Wade Wegner

Getting Started with XNA Development

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I love gaming.  Long before the death match 95 tournament with Windows 95 that featured Bill Gates in a trench coat, I was playing computer games.  Two of the first games I remember playing were The Ancient Art of War and Montezuma’s Revenge – simple but fun.  I soon became a Sierra devotee, and devoured games such as Kings Quest, Heroes Quest (renamed Quest for Glory), Space Quest, Police Quest, and Leisure Suit Larry (just don’t tell my dad).  However, my favorite all time game was Starflight from Binary Systems – this game had everything: space battles, exploration, great story line, and it required strategy and a lot of invested time.

As an aside, I have seen the Starflight and Starflight 2 executables, along with some of the other games I’ve mentioned, floating around the Internet for awhile.  It is possible to use DOSBox – an x86 emulator with DOS – to play these games.

The common theme to all of this, of course, is that my gaming platform was the PC – while I had a Nintendo, I never really considered it a decent gaming platform.  All of the console platforms of the day – Sega, Atari, Nintendo – paled in comparison to the PC as a gaming platform.  Even today, I prefer the PC to a console.  Despite this prejudice, I have come to love my Xbox 360 – not only is it a great gaming platform, but it’s the media hub of our entire house.

For a long time I’ve wanted to try my hand at making a game, but I’m a developer not a designer.  Additionally, I know nothing about DirectX, OpenGL, and other multimedia/gaming APIs.  While I’ve known about the XNA since it released in 2006, I never made the time to try it out. For those of you that aren’t familiar with XNA, it’s a framework with a set of tools that facilitates the development and management of computer games.  The best part is it uses C#!

Now, there’s a lot that goes into making a game.  I’m a complete noob, and I’ll try to share the things I learn on this blog as I go.  As I see it, the first step is actually getting your tools and environment setup.  It is this process that I intend to outline in this article.  The process is a bit confusing, but what I’ve been able to piece together are the following three steps:

• Setting up your XNA account
• Configuring your Xbox
• Deploying your first “game”

I should also mention that my goal here is to build and deploy a “game” to the Xbox 360.  This may seem contradictory given my stated preference for the PC above, but there’s more to the Xbox 360 than just games, and eventually I’d like to build applications for the Xbox (not just games).

Setting Up Your XNA Account

The first thing to do is get your XNA account all setup.  This allows you to deploy games to your Xbox 360.  It will also cost a little $$.

1. Download XNA Game Studio 3.1.  I grabbed it via my MSDN membership, but I believe you can find it elsewhere too.  You can get it for Visual C# Express here.

2. Go to the XNA Creators Club Online and setup an account.  Note: It’s very important that you use the same account that’s associated to XBOX Live.  Review the different membership options – you will start off as Registered (after creating an account) and you want Premium.

4. Sign up for Premium Membership.  There area  few ways to do this – if you’re lucky enough to have a Redeem Code, then use it here.

5. After you have setup your membership, verify by selecting Creators and choose My Profile.

6. Your membership should now be premium.

While straightforward, I never found this process nicely spelled out and defined.

Configuring Your Xbox

The next thing to do is setup your Xbox such that you can deploy your games to it.  This one took me a bit longer to figure out because of all the various steps.

1. Go to your Xbox 360 and turn it on.

2. Log into your Xbox Live account on your Xbox 360.  Remember how you used the same Live ID in step #2 above?  This is why you did so.

3. The next step is to setup the XNA Game Studio Connect software on your Xbox .  Follow these steps:

• Select Game Marketplace
• Select Explore Game Content
• Select Browse
• Select title X
• Select title XNA Creators Club
• Select All Downloads
• Select XNA Game Studio Connect
• Select Confirm Download
• Select Play Now

4. The application will provide you a connection key that you’ll use to register your Xbox with your development environment.  Write down the key.

5. Return to your development machine.

6. Open up the XNA Game Studio Device Center.

7. Click Add Device.

8. Select the XBOX 360 icon.

9. Choose an Xbox 360 Name.

10. Enter the connection key you wrote down.

11. When you’re complete, click Finish.  You should now see your Xbox as a listed device.

Okay, everything’s setup.  Now to build and deploy a game.

