The following two documents/seminars are available from Microsoft:

Collecting Asset Information with Systems Management Server 2.0

http://www.microsoft.com/smsmgmt/techdetails/getassetinfo.asp

Extending SMS 2.0 Hardware Inventory with WMI

http://www.microsoft.com/Seminar/1033/20000822SMSHWAREPT1/Seminar.htm

The Dell DMI agent must be installed on each system and it will generate a MIF file with the available info in it. This MIF file will be placed in the "NOIDMIFS" directory and sent to the SMS server during the next hardware inventory. You can adjust the frequency of the DMI agents collection process by modifing the "EVERY=" line in the "SMSSettings" section of the "dinspect.ini" file located in the "Dinspect" directory. Options are "DAY,WEEK, MONTH".

There are pros and cons with using the Dell agent versus using SMS/WMI:

Using Dell Agent:

PRO: You can retrieve more information from the Dell BIOS using the Dell OMI DMI/WMI client.

CON: Another agent running on the users system requires a service to run on NT/2000 (we do not run 95/98 so I don't know how OMI works with them) requires installation and setup on each system uses the MIF file approach.

The Dell OMI agent uses WMI to query the BIOS and formats the available information into a MIF file. If WMI is not installed then it does not work at all. The OMI version I tested, 5.1 for Windows 2000, required WMI 1.5. We were running SMS RTM when I was testing this software. We have since moved to SMS SP2 and it will collect most of the same information from the Dell systems we are running (OptiPlex GXa & GX1, Latitude CPi) without the Dell OMI Client.

Using SMS/WMI:

PRO: Once the MOF file is modified then the data is gathered by the SMS hardware agent. Data collection can be re-scheduled via the SMS Admin console as it is part of the hardware agent. Inventory can be kicked off by the user via Control Panel. It can also be started by an Admin using NTForceINV which is a great tool available from the scriptmania site. It is automatically enabled/installed as part of the SMS client install on new systems.

CON: The SMS_DEF.MOF file may (will) need modification, a manual process - but this only needs to be done once (correctly) for all the systems in your site. Doesn't collect as much information as the Dell Agent.

The real questions are what information do you want to gather and which method will do the job?

If all you are looking for is the serial numbers these can be obtained either way. For simplicity's sake use SMS 2.0 SP2, WMI 1.5 (1085.005), with Windows 2000. The Microsoft document http://www.microsoft.com/smsmgmt/techdetails/getassetinfo.asp is a great source of information on the SMS/WMI method.

The Dell OMI client can be downloaded from the Dell support website. I recommend that you bookmark it when you find it because it is really buried on their site.

Be sure to use the tool (SMBIOS2.exe) to determine what can be collected from the systems in question. There is a great difference in what can be collected based on the operating system.

SMS SP2 will collect the Dell serial numbers. You will have to modify the MOF but the information is there in WMI. You may have to add the "win32_systemenclosure" class to the "SMS_DEF.MOF" file, as determined by running "SMBIOS.exe".

You can capture the IBM serial numbers in the "win32_BIOS" class which is included in the default "SMS_DEF.MOF" though you may need to enable it with MOF manager. I use the Manufacturer field (also in win32_BIOS) to differentiate between systems.

If you are using NT4 you'll need a hotfix from Microsoft as detailed in 255924 "WMI Does Not Return SMBIOS Data in Windows NT 4.0". This patch fixes a problem where the smbios.dat file is deposited into the wrong directory, and NT does not see any of that information. I was told that this was not scheduled to be fixed in NT 4.0 SP 7. It was either apply the patch or wait for the next version of WMI or the next two service packs for NT.