Ranger Management Software

[Gordie]

Anyone out there use RANGER! on their Windows 2003 Server based network, if so how long have you been using it and how do you rate it?

[ChrisH]

There was a thread a few months ago about ranger Here

[Dos_Box]

Ranger!!! Ha ha ha ha. Pay twice for AD and other Windows tools why don't you?

[alan-d]

we had it installed just over 2 years ago as it was easier to manage things whilst we rebuilt the rest of the network.

Over the next 12 months we intend to ween ourselves off it as logon times are a little excessive (Yes Roaming Profiles!!!), but it does have it's advantages.

The package distribution works quite well as does the screen capture. It has a few little things that are easier to do than in AD.

There are programs around that will let you do some of the things Ranger Does but not all in one package.

We are looking at LanView3 to assist teachers in the future but that seems to be a little bandwidth greedy.

Ranger is good if time and experience is limited and you don't want to use a lot of smaller applications to do all the tasks Ranger does.

Hope that helps

[alexknight]

I am in the process pf setting up a test network with 2003 enteprise edition of windows server 2003.

I am doing this primarily as my knowledge on the subject of Active Directory and Group Policies is nil. Basically you might as well talk Greek.

I find that hands on experiance is best and that instructing via e-mail can be tricky. Its nice to 'watch' someone do it first, if you know what I mean.

With this in mind there any training material /manuals that walk you through the process of administering Windows server 2003.

Possibly with some screen shots??

[JaneHyson]

Hi

Migrated to Server 2003 last year from RM Connect, with Ranger on our Curriculum machines, We have 4,000 users. Ranger is very good, has lots of useful features, but you will need to use it in combination with Active Directory, so you will have to get to know your Active Directory as well.

[StewartKnight]

alexknight,

If I were you, I'd install Group Policy Management Tool from the W2k3 disc (it's not installed automatically, as that would be too useful!),

Then play with the settings, it's fairly idiot proof & self explanatory.

[intrigue]

we use it at our college because of its simplicity yet powerful features.Sure you can do this in AD but if you dont have the knowledge to set it up properly then its not as easy as ranger is.
Thanks
.matt

[Dos_Box]

If the people who manage a college network don't know AD then there is something amiss!!

[Ric_]

If you notice, everybody that uses Ranger also ends up configuring GPOs as well. You may as well save on the licensing costs and configure everything in one place (AD).

[ajbritton]

There's quite a lot that you can do in Ranger that you can't do with AD.

- Good security features e.g. block certain dialog boxes in applications to prevent certain features from working
- Security violation logging
- Reporting of network activity
- Reporting of user activity
- License control

[Ric_]

@ajbritton: I admit that a lot of these features can't be performed with AD but you can use scripts to log activity and even perform license management.

There's also a lot of utilities out there which are far superior to Ranger for doing what you mention. One such example is NetSupport Manager/DNA which gives you the FULL remote interface plus the School one (which Ranger will sell you as a plugin).

At the end of the day, it depends if you are willing to pay all that money for something when you already have a good selection of tools available with a vanilla install of Server 2003.

BTW - I must admit I used to use Ranger until it's flakiness and limitations annoyed me to the point that I binned it off (saving me appox. £40 in license costs per machine IIRC). I understand many of the problems are now fixed but once bitten twice shy (and I've learnt a lot since then).