www.admwin.com

INTRODUCTION

ADMWIN is a complex program with great features for administering a Windows or Novell network. With the many tools compiled withing this excellent piece of software, a user can view, sort, and batch create users, shares, permissions, and settings for many computers quickly and easily.

INSTALLATION & CONFIGURATION

The installation was as simple as it can get, just download, run, choose your directory, and it's done. The configuration was simple, due to the excellent help files and tutorials included with the software, which are also mirrored on their website. (Fig 1.1)

Fig 1.1

INTERFACE

ADMWIN is really 5 unique tools in one program separated by 4 tabs at the top:

SetupBatcher
SetupBatcher allows repetitive commands, or a list of commands to be performed locally, or over the network easily via a script. Once the script is written in the built in editor, or in notepad, just click on the run button.

NTreport:
Ntreport is just the script version of NTinfo. The scripting works the same way as with SetupBatcher.

SetupExplorer:
SetupExplorer is a viewer and editor based on tables. This works just like any other spreadsheet software, where you can manage your users, shares, or groups quickly.

NTinfo:
This is a very powerful query tool designed to find out anything you could want to know about a machine on the network. Just select the mode, enter the domain/IP/machine, select properties, and hit scan.(fig 1.2)

WinRemote:
WinRemote is a powerful remote management tool used through an internal command prompt. This offers three windows to use, the process viewer, command prompt, and the service viewer.

Fig 1.2

FUNCTIONALITY

ADMWIN is a full featured, powerful administrative workshop. This application certainly excels when it comes to functionality. There is no end to how useful ADMWIN is for a network administrator. Some of the most monotonous tasks are made trivial with SetupBatcher. An admin can now add many users at once, with random secure passwords generated at the same time.(Fig 1.3) All the properties of a computer can be displayed and sorted with ease.

Fig 1.3

One of the things that I liked about the scripting was the error handling. Everything that happens gets verified and logged. If i wanted, I could even specify my own error handling to have a message sent to me, if a scheduled task did not complete. There is also an auto-retry function.

NTinfo includes a port scanner. This is an extremly valuable tool to the security of a network. With this, you may scan workstations, servers, and firewalls to find and close dangerous ports, and even see if any employees are chatting or running FTP servers.

With WinRemote, an admin can control what's running on a client or server machine remotely and easily. (Fig 1.4)

Fig 1.4

EASE OF USE

The tutorials make ADMWIN very easy to learn. Within a few minutes, I was all set up to run a basic script, end a process on a remote machine, and view my user accounts. I was certainly surprised at how easy it was to get started.

CONCLUSION

I am very impressed with the features of this program, and would recommend it to any admistrator of a windows or novell network. It definitely makes things a lot easier, when it comes to setting up, or managing more than one computer.

PROS: a. excellent value b. easy to set up c. great documentation d. very powerful CONS: a. Missing some features that more expensive applications have.