Data type: string
Access type: Read-only
Qualifiers: MaxLen(64)

Code set used by this software element. This property is inherited from CIM_SoftwareElement.

CurrentLanguage
Data type: string
Access type: Read-only

Name of the current BIOS language.

Description
Data type: string
Access type: Read-only

Description of the object. This property is inherited from CIM_ManagedSystemElement.

IdentificationCode
Data type: string
Access type: Read-only
Qualifiers: MaxLen(64)

Manufacturer's identifier for this software element. Often this will be a stock keeping unit (SKU) or a part number. This property is inherited from CIM_SoftwareElement.

InstallableLanguages
Data type: uint16
Access type: Read-only

Number of languages available for installation on this system. Language may determine properties such as the need for Unicode and bidirectional text.

InstallDate
Data type: datetime
Access type: Read-only

Date and time the object was installed. This property does not need a value to indicate that the object is installed. This property is inherited from CIM_ManagedSystemElement.

LanguageEdition
Data type: string
Access type: Read-only
Qualifiers: MaxLen(32)

Language edition of this software element. The language codes defined in ISO 639 should be used. Where the software element represents a multilingual or international version of a product, the string "multilingual" should be used. This property is inherited from CIM_SoftwareElement.

ListOfLanguages
Data type: String array
Access type: Read-only

Array of names of available BIOS-installable languages.

Manufacturer
Data type: string
Access type: Read-only

Manufacturer of this software element. This property is inherited from CIM_SoftwareElement.

Name
Data type: string
Access type: Read-only
Qualifiers: Key, MaxLen(256)

Name used to identify this software element. This property is inherited from CIM_ManagedSystemElement.

OtherTargetOS
Data type: string
Access type: Read-only
Qualifiers: MaxLen(64)

Records the manufacturer and operating system type for a software element when the TargetOperatingSystem property has a value of 1 (Other). When TargetOperatingSystem has a value of 1, OtherTargetOS must have a nonnull value. For all other values of TargetOperatingSystem, OtherTargetOS is NULL. This property is inherited from CIM_SoftwareElement.

PrimaryBIOS
Data type: boolean
Access type: Read-only

If TRUE, this is the primary BIOS of the computer system. This property is inherited from CIM_BIOSElement.

ReleaseDate
Data type: datetime
Access type: Read-only

Release date of the Windows BIOS in the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) format of YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.MMMMMM(+-)OOO.

SerialNumber
Data type: string
Access type: Read-only

Assigned serial number of the software element. This property is inherited from CIM_SoftwareElement.

SMBIOSBIOSVersion
Data type: string
Access type: Read-only

BIOS version as reported by SMBIOS.

SMBIOSMajorVersion
Data type: uint16
Access type: Read-only

Major SMBIOS version number. This property is NULL if SMBIOS is not found.

SMBIOSMinorVersion
Data type: uint16
Access type: Read-only

Minor SMBIOS version number. This property is NULL if SMBIOS is not found.

SMBIOSPresent
Data type: boolean
Access type: Read-only

If true, the SMBIOS is available on this computer system.

SoftwareElementID
Data type: string
Access type: Read-only

Identifier for this software element; designed to be used in conjunction with other keys to create a unique representation of this CIM_SoftwareElement instance. This property is inherited from CIM_SoftwareElement.

SoftwareElementState
Data type: uint16
Access type: Read-only

State of a software element. This property is inherited from CIM_SoftwareElement.

ValueMeaning
0

Deployable

1

Installable

2

Executable

3

Running

 

Status
Data type: string
Access type: Read-only
Qualifiers: MaxLen(10)

Current status of the object. Various operational and nonoperational statuses can be defined. Operational statuses include: "OK", "Degraded", and "Pred Fail" (an element, such as a SMART-enabled hard disk drive, may be functioning properly but predicting a failure in the near future). Nonoperational statuses include: "Error", "Starting", "Stopping", and "Service". The latter, "Service", could apply during mirror-resilvering of a disk, reload of a user permissions list, or other administrative work. Not all such work is online, yet the managed element is neither "OK" nor in one of the other states. This property is inherited from CIM_ManagedSystemElement.

The values are:

"OK"
"Error"
"Degraded"
"Unknown"
"Pred Fail"
"Starting"
"Stopping"
"Service"
"Stressed"
"NonRecover"
"No Contact"
"Lost Comm"
TargetOperatingSystem
Data type: uint16
Access type: Read-only

Target operating system of the owning software element. This property is inherited from CIM_SoftwareElement. The possible values for this property are as follows.

