How to check if a server is running windows 2003 or Windows 2008 by checking its RDP screen, through script?

Question

We have recently acquired a small firm having 1500 servers on which our team doesn't has access as of now although they are in domain. We need to find out how many servers are running Windows 2k3 and how many are Windows 2k8. I know the RDP screen of both of these versions are different , for example: if we RDP a Win2k3 machine, it gives a warning notice first and once we click Ok, it takes us to the credentials screen , but in case of Win2k8, it directly takes us to Crendentials which is a proof of the OS on the server. Doing this manually for 1500 servers is a time consuming task. Can we implement this RDP screen logic using a script to find out the Windows OS version.

I can imagine an Algorithm something like that:

1. Enter server name.
2. Invoke mstsc for that server
3. Verify if the dialogue box is a direct prompt for credentials or not?
4. If so, print Windows 2k8, else 2k3/2k.

If this logic successful on one server, I can use it in a foreach loop for all servers and export in in Excel.

Answer 1

With 1500 servers I'm going to assume that you have an Active Directory in place. In that case you should be able to simply run a query against AD to retrieve the desired information:

Import-Module ActiveDirectory

$server = 'somehostname'
$dc = '...'  # domain controller of trusted domain

$fltr = "OperatingSystem -like '*server*'"

Get-ADComputer -Filter $fltr -Property OperatingSystem -Server $dc |
  Where-Object { $_.Enabled } |
  Select-Object Name, OperatingSystem |
  Sort-Object OperatingSystem, Name

Pipe the result into Export-Csv to create a CSV file that you can import into Excel.