Deploying Your First “Game”

1. Take a look at this great “Hello World!” in XNA post by Nezeeh.  Follow the steps – they are very simple.

2. Ensure that the XNA Game Studio Connect application is still running on your XBOX.

3. Deploy your application from Visual Studio.  It will push the package to the XBOX 360 and should look something like this:

And there you have it!  Your “game” is running.  I apologize for the poor quality pictures – I used my phone as it was easy and available.

All in all, this process shouldn’t take you more than an hour.  I spent about three hours trying to figure it all out, but I guess I’m just slow.  I hope you find this valuable.

Happy gaming!

Significant updates to the SQL Azure Migration Wizard

George Huey has done it again!  He has just published some significant updates to the SQL Azure Migration Wizard.

Previously, I’ve described the SQL Azure Migration Wizard as a tool that helps you migrate your SQL Server database into SQL Azure.  This is still true, but now, thanks to updates made by George Huey, you can also migrate from SQL Azure-to-SQL Server and SQL Azure-to-SQL Azure.  These are significant updates to the tool!

Please watch the following video for an updated explanation of the tool:

As I said, the updates made by George enable all the following scenarios for database migration …

• SQL Server-to-SQL Azure
• SQL Azure-to-SQL Server
• SQL Azure-to-SQL Azure

These last two updates are significant!  Take a look at this thread on the SQL Azure Migration Wizard codeplex site – the user had a scenario where they wanted to migrate a 1 GB database in SQL Azure into a 10 GB database in SQL Azure.

Please take a look at the SQL Azure Migration Wizard up on Codeplex, where you can download the source code and/or binaries.

WI Azure User Group – Windows Azure Platform update

Last week I presented at the Wisconsin Azure User Group for the second time, along with Clark Sell.  Our goal was to provide an overview of everything announced at the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) 2009.  We made a ton of announcements, and I recommend you check out the Microsoft PDC website for more information, including videos and decks from all the presentations.

Shameless plug: watch my session on migrating applications to the Windows Azure platform with Accenture, CCH, Dominos, and Original Digital – Lessons Learned: Migrating Applications to the Windows Azure Platform.

While I was supposed to only spend twenty minutes talking about updates to the Windows Azure platform, I ended up spending over an hour.  There was too much information to share; here’s a short outline:

• Rebranding of the .NET Services as the Windows Azure platform AppFabric.
• Microsoft Codename “Dallas”, a content brokerage and discovery platform available as a CTP at commercial launch.
• Windows Azure platform integration with Microsoft Pinpoint.
• Enhanced service architectures (i.e. inner role communication, worker roles exposed outside the datacenter, etc.).
• Enhanced diagnostics in Windows Azure.
• Ability to use existing NTFS APIs to store data in durable drives in Windows Azure (called Windows Azure XDrive).
• Administrator privileges in the Windows Azure virtual machines.
• Deployment of pre-configured virtual machine images while still benefiting from the Windows Azure service model.
• User-selectable geo-locations for replicas of Azure storage.
• Secondary indices on Windows Azure tables.
• Content Delivery Network.
• Remote terminal server access to virtual machines.
• Tool for data synchronization called SQL Azure Data Sync, built on the Microsoft Synch Framework and ADO.NET Sync Services.
• Claims-based access control for REST web services through the Access Control Service.
• Commercial launch in and paid usage in February, 2010.
• Datacenter options in USA, Europe, and Asia.

Thanks to everyone for their patience – especially Clark – as I went on, and on, and on …

Don’t forget that you can request and redeem tokens for the Commercial Technology Preview (CTP) at http://windowsazure.com/.  This provides you free usages, with quotas, through February 1, 2010.

Here’s the deck I presented:

Thanks to everyone that attended – I had a great time!

Preview of “Lessons Learned: Migrating Applications to the Windows Azure Platform”

It’s hard to believe that the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) 2009 is less than two weeks away.  It doesn’t seem that long ago that I sat behind the stage at PDC 2008 providing support for the RedPrairie keynote with Bob Muglia and spoke in a breakout session with Jack Greenfield on Multi-Enterprise Business Applications.  I’ll be back again this year, and I’m giving another talk – this time on lessons learned when migrating applications to the Windows Azure platform.

Rather than present this session entirely on my own, I decided to invite some of my customers to come and talk about their own experiences.  I am extremely excited that the following three customers will join me at PDC:

CCH, a Wolters Kluwer Company – CCH is a Wolters Kluwer company, based in Riverwoods, Illinois, providing tax and business law information and software solutions. The company has approximately 700 products for the United States market.

