System Information Articles :: BlackWasp Software Development

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Getting the Processor Speed and Number of Cores
Some types of software need to determine the number of processors or cores present and to know the clock speed. This information could be displayed to the user or can be used to adjust the user experience according to the performance of the machine.

Getting the CLR Version
The .NET common language runtime (CLR) is the run-time environment that executes managed code developed in .NET languages such as C# and Visual Basic. The version of the CLR varies for different versions of the .NET framework.

Getting Free and Total Memory Details
Some software monitors the amount of physical or virtual memory that is available to the operating system, or obtains this information before attempting processes that will use large amounts of RAM. Total and available memory can be read using WMI.

Creating Performance Counters Programmatically
Performance counters allow numerical information about the current state of the operating system or an application to be recorded and monitored using standard tools. This article explains how to create custom performance counters using C# code.

Executing WMI Queries
Windows Management Instrumentation provides a number of services that allow gathering of information about the operating system, software and hardware of a machine. Using WQL, this information can be retrieved using familiar, text-based queries.

Setting the System Time
Some software applications include the requirement to change the system clock time. This can be achieved using C# by calling a Windows API function. This article describes how to declare and use the SetSystemTime function and related SYSTEMTIME structure.

Setting Performance Counters
Microsoft Windows provides a large number of performance counters that can be monitored with tools such as Performance Monitor. It is possible to add new counters and set their values to allow such tools to monitor custom .NET applications and services.

Detecting Processes that are not Responding
If you are developing software that monitors other programs or services, it can be useful to detect when a process has stopped responding to the user. This can easily be achieved using members of the .NET framework's Process class.

Detecting User Inactivity
Some software, such as backup utilities, can use a large proportion of processor time and other resources. Often the user is given the option to only run such processes when the computer is not in use. This requires the detection of user inactivity.

Getting the System Up Time
Sometimes it is necessary to know how much time has passed since Windows was started. This article demonstrates two ways to obtain this information using the .NET framework and describes the limitations of one of the commonly used methods.

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