Check remotely whether a Windows machine is a VM or a Physical machine

Well there are many ways to get this info but the one always come handy for me is to query the remote machine using command prompt as below:

> reg query "\\machine name\full reg key" /s

For example:

> reg query "\\machine1\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\NetworkCards" /s

The output from a VMware guest Windows OS will be somethine like below:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\NetworkCards\2

ServiceName REG_SZ {2BD0B2C4-2359-46F8-8D67-877FA522B9DF}
Description REG_SZ VMware Accelerated AMD PCNet Adapter

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\NetworkCards\9
ServiceName REG_SZ {C36025A2-3A33-40BD-9BB0-6E40800663EC}
Description REG_SZ vmxnet3 Ethernet Adapter