Accenture – Launched originally as the business and technology consulting arm of Arthur Andersen, Accenture is now among the world’s largest consulting organizations. It employs more than 180,000 people in 52 countries.

Domino’s Pizza – See how Domino’s Pizza is running Java and Tomcat in Windows Azure to run their eCommerce application.  Windows Azure provides high scalability to handle Super Bowl load, interoperability with different platforms and technologies, and the ability to integrate to on-premises resources.

Our intent with this talk is to make it highly interactive – translation: ask us questions!  We have a lot of information to share with you, and while we like to present, we’d much rather engage in a meaningful conversation.  Thus, we plan to quickly provide the following information for each of the solutions migrated:

1. Background on the application (i.e. what does it do? who uses it? what technology stack?).
2. The previous architecture (before the migration to Windows Azure) and some of the challenges this architecture presented.
3. The new architecture leveraging the Windows Azure platform.
4. The migration process: what was easy, what was hard, what worked, and what didn’t.

After providing these details, we want to open the session up for Q&A.

We know that we won’t answer all of your questions in the time allotted to us, so we plan to stick around after the presentation so that we can talk to you 1-on-1 and answer your questions.

It’s going to be a great PDC – I hope you’re there!  If so, be sure and come to our presentation on Lessons Learned: Migrating Applications to the Windows Azure Platform.

Leveraging WMI in an Azure Web Role

A few weeks ago I threw out a teaser on Twitter:

This got the attention of a few folks, and I promised I’d follow-up on this with some details on how I got this to work.  Of course, I completely forgot to do so, and was only recently reminded (thanks, Roger Jennings).

You can still take a look at that application here (if nothing else, I find it interesting to look at the specifications of the CTP machines for Windows Azure): http://wmi.cloudapp.net/

In actuality, the solution is really quite straightforward – I used WMI.

What’s WMI?  Well, it stands for Windows Management Instrumentation.  Here’s quick blurb from MSDN:

Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) is the infrastructure for management data and operations on Windows-based operating systems. You can write WMI scripts or applications to automate administrative tasks on remote computers but WMI also supplies management data to other parts of the operating system and products, for example System Center Operations Manager, formerly Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM), or Windows Remote Management.

For more information on how to use WMI in .NET, take a look at the WMI .NET Overview.  Lots of great information.

Assuming you’ve read the overview, it should be clear that this is really pretty easy.  At the heart of this are the following two lines of code …

ManagementClass mgmt = new ManagementClass(managementClass);

ManagementObjectCollection objCol = mgmt.GetInstances();

… where managementClass represent one of the Win32 classes (i.e. Win32_NTLogEventLog).

Now, to make this work, you need to iterate through the collection of management objects.  Something like the following works:

foreach (var obj in objCol)

{

    foreach (var prop in obj.Properties)

    {

        ...

    }

}

Now, I did two additional things to make this easy.

1. I created a dropdown list with all the Win32 classes so that you can easily choose which class to review.
2. I defined a querystring value that, if it exists, loads a specific Win32 class.

There are a lot of Win32 classes, so here’s the array I used – feel free to leverage it yourself:

