We already talked about how to view system information in different ways, now we’re going to go through how to find, understand, and export that System Information.
System Information can provide rich data that can help to make sense about all the components (hardware and software) in your system. You can do a search for specific information, view information from other system in the network, save information, and you can even view a list of changes in your Windows system.
To get to System Information, from the Start menu, in the search box, type msifo32 and press Enter. You can also type it in the Run command or in the Command Prompt.
One thing to be clear is that in System Information you can only view information, you wouldn’t use this to configure any settings.
System Information is a simple tool, if you can use Windows Explorer, you can navigate this tool. On the left pane you have the categories that can be expanded to view the items in certain category, and its content will be displayed on the right pane.
If you want to find something specific about your system, use the Find What box that is located at the bottom of the window. You’ll find that searching is not much difficult that doing a search in Google, but there still some little things that you should know:
- If you type a keyword in the search box, the utility will start the search from the top of the list and not from the current category or item that may be selected — this is, of course, if you don’t select the Search Selected Category Only.
- Checking the Search Category Names Only will tell the search feature to only search the content on the left pane.
How to export System Information — you can always save your computer configuration information, which can be helpful, for example, when rebuilding your computer. This can be done in several ways:
- Export all or just the information you need in a text file: To do this, simply select the category you want, go to the File menu, and click Export. In the case you are looking to save every piece of detail found in System Information, select System Summary and then proceed to the File menu and click Export.
- Export System Information to a .nfo file format: To do this, go to the File menu and choose Save. Using a .nfo file format will always export all the system information. Also you can open this file on the same computer or in a different one with the System Information utility.
- Export all information by printing: Simply select the category or System Summary to print everything. Go to File, and choose Print. Make sure that in the Print properties, under Page Range you check Selection, if you aren’t printing everything. Also note that depending on your computer information, this could turn to be a lot of pages printed.
Like I said before having your system information backed up can come in handy when re-building your computer. But you can also use this information to troubleshoot and to prevent possible problems as well.
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Mauro Huculak is a Windows How-To Expert who started Pureinfotech in 2010 as an independent online publication. He has also been a Windows Central contributor for nearly a decade. Mauro has over 15 years of experience writing comprehensive guides and creating professional videos about Windows and software, including Android and Linux. Before becoming a technology writer, he was an IT administrator for seven years. In total, Mauro has over 21 years of combined experience in technology. Throughout his career, he achieved different professional certifications from Microsoft (MSCA), Cisco (CCNP), VMware (VCP), and CompTIA (A+ and Network+), and he has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for many years. You can follow him on X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn and About.me. Email him at [email protected].