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Keep the Desktop Going

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DQI Bureau
New Update

Keeping users' computers in large enterprises up-to-date is a mammoth task,
especially the never-ending upgrading of system software to prevent security
breaches. Herald the advent of the desktop economy; desktop management evolved
as a systems management discipline to co-ordinate application usage on desktop
and laptop computers.

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The management of multiple user profiles is a challenge which vendors and
ISVs are actively tackling. The challenge has been to have centralized desktop
management systems which can scale to an enterprise of any size. New desktop
managers like Desktop Authority, guarantees desktop confuguration in the face of

extensive granularity of data in the enterprise-countries, locations, sites,
departments down to individual profiles with distinct default settings, client
configuration, custom scripts, log file configurations and alert messages can be
configured. The task of assigning scripts to particular users and groups has
been made idiot-proof today.

Now desktop management tools have abilities to remote control computers, worldwide

The latest desktop configuration tools make even logging client activity
easy, by dynamically logging such information based on several variables; for
example: date, time, operating system type and version, service pack version,
MAC and TCP/IP address, authenticating server, user ID, physical RAM, free disk
space, BIOS date, CPU speed or SID.

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Many administrators consider Intel LANDesk Management Suite 6.5, as a good
solution in server and desktop management. The general lack of comprehensive
hardware support from major manufacturers in the past helped LANDesk attain this
reputation. And though long-awaited support from the manufacturers-in the form
of the proprietary products reviewed here-seems to have finally arrived, Intel
has significantly boosted the extent of its suite's capabilities.

The rapid advances in remote desktop management are removing the network
administrator from the scene. Remote desktop managers now automatically deliver
multiple client configuration properties at log-on without a network
administrator having to visit each desktop. Microsoft supports many Win32
platforms and many applications including Office, BackOffice, Small Business
Server, Terminal Server, Exchange Server, ISA/Proxy Server, Systems Management
Server and Citrix Meta-Frame. As per security access rules of each company,
specific domain controllers, member servers, dial-up clients and/or specific
computers can be excluded.

While security companies can afford to smile the implications on privacy are
slowly being addressed. For, your office computer is no more totally yours. IT
personnel have developed abilities to remote control computers and transfer data
— worldwide. The good news is that remote desktop managers now allow you to
manage files, shares, processes, services, registry settings and permission via
secure remote access from any Web browser without the need to install additional
client software.

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Team DQ

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