public static string[] Win32Classes =

{

    "Win32_1394Controller",

    "Win32_1394ControllerDevice",

    "Win32_Account",

    "Win32_AccountSID",

    "Win32_ACE",

    "Win32_ActionCheck",

    "Win32_ActiveRoute",

    "Win32_AllocatedResource",

    "Win32_ApplicationCommandLine",

    "Win32_ApplicationService",

    "Win32_AssociatedBattery",

    "Win32_AssociatedProcessorMemory",

    "Win32_AutochkSetting",

    "Win32_BaseBoard",

    "Win32_BaseService",

    "Win32_Battery",

    "Win32_Binary",

    "Win32_BindImageAction",

    "Win32_BIOS",

    "Win32_BootConfiguration",

    "Win32_Bus",

    "Win32_CacheMemory",

    "Win32_CDROMDrive",

    "Win32_CheckCheck",

    "Win32_CIMLogicalDeviceCIMDataFile",

    "Win32_ClassicCOMApplicationClasses",

    "Win32_ClassicCOMClass",

    "Win32_ClassicCOMClassSetting",

    "Win32_ClassicCOMClassSettings",

    "Win32_ClassInfoAction",

    "Win32_ClientApplicationSetting",

    "Win32_CodecFile",

    "Win32_CollectionStatistics",

    "Win32_COMApplication",

    "Win32_COMApplicationClasses",

    "Win32_COMApplicationSettings",

    "Win32_COMClass",

    "Win32_ComClassAutoEmulator",

    "Win32_ComClassEmulator",

    "Win32_CommandLineAccess",

    "Win32_ComponentCategory",

    "Win32_ComputerShutdownEvent",

    "Win32_ComputerSystem",

    "Win32_ComputerSystemEvent",

    "Win32_ComputerSystemProcessor",

    "Win32_ComputerSystemProduct",

    "Win32_ComputerSystemWindowsProductActivationSetting",

    "Win32_COMSetting",

    "Win32_Condition",

    "Win32_ConnectionShare",

    "Win32_ControllerHasHub",

    "Win32_CreateFolderAction",

    "Win32_CurrentProbe",

    "Win32_CurrentTime",

    "Win32_DCOMApplication",

    "Win32_DCOMApplicationAccessAllowedSetting",

    "Win32_DCOMApplicationLaunchAllowedSetting",

    "Win32_DCOMApplicationSetting",

    "Win32_DefragAnalysis",

    "Win32_DependentService",

    "Win32_Desktop",

    "Win32_DesktopMonitor",

    "Win32_DeviceBus",

    "Win32_DeviceChangeEvent",

    "Win32_DeviceMemoryAddress",

    "Win32_DeviceSettings",

    "Win32_DFSNode",

    "Win32_DFSNodeTarget",

    "Win32_DFSTarget",

    "Win32_Directory",

    "Win32_DirectorySpecification",

    "Win32_DiskDrive",

    "Win32_DiskDrivePhysicalMedia",

    "Win32_DiskDriveToDiskPartition",

    "Win32_DiskPartition",

    "Win32_DiskQuota",

    "Win32_DisplayConfiguration",

    "Win32_DisplayControllerConfiguration",

    "Win32_DMAChannel",

    "Win32_DriverForDevice",

    "Win32_DriverVXD",

    "Win32_DuplicateFileAction",

    "Win32_Environment",

    "Win32_EnvironmentSpecification",

    "Win32_ExtensionInfoAction",

    "Win32_Fan",

    "Win32_FileSpecification",

    "Win32_FloppyController",

    "Win32_FloppyDrive",

    "Win32_FontInfoAction",

    "Win32_Group",

    "Win32_GroupInDomain",

    "Win32_GroupUser",

    "Win32_HeatPipe",

    "Win32_IDEController",

    "Win32_IDEControllerDevice",

    "Win32_ImplementedCategory",

    "Win32_InfraredDevice",

    "Win32_IniFileSpecification",

    "Win32_InstalledSoftwareElement",

    "Win32_IP4PersistedRouteTable",

    "Win32_IP4RouteTable",

    "Win32_IP4RouteTableEvent",

    "Win32_IRQResource",

    "Win32_JobObjectStatus",

    "Win32_Keyboard",

    "Win32_LaunchCondition",

    "Win32_LoadOrderGroup",

    "Win32_LoadOrderGroupServiceDependencies",

    "Win32_LoadOrderGroupServiceMembers",

    "Win32_LocalTime",

    "Win32_LoggedOnUser",

    "Win32_LogicalDisk",

    "Win32_LogicalDiskRootDirectory",

    "Win32_LogicalDiskToPartition",

    "Win32_LogicalFileAccess",

    "Win32_LogicalFileAuditing",

    "Win32_LogicalFileGroup",

    "Win32_LogicalFileOwner",

    "Win32_LogicalFileSecuritySetting",

    "Win32_LogicalMemoryConfiguration",

    "Win32_LogicalProgramGroup",

    "Win32_LogicalProgramGroupDirectory",

    "Win32_LogicalProgramGroupItem",

    "Win32_LogicalProgramGroupItemDataFile",

    "Win32_LogicalShareAccess",

    "Win32_LogicalShareAuditing",

    "Win32_LogicalShareSecuritySetting",

    "Win32_LogonSession",

    "Win32_LogonSessionMappedDisk",

    "Win32_LUID",

    "Win32_LUIDandAttributes",

    "Win32_ManagedSystemElementResource",

    "Win32_MappedLogicalDisk",

    "Win32_MemoryArray",

    "Win32_MemoryArrayLocation",

    "Win32_MemoryDevice",

    "Win32_MemoryDeviceArray",

    "Win32_MemoryDeviceLocation",

    "Win32_MethodParameterClass",

    "Win32_MIMEInfoAction",

    "Win32_ModuleLoadTrace",

    "Win32_ModuleTrace",

    "Win32_MotherboardDevice",

    "Win32_MountPoint",

    "Win32_MoveFileAction",

    "Win32_MSIResource",

    "Win32_NamedJobObject",

    "Win32_NamedJobObjectActgInfo",

