Users primarily deployed this tool to provide detailed technical information about the user's software and hardware and to print the gathered information, usually for use by support technicians in troubleshooting and resolving problems.

[1][2][3] The assumptions made by the program were valid until the late 1990s: it does not handle plug-and-play USB or other new technologies that appeared around 2000.

[6] WINMSDP.EXE, included in the resource kits, provides the print functionality of MSD.EXE for WINMSD.

[1] Aspects of the system for which MSD.EXE provided technical information: Microsoft replaced MSD.EXE with MSINFO32.EXE.

[7] MSINFO32.EXE under Windows XP stores system history from WMI in the XML files in Windows\PCHealth\HelpCtr\Datacoll.