BackInfo.exe

You may have seen the computer information displayed on the trainer’s computer during a class or on virtual machine demos at TechNet events. The small utility that allows you to display the information such as, IP address(es), domain/workgroup, CPU, RAM, and logged on user information is called BackInfo.exe. Some other similar utilities also display this information as a screen saver which can be a security risk, especially on servers where you could be displaying the Administrator’s login name, along with the other information.

For some reason Microsoft doesn’t make it easy for you to download this free utility. They have made it a part of Windows Server System Reference Architecture (WSSRA), which is a whopping 97.2MB package.

The tool works great but you will notice that it reports Windows Vista as Microsoft Windows NT version 6.0 Professional (Build 6000) and Windows Server 2003 as Microsoft Windows NT version 5.2 Advanced Server.