Depending on what data you want to capture there are several options:
1. Use SNMP to query the device. Unfortunately, unless you're using some sort of commercial package with all the nice GUIs (such as CiscoWorks) this requires a fair bit of work. Also some data available from the command line are not available via SNMP.
2. Use a general purpose telnet script (I've written one in perl) to capture the appropriate output. You then have to parse the output to get what you need. What I don't like about this option is that your login and enable passwords have to go over the network in the clear. I much prefer ...
3. If the IOS on the device supports it use the r commands (rsh and rcp). rcp is great for grabbing a copy of the running or startup configs, and rsh for issuing commands and capturing the output. (Not sure if rcp and rsh come with Win2k; you may need to find a commercial or shareware package.) Securitywise, you can configure the device so that only a specific user ID from a specific IP address is allowed to use the r-commands.