    "Win32_NamedJobObjectLimit",

    "Win32_NamedJobObjectLimitSetting",

    "Win32_NamedJobObjectProcess",

    "Win32_NamedJobObjectSecLimit",

    "Win32_NamedJobObjectSecLimitSetting",

    "Win32_NamedJobObjectStatistics",

    "Win32_NetworkAdapter",

    "Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration",

    "Win32_NetworkAdapterSetting",

    "Win32_NetworkClient",

    "Win32_NetworkConnection",

    "Win32_NetworkLoginProfile",

    "Win32_NetworkProtocol",

    "Win32_NTDomain",

    "Win32_NTEventlogFile",

    "Win32_NTLogEvent",

    "Win32_NTLogEventComputer",

    "Win32_NTLogEventLog",

    "Win32_NTLogEventUser",

    "Win32_ODBCAttribute",

    "Win32_ODBCDataSourceAttribute",

    "Win32_ODBCDataSourceSpecification",

    "Win32_ODBCDriverAttribute",

    "Win32_ODBCDriverSoftwareElement",

    "Win32_ODBCDriverSpecification",

    "Win32_ODBCSourceAttribute",

    "Win32_ODBCTranslatorSpecification",

    "Win32_OnBoardDevice",

    "Win32_OperatingSystem",

    "Win32_OperatingSystemAutochkSetting",

    "Win32_OperatingSystemQFE",

    "Win32_OptionalFeature",

    "Win32_OSRecoveryConfiguration",

    "Win32_PageFile",

    "Win32_PageFileElementSetting",

    "Win32_PageFileSetting",

    "Win32_PageFileUsage",

    "Win32_ParallelPort",

    "Win32_Patch",

    "Win32_PatchFile",

    "Win32_PatchPackage",

    "Win32_PCMCIAController",

    "Win32_Perf",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_ASP_ActiveServerPages",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_ContentFilter_IndexingServiceFilter",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_ContentIndex_IndexingService",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_InetInfo_InternetInformationServicesGlobal",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_ISAPISearch_HttpIndexingService",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_MSDTC_DistributedTransactionCoordinator",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_NTFSDRV_SMTPNTFSStoreDriver",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfDisk_LogicalDisk",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfDisk_PhysicalDisk",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfNet_Browser",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfNet_Redirector",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfNet_Server",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfNet_ServerWorkQueues",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfOS_Cache",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfOS_Memory",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfOS_Objects",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfOS_PagingFile",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfOS_Processor",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfOS_System",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfProc_FullImage_Costly",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfProc_Image_Costly",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfProc_JobObject",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfProc_JobObjectDetails",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfProc_Process",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfProc_ProcessAddressSpace_Costly",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfProc_Thread",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfProc_ThreadDetails_Costly",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_PSched_PSchedFlow",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_PSched_PSchedPipe",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_RemoteAccess_RASPort",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_RemoteAccess_RASTotal",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_RSVP_ACSRSVPInterfaces",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_RSVP_ACSRSVPService",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_SMTPSVC_SMTPServer",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_Spooler_PrintQueue",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_TapiSrv_Telephony",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_Tcpip_ICMP",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_Tcpip_IP",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_Tcpip_NBTConnection",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_Tcpip_NetworkInterface",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_Tcpip_TCP",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_Tcpip_UDP",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_TermService_TerminalServices",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_TermService_TerminalServicesSession",

