If I try to retrieve the Name attribute of Win32_Battery, I get non-alphanumerical information which then causes a problem with using this info as text (log file etc).

Can anyone help?

A simple example:-

Code:

Const wbemFlagReturnImmediately = &h10
Const wbemFlagForwardOnly = &h20

strComputer = "."

   Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\CIMV2")
   Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery("SELECT * FROM Win32_BIOS", "WQL", wbemFlagReturnImmediately + wbemFlagForwardOnly)

   For Each objItem In colItems
      WScript.Echo "Name: " & objItem.Name
   Next

This gives "DELL RM6618B" followed by a random set of non-alphanumerical characters.

An example output is = (DELL RM6618B???????Y???)

which when viewed in a Hex Editor is :-
44 45 4C 20 52 4D 36 36 31 38 42 (this bit is Dell RM6618B) then,
3F 3F 3F 0C 3F 3F 3F 0C 3F 0B 59 09 3F 3F 3F

Is this it http://support.microsoft.com/kb/833600

Thanks for the quick reply kimsland.

Unfortunately it does not look like this is the fix because the file "Cimwin32.dll" on my system (XP SP2) is dated 4 Aug 2004 and is version 5.1.2600.2180 which is later than the DLL spec in Microsoft's article.

I should have said earlier that I did search MS knowlegebase but did not seem to find what I need.

I just tried with a e6400 and get this:

Name: Dell FU4418A

which looks pretty normal. there is not much difference between those models.
do you have another machine where you can test?