Customizing the Resource Explorer

The Resource Explorer is a data-driven user interface that shows you the hardware and software inventory data for a given client. The Resource Explorer uses the instance data found in the SMS_PropertyDisplayNode class to build the node tree in the scope pane and control how the data is presented in the results pane.

By default, the Resource Explorer displays three root nodes — Hardware, Hardware History, and Software. All hardware inventory that is discovered is added under the Hardware and Hardware History nodes in the scope pane. You can also create a new top-level node in the scope pane for your new inventory class or an existing inventory class. For information, see Adding a Node to the Resource Explorer.

In addition to adding your own nodes to the tree, you can control how the data is presented in the results pane. For example, you can limit the number of properties that are displayed, change the ordering of the properties, modify the description strings, and more. For information, see Changing the Default Display Information in the Resource Explorer.

You can start the Resource Explorer from the command-line using various command-line options to identify which resource to explore. For information, see Running the Resource Explorer From the Command Line.