    "Win32_PerfFormattedData_W3SVC_WebService",

    "Win32_PerfRawData",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_ASP_ActiveServerPages",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_ContentFilter_IndexingServiceFilter",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_ContentIndex_IndexingService",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_InetInfo_InternetInformationServicesGlobal",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_ISAPISearch_HttpIndexingService",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_MSDTC_DistributedTransactionCoordinator",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_NTFSDRV_SMTPNTFSStoreDriver",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_PerfDisk_LogicalDisk",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_PerfDisk_PhysicalDisk",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_PerfNet_Browser",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_PerfNet_Redirector",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_PerfNet_Server",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_PerfNet_ServerWorkQueues",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_PerfOS_Cache",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_PerfOS_Memory",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_PerfOS_Objects",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_PerfOS_PagingFile",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_PerfOS_Processor",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_PerfOS_System",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_PerfProc_FullImage_Costly",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_PerfProc_Image_Costly",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_PerfProc_JobObject",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_PerfProc_JobObjectDetails",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_PerfProc_Process",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_PerfProc_ProcessAddressSpace_Costly",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_PerfProc_Thread",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_PerfProc_ThreadDetails_Costly",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_PSched_PSchedFlow",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_PSched_PSchedPipe",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_RemoteAccess_RASPort",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_RemoteAccess_RASTotal",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_RSVP_ACSRSVPInterfaces",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_RSVP_ACSRSVPService",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_SMTPSVC_SMTPServer",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_Spooler_PrintQueue",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_TapiSrv_Telephony",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_Tcpip_ICMP",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_Tcpip_IP",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_Tcpip_NBTConnection",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_Tcpip_NetworkInterface",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_Tcpip_TCP",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_Tcpip_UDP",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_TermService_TerminalServices",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_TermService_TerminalServicesSession",

