WMI Code Creator is a small, free tool which can help generate code which uses WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) to obtain information about your system, or carry out various system management tasks.

At its simplest you might create a script to tell you your BIOS date, for instance, or the name of your PC's workgroup. Combine some scripts and you could build your own, very powerful system information program. And you can then get more active, creating scripts which actually perform some action, anything from starting or stopping a few Windows services to setting your PC's fan speed.

But what's really interesting here, though, is WMI Code Creator's ease of use. Because although the program is aimed directly at developers and system administrators, and doesn't make any attempt to hide this (the interface is packed with jargon), it's straightforward enough for almost anyone to use.

As an example, click the "Query for data" tab, and choose something that looks interesting in the Classes list: Win32_ComputerSystem, say.

The "Results" box will list the various details you can query for that class: Domain, Manufacturer, Model, Name, NumberOfLogicalProcessors, PrimaryOwnerName, TotalPhysicalMemory, UserName, WorkGroup and more.

Click Workgroup, say, and the program will generate a Visual Basic Script to display your system workgroup.

And you don't even have to run it manually: just click "Execute Code" and the program will open a window where you can see the results.

Just about anyone can use the Code Creator to explore WMI, then, and get a feel for what it can do.

But of course if you do have some development experience then you can take this much further. The program allows you to browse the namespaces on your system, receive events, execute methods, and is even able to generate code in Visual Basic Script, VB.NET or C#: not bad for a portable tool with a mere 295KB executable.