Some time ago i recorded a speed demo of my MaxSceneInfo dotNet library in action ( Sorry – still in development 🙂 ). The cool thing i demonstrate here is using Powershell to search the filesystem for 3ds Max files meeting certain criteria: like minimum 3ds Max version required to read the file, whether a certain  plugin is used in the scene file etc.
It’s important to remember that this all is possible without having any 3ds Max installed at all on the machine !

Here’s a simple copy&paste of the youtube description text:

MaxSceneInfo: a dotNet library for Max scene file information parsing

This video shows some features of a dotNet library currently in development.
The library provides an API to parse info in 3ds Max scene files ( *.max files ) without having 3ds Max installed.
Besides other things, the library provides access to the following data:
* Max file version
* scene’s thumbnail
* scene content ( object counts, object types, object names, material names )
* external file dependencies ( textures, xrefs, plugins, render scripts …)
* render information ( target resolution and format, output path, renderer used, framerate and frame ranges, batch renders … )
* user properties and more …

In the video:
At the beginning i give a short overview about what data is provided via this library demoing a small tool written quickly in C#.
The following first half of the video deals with using the library in 3ds Max via Maxscript itself.
The second half demonstrates the library’s usage via Powershell. The latter opens some great possibilities:
I demonstrate how the library helps searching for scenefiles which use a specific 3ds Max plugin, inside a folder structure with several hundreds of Max files.
Or filtering specific Max files of a specific version. As bonus i show how easy it is to extract the thumbnail image from a given
scenefile and display it – all done via the MaxSceneInfo assembly, loaded in Powershell  and without relying on any 3ds Max installation.