SCCM Collection Query – Virtual Machines

Building a Configuration Manager collection that contains only virtual machines is useful for scoping patch schedules, maintenance windows, or software deployments differently between your physical and virtual estate.

The Model/Manufacturer-Based Approach

The most reliable way to build this collection today is still matching on the hardware inventory Model and Manufacturer fields rather than any single dedicated “is this a VM” flag:

select SMS_R_System.ResourceId, SMS_R_System.ResourceType, SMS_R_System.Name, SMS_R_System.SMSUniqueIdentifier, SMS_R_System.ResourceDomainORWorkgroup, SMS_R_System.Client from SMS_R_System inner join SMS_G_System_COMPUTER_SYSTEM on SMS_G_System_COMPUTER_SYSTEM.ResourceID = SMS_R_System.ResourceId where SMS_G_System_COMPUTER_SYSTEM.Model in ("Virtual Machine", "VMware Virtual Platform", "VirtualBox")

Older/Fallback Approach

If some clients aren’t reporting a clean Model string, you can catch most hypervisors by matching on the Manufacturer field instead (VMware, Microsoft Corporation for Hyper-V, or Xen), though this is less precise and worth spot-checking against known VMs in your environment before relying on it. As with any hardware inventory query, results depend on hardware inventory having actually run recently on each client — a machine that hasn’t reported inventory in a while may be missing from the collection even if it’s genuinely virtual.

What About a Dedicated “Is Virtual Machine” Flag? (Updated for 2026)

Configuration Manager’s database does technically expose an Is_Virtual_Machine boolean column in v_R_System, sourced from the client’s own CCM_DesktopMachine.IsVirtual WMI property, so it’s tempting to build a collection query straight off that single field instead of matching Model/Manufacturer strings. In practice that’s not the recommended approach: the flag has long-documented reliability gaps, most notably missing VMware ESXi-hosted virtual machines in some environments, which means a collection built purely on Is_Virtual_Machine can silently under-report your virtual estate. The Model/Manufacturer WQL query above remains the more dependable, commonly recommended method for exactly this reason — treat any dedicated VM flag as a secondary cross-check rather than your primary source, and spot-check both against a handful of machines you know for certain are virtual.

Resources

• query
• virtual machine