Desktopverwaltungsschnittstelle(A system for managing the configurations and status of PCs on a network from a central computer. In DMI an agent program runs in the background on each machine and returns information or performs some action (as specified by a file on that machine) in response to a query received from the central computer. The actions to be performed by the agent might include watching for errors and reporting them to the central computer as they occur; for example, a printer might be set up to report to the central computer when paper runs out or jams. DMI was developed by the DMTF (Desktop Management Task Force), a consortium of computer equipment manufacturers, and competes with SNMP (although the two can coexist on the same system))