ValueMeaning
0

Unknown

1

Other

2

MACOS

3

ATTUNIX

4

DGUX

5

DECNT

6

Digital Unix

7

OpenVMS

8

HPUX

9

AIX

10

MVS

11

OS400

12

OS/2

13

JavaVM

14

MSDOS

15

WIN3x

16

WIN95

17

WIN98

18

WINNT

19

WINCE

20

NCR3000

21

NetWare

22

OSF

23

DC/OS

24

Reliant UNIX

25

SCO UnixWare

26

SCO OpenServer

27

Sequent

28

IRIX

29

Solaris

30

SunOS

31

U6000

32

ASERIES

33

TandemNSK

34

TandemNT

35

BS2000

36

LINUX

37

Lynx

38

XENIX

39

VM/ESA

40

Interactive UNIX

41

BSDUNIX

42

FreeBSD

43

NetBSD

44

GNU Hurd

45

OS9

46

MACH Kernel

47

Inferno

48

QNX

49

EPOC

50

IxWorks

51

VxWorks

52

MiNT

53

BeOS

54

HP MPE

55

NextStep

56

PalmPilot

57

Rhapsody

58

Windows 2000

59

Dedicated

60

VSE

61

TPF

 

Version
Data type: string
Access type: Read-only
Qualifiers: Key, MaxLen(64)

Version of the BIOS. This string is created by the BIOS manufacturer. This property is inherited from CIM_SoftwareElement.

Remarks

The Win32_BIOS class is derived from CIM_BIOSElement.

Examples

For script code examples, see WMI Tasks for Scripts and Applications and the TechNet ScriptCenter Script Repository.

For C++ code examples, see WMI C++ Application Examples.

Requirements

Minimum supported clientWindows 2000 Professional
Minimum supported serverWindows 2000 Server
MOFCimwin32.mof
DLLCimwin32.dll
Namespace\root\cimv2

See Also

Computer System Hardware Classes

Send comments about this topic to Microsoft

Build date: 11/3/2009

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Community Content

kalkid
Win32_BIOS Using PowerShell
# wmi-win32_bios.ps1
# Demonstrates use of Win32_Bios WMI class
# Thomas Lee - tfl@psp.co.uk
 
