Method of determining firmware, patch level, etc

Clarifications

In case of windows and if your budget for hardware permits go for WSUS from Microsoft. It is a good solution, which we use in our organization. You can set it to update your Windows boxes automatically of patches and service packs also and also hardware drivers released by microsoft. The console of WSUS shows the status of hardware drivers updates, patches, service packs, etc. all Microsoft Software, including OS, Office Applications, other applications, etc. and also Firmware status like System configration, System Model Type ,motherboard type, BIOS versions of all your Windows Boxes in your network Domain. But you cannot update the firmware automatically through this. You would have to plan and update manually as per the procedure of the individual Firmwares and BIOSes as per individual system manufacturer/Vendor.

Should get you some good info, not all of it though.

http://www.vso-software.fr/products/inspector/inspector.php

It'll also confirm what TYPE of optical drive is actually sitting there, despite what its label SAYS it is.