Windows System Information file

File Format
Name	Windows System Information file
Ontology	Electronic File Formats System files Windows System Information file
Extension(s)	.nfo

The System Information application in Windows (also known as msinfo32.exe) displays detailed technical information about the system. It allows users to export this data to a System Information file, which by default uses the .nfo extension. System Information files can be reopened in the same application for later viewing. These files can be used for technical diagnostics and troubleshooting.

Format

An .nfo file is encoded in plain text and structured using XML syntax. There doesn't seem to be an official specification, but it has a very simple structure. The data is organized into nested categories and subcategories (same as those displayed in the System Information app), each containing one or more entries represented as rows of data with named columns. These column names correspond to the headers displayed in the System Information app.

Here's an example file structure, using placeholder values:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<MsInfo>
<Metadata>
<Version>8.0</Version>
<CreationUTC>07/30/25 12:10:25</CreationUTC>
</Metadata>
<Category name="Category Name 1">
<Data>
<Column_Name_1><![CDATA[Value for item 1's column 1]]></Column_Name_1>
<Column_Name_2><![CDATA[Value for item 1's column 2]]></Column_Name_2>
</Data>
<Data>
<Column_Name_1><![CDATA[Value for item 2's column 1]]></Column_Name_1>
<Column_Name_2><![CDATA[Value for item 2's column 2]]></Column_Name_2>
</Data>
</Category>
<Category name="Category Name 2">
<Category name="Subcategory Name 1">
<Data>
<Another_Column_Name_1><![CDATA[Value for item 1's column 1]]></Another_Column_Name_1>
<Another_Column_Name_2><![CDATA[Value for item 1's column 2]]></Another_Column_Name_2>
<Another_Column_Name_3><![CDATA[Value for item 1's column 3]]></Another_Column_Name_3>
</Data>
<Data>
<Another_Column_Name_1><![CDATA[Value for item 2's column 1]]></Another_Column_Name_1>
<Another_Column_Name_2><![CDATA[Value for item 2's column 2]]></Another_Column_Name_2>
<Another_Column_Name_3><![CDATA[Value for item 2's column 3]]></Another_Column_Name_3>
</Data>
</Category>
</Category>
</MsInfo>

The category names and column names vary depending on the system language. The file is generated without no indentation, and adding indentation seems to cause slight glitches in file parsing.

The above file structure is the same for Windows 7 Pro and Windows 10 Pro versions of msinfo32.exe. The value in the <Version> tag is 8.0 in both cases.

External links

• Stack Overflow: Parse a *.nfo file with python