Challenge

For this chapter, we propose adding support for the Windows XP format of the setupapi.log. The user can supply a switch at the command line to indicate which type of log will be processed. For a more difficult task, our script could automatically identify the type of log file by fingerprinting unique structures found only in Windows XP versus the Windows 7 version.

Improving the deduplication process we used in this chapter would be a welcome addition. As we identified, some entries have UID values embedded in the device entry. This value is generally assigned by the manufacturer and could be used to deduplicate the entries. As you may note in the output, the UID can contain extra ampersand characters that may or may not be crucial to the UID structure and suggest their source. By applying some simple logic, possibly in a new function, we can improve deduplication based on UIDs. 

Lastly, we can consider our output format. While it is useful to display things in a console-friendly format, we should consider adding support for a CSV or other report. This may be a good feature to revisit after working through the rest of the chapters of this book.