    "Win32_PerfRawData_W3SVC_WebService",

    "Win32_PhysicalMedia",

    "Win32_PhysicalMemory",

    "Win32_PhysicalMemoryArray",

    "Win32_PhysicalMemoryLocation",

    "Win32_PingStatus",

    "Win32_PnPAllocatedResource",

    "Win32_PnPDevice",

    "Win32_PnPEntity",

    "Win32_PnPSignedDriver",

    "Win32_PnPSignedDriverCIMDataFile",

    "Win32_PointingDevice",

    "Win32_PortableBattery",

    "Win32_PortConnector",

    "Win32_PortResource",

    "Win32_POTSModem",

    "Win32_POTSModemToSerialPort",

    "Win32_PowerManagementEvent",

    "Win32_Printer",

    "Win32_PrinterConfiguration",

    "Win32_PrinterController",

    "Win32_PrinterDriver",

    "Win32_PrinterDriverDll",

    "Win32_PrinterSetting",

    "Win32_PrinterShare",

    "Win32_PrintJob",

    "Win32_PrivilegesStatus",

    "Win32_Process",

    "Win32_Processor",

    "Win32_ProcessStartTrace",

    "Win32_ProcessStartup",

    "Win32_ProcessStopTrace",

    "Win32_ProcessTrace",

    "Win32_Product",

    "Win32_ProductCheck",

    "Win32_ProductResource",

    "Win32_ProductSoftwareFeatures",

    "Win32_ProgIDSpecification",

    "Win32_ProgramGroup",

    "Win32_ProgramGroupContents",

    "Win32_ProgramGroupOrItem",

    "Win32_Property",

    "Win32_ProtocolBinding",

    "Win32_Proxy",

    "Win32_PublishComponentAction",

    "Win32_QuickFixEngineering",

    "Win32_QuotaSetting",

    "Win32_Refrigeration",

    "Win32_Registry",

    "Win32_RegistryAction",

    "Win32_RemoveFileAction",

    "Win32_RemoveIniAction",

    "Win32_ReserveCost",

    "Win32_ScheduledJob",

    "Win32_SCSIController",

    "Win32_SCSIControllerDevice",

    "Win32_SecurityDescriptor",

    "Win32_SecurityDescriptorHelper",

    "Win32_SecuritySetting",

    "Win32_SecuritySettingAccess",

    "Win32_SecuritySettingAuditing",

    "Win32_SecuritySettingGroup",

    "Win32_SecuritySettingOfLogicalFile",

    "Win32_SecuritySettingOfLogicalShare",

    "Win32_SecuritySettingOfObject",

    "Win32_SecuritySettingOwner",

    "Win32_SelfRegModuleAction",

    "Win32_SerialPort",

    "Win32_SerialPortConfiguration",

    "Win32_SerialPortSetting",

    "Win32_ServerConnection",

    "Win32_ServerFeature",

    "Win32_ServerSession",

    "Win32_Service",

    "Win32_ServiceControl",

    "Win32_ServiceSpecification",

    "Win32_ServiceSpecificationService",

    "Win32_Session",

    "Win32_SessionConnection",

    "Win32_SessionProcess",

    "Win32_SettingCheck",

    "Win32_ShadowBy",

    "Win32_ShadowContext",

    "Win32_ShadowCopy",

    "Win32_ShadowDiffVolumeSupport",

    "Win32_ShadowFor",

    "Win32_ShadowOn",

    "Win32_ShadowProvider",

    "Win32_ShadowStorage",

    "Win32_ShadowVolumeSupport",

    "Win32_Share",

    "Win32_ShareToDirectory",

    "Win32_ShortcutAction",

    "Win32_ShortcutFile",

    "Win32_ShortcutSAP",

    "Win32_SID",

    "Win32_SIDandAttributes",

    "Win32_SMBIOSMemory",

    "Win32_SoftwareElement",

    "Win32_SoftwareElementAction",

    "Win32_SoftwareElementCheck",

    "Win32_SoftwareElementCondition",

    "Win32_SoftwareElementResource",

    "Win32_SoftwareFeature",

    "Win32_SoftwareFeatureAction",

    "Win32_SoftwareFeatureCheck",

    "Win32_SoftwareFeatureParent",

    "Win32_SoftwareFeatureSoftwareElements",

    "Win32_SoundDevice",

    "Win32_StartupCommand",

    "Win32_SubDirectory",

    "Win32_SystemAccount",

    "Win32_SystemBIOS",

    "Win32_SystemBootConfiguration",

    "Win32_SystemConfigurationChangeEvent",

    "Win32_SystemDesktop",

    "Win32_SystemDevices",

    "Win32_SystemDriver",

    "Win32_SystemDriverPnPEntity",

    "Win32_SystemEnclosure",

    "Win32_SystemLoadOrderGroups",

    "Win32_SystemLogicalMemoryConfiguration",

    "Win32_SystemMemoryResource",

    "Win32_SystemNetworkConnections",

    "Win32_SystemOperatingSystem",

    "Win32_SystemPartitions",

    "Win32_SystemProcesses",

    "Win32_SystemProgramGroups",

    "Win32_SystemResources",

    "Win32_SystemServices",

    "Win32_SystemSetting",

    "Win32_SystemSlot",

    "Win32_SystemSystemDriver",

    "Win32_SystemTimeZone",

    "Win32_SystemTrace",

    "Win32_SystemUsers",

    "Win32_TapeDrive",

    "Win32_TCPIPPrinterPort",

    "Win32_TemperatureProbe",

    "Win32_Thread",

    "Win32_ThreadStartTrace",

    "Win32_ThreadStopTrace",

    "Win32_ThreadTrace",

    "Win32_TimeZone",

    "Win32_TokenGroups",

    "Win32_TokenPrivileges",

    "Win32_Trustee",

    "Win32_TypeLibraryAction",

    "Win32_UninterruptiblePowerSupply",

    "Win32_USBController",

    "Win32_USBControllerDevice",

    "Win32_USBHub",

    "Win32_UserAccount",

    "Win32_UserDesktop",

    "Win32_UserInDomain",

    "Win32_UTCTime",

    "Win32_VideoConfiguration",

    "Win32_VideoController",

    "Win32_VideoSettings",

    "Win32_VoltageProbe",

    "Win32_Volume",

    "Win32_VolumeChangeEvent",

    "Win32_VolumeQuota",

    "Win32_VolumeQuotaSetting",

    "Win32_VolumeUserQuota",

    "Win32_WindowsProductActivation",

    "Win32_WMIElementSetting",

    "Win32_WMISetting"

};

Other than attaching the results of the WMI query to a generic list and binding to a DataList, that’s pretty much it.  The end result is a web page that you can use to view system details via WMI:

As I’ve said, this is a very simple demonstration of WMI in Windows Azure.  What would be more interesting is to see how someone might combine the ability to spin up asynchronous processes in Windows Azure (as described in my post How to Leverage the RoleEntryPoint in an Azure Web Role) that query data via WMI and centralize it in Azure storage (i.e. combining and centralizing all event logs) – that would be very cool!

In case anyone wants to take a look, I’ve uploaded the code to SkyDrive.

Enjoy!