# Helper function to return characterics of the BIOS
function get-WmiBiosCharacteristics {
param ([uint16] $char)
# parse and return values
If ($char -le 39) {
switch ($char) {
0   {"00-Reserved"}
1   {"01-Reserved"}
2   {"02-Unknown"}
3   {"03-BIOS Characteristics Not Supported"}
4   {"04-ISA is supported"}
5   {"05-MCA is supported"}
6   {"06-EISA is supported"}
7   {"07-PCI is supported"}
8   {"08-PC Card (PCMCIA) is supported"}
9   {"09-Plug and Play is supported"}
10  {"10-APM is supported"}
11  {"11-BIOS is Upgradable (Flash)"}
12  {"12-BIOS shadowing is allowed"}
13  {"13-VL-VESA is supported"}
14  {"14-ESCD support is available"}
15  {"15-Boot from CD is supported"}
16  {"16-Selectable Boot is supported"}
17  {"17-BIOS ROM is socketed"}
18  {"18-Boot From PC Card (PCMCIA) is supported"}
19  {"19-EDD (Enhanced Disk Drive) Specification is supported"}
20  {"20-Int 13h - Japanese Floppy for NEC 9800 1.2mb (3.5, 1k Bytes/Sector, 360 RPM) is supported"}
21  {"21-Int 13h - Japanese Floppy for Toshiba 1.2mb (3.5, 360 RPM) is supported"}
22  {"22-Int 13h - 5.25 / 360 KB Floppy Services are supported"}
23  {"23-Int 13h - 5.25 /1.2MB Floppy Services are supported"}
24  {"24-Int 13h - 3.5 / 720 KB Floppy Services are supported"}
25  {"25-Int 13h - 3.5 / 2.88 MB Floppy Services are supported"}
26  {"26-Int 5h, Print Screen Service is supported"}
27  {"27-Int 9h, 8042 Keyboard services are supported"}
28  {"28-Int 14h, Serial Services are supported"}
29  {"29-Int 17h, printer services are supported"}
30  {"30-Int 10h, CGA/Mono Video Services are supported"}
31  {"31-NEC PC-98"}
32  {"32-ACPI supported"}
33  {"33-USB Legacy is supported"}
34  {"34-AGP is supported"}
35  {"35-I2O boot is supported"}
36  {"36-LS-120 boot is supported"}
37  {"37-ATAPI ZIP Drive boot is supported"}
38  {"38-1394 boot is supported"}
39  {"39-Smart Battery supported"}
}
Return
}
If ($char -ge 40 -and $char -le 45) {
          "{0}-Reserved for BIOS vendor" -f $char
return
}
If ($char -ge 48 -and $char -le 63) {
           "{0}-Reserved for system vendor" -f $char
return
}
"{0}-Unknown Value " -f $char
}
# Get BIOS information from WMI
$bios = Get-WMIObject Win32_Bios
# Display BIOS Details
"Win32_Bios WMI Information"
"Bios Characteristics"
foreach ($ch in $bios.BiosCharacteristics) {
"                      :  {0}" -f  (Get-WmiBiosCharacteristics($ch))
} 
"Bios Version          :  {0}" -f $bios.BiosVersion
"Codeset               :  {0}" -f $bios.Codeset
"CurrentLanguage       :  {0}" -f $bios.CurrentLanguage
"Description           :  {0}" -f $bios.Description
"IdentificatonCode     :  {0}" -f $bios.IdentificatonCode
"InstallableLanguages  :  {0}" -f $bios.InstallableLanguages
"InstallDate           :  {0}" -f $bios.InstallDate 
"LanguageEdition       :  {0}" -f $bios.LanguageEdition
"ListOfLanguages       :  {0}" -f $bios.ListOfLanguages
"Manufacturer          :  {0}" -f $bios.Manufacturer
"OtherTargetOS         :  {0}" -f $bios.OtherTargetOS
"PrimaryBIOS           :  {0}" -f $bios.PrimaryBIOS
"ReleaseDate           :  {0}" -f $bios.ReleaseDate
"SerialNumber          :  {0}" -f $bios.SerialNumber
"SMBIOSBIOSVersion     :  {0}" -f $bios.SMBIOSBIOSVersion
"SMBIOSMajorVersion    :  {0}" -f $bios.SMBIOSMajorVersion
"SMBIOSMinorVersion    :  {0}" -f $bios.SMBIOSMinorVersion
"SoftwareElementID     :  {0}" -f $bios.SoftwareElementID 
"SoftwareElementState  :  {0}" -f $bios.SoftwareElementState
"TargetOperatingSystem :  {0}" -f $bios.TargetOperatingSystem
"Version               :  {0}" -f $bios.Version

Thomas Lee
Win32_BIOS Using PowerShell (sample output)

The script above produced the following output on a test system (did not fit in earlier article)

PSH [D:\foo]: .\wmi-win32_bios.ps1
Win32_Bios WMI Information
Bios Characteristics
                      :  04-ISA is supported
                      :  07-PCI is supported
                      :  08-PC Card (PCMCIA) is supported
                      :  09-Plug and Play is supported
                      :  11-BIOS is Upgradable (Flash)
                      :  12-BIOS shadowing is allowed
                      :  15-Boot from CD is supported
                      :  16-Selectable Boot is supported
                      :  24-Int 13h - 3.5 / 720 KB Floppy Services are supported
                      :  26-Int 5h, Print Screen Service is supported
                      :  27-Int 9h, 8042 Keyboard services are supported
                      :  28-Int 14h, Serial Services are supported
                      :  29-Int 17h, printer services are supported
                      :  30-Int 10h, CGA/Mono Video Services are supported
                      :  32-ACPI supported
                      :  33-USB Legacy is supported
                      :  34-AGP is supported
                      :  39-Smart Battery supported
                      :  40-Reserved for BIOS vendor
                      :  41-Reserved for BIOS vendor
                      :  42-Reserved for BIOS vendor
                      :  58-Reserved for system vendor
                      :  74-Unknown Value
Bios Version          :  DELL   - 27d60a0d
Codeset               :
CurrentLanguage       :  en|US|iso8859-1
Description           :  Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A04
IdentificatonCode     :
InstallableLanguages  :  1
InstallDate           :
LanguageEdition       :
ListOfLanguages       :  en|US|iso8859-1
Manufacturer          :  Dell Inc.
OtherTargetOS         :
PrimaryBIOS           :  True
ReleaseDate           :  20061013000000.000000+000
SerialNumber          :  DDC2H2J
SMBIOSBIOSVersion     :  A04
SMBIOSMajorVersion    :  2
SMBIOSMinorVersion    :  4
SoftwareElementID     :  Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A04
SoftwareElementState  :  3
TargetOperatingSystem :  0
Version               :  DELL   - 27d60a0d

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