Software you couldn't do without?

[thimon]

Hi all,

 

I've been told we've got some unused budget for IT Support software! Is there any software that you use that you couldn't do without? Any that makes your life that little bit easier? Any suggestions would be really appreciated!

 

Many thanks,

[3s-gtech]

Adobe Creative Suite/Cloud. It's used extremely heavily across the school in a variety of subjects - the students are pretty well versed in the tools (the ones they tend to use, not sure how often they use Illustrator!) and some subjects even get penalised for using other tools (e.g. Media get more marks for using InDesign over Publisher, seemingly automatically but I guess it's because it produces a more professional design by default).

[sparkeh]

Lansweeper. Network Inventory - Asset Management - Help Desk Software | Lansweeper

 

Wouldn't be without it.

[nullensc]

Burconix.

[Ertech]

PDQ Deploy!

[fiza]

NetSupport DNA

[AJWhite1970]

PDQ Deploy & PDQ Inventory, fantastic value for money

[Steven_Cleaver]

Burconix BCX Network Management Tools http://www.burconix.com/, ABTutor https://www.abtutor.com/ and Papercut https://www.papercut.com/ . Edited March 7, 2017 by Steven_Cleaver

[clockend25]

Royal TS: https://www.royalapplications.com/ts/win/features

[NB9457]

Impero, 90% of issues can be fixed remotely from the office!

[hardtailstar]

plus one for ABTutor.

[DarrenShan]

OK I know your looking to spend some ££ but I love:

Terminals - free remote desktop manager

 

non-free tools would be PDQ Deploy and PDQ inventory

[3s-gtech]

Ah I re-read and saw the 'support' bit. AB Tutor Control has been great for us, alongside OS X Server and ARD.

[DalekSec]

No ones mentioned Steam......

[ITGURU]

Impero, 90% of issues can be fixed remotely from the office!

Free with VNC

[NB9457]

Free with VNC

 

Not as easy, plus Impero fulfills a lot of other needs, such as Chromebook monitoring, iPads, software deployment and meets a lot of safeguarding needs. We got a good deal too

[ITGURU]

Not as easy, plus Impero fulfills a lot of other needs, such as Chromebook monitoring, iPads, software deployment and meets a lot of safeguarding needs. We got a good deal too

 

if you need the other features then fair enough but VNC works for us - a deployed MSI installs onto the computer at first boot or added to the network.

Free VNC viewer so can monitor/take control of entire class

[thimon]

Cheers guys. We're already using PDQ Deploy and Inventory, along with Windows Remote Assistance that can fix most problems remotely. I've asked ABTutor for a site licence quote as I used that in the last school I worked at and loved it. Burconix looks interesting!

[FragglePete]

Another +1 for Burconix here.

 

Pete

[sparkeh]

Oh, SCCM of course!

[cragos1984]

Fusemail Archiving. Saves space and takes pst corruptions out of the equation, really quick and easy to access all historic email

[Duke5A]

WSUS Package Publisher - deploys MSI and other packages through WSUS. This has made my life on orders of magnitude easier, and is free!

Notepad++ - For writing any and all kinds of scripts

The Dude 4.0 - For network monitoring. I have not found any other solution that even begins to compare. It's small, lightweight and also free.

 

...and the custom launcher I wrote for TightVNC. It never sat well with me deploying VNC to staff computers, so I made a launcher for it in VB .Net 2010. Goes something like this:

 

1. Copies TightVNC server exe to client via the admin share
   
2. Creates a random password for the connection
   
3. Writes registry keys on target computer for TightVNC
   
4. Register the exe as a service and starts it, set to manual start
   
5. Opens the viewer on your computer and connects
   
6. When the viewer is closed it will wipe all remnants of VNC off of the target machine
   
7. In the event the connection is severed before cleanup commences a script is placed in startup that will clean it up
   

 

I wrote it a number of years and order of things probably escapes me now. I wrote it to work with Windows 7, but it and the version of TightVNC I have rolled into it work on 10. It has been a lifesaver over the years and I even used it this morning.

Edited March 10, 2017 by Duke5A

[Duke5A]

WSUS Package Publisher - deploys MSI and other packages through WSUS. This has made my life on orders of magnitude easier, and is free!

Notepad++ - For writing any and all kinds of scripts

The Dude 4.0 - For network monitoring. I have not found any other solution that even begins to compare. It's small, lightweight and also free.

 

...and the custom launcher I wrote for TightVNC. It never sat well with me deploying VNC to staff computers, so I made a launcher for it in VB .Net 2010. Goes something like this:

 

1. Copies TightVNC server exe to client via the admin share
   
2. Creates a random password for the connection
   
3. Writes registry keys on target computer for TightVNC
   
4. Register the exe as a service and starts it, set to manual start
   
5. Opens the viewer on your computer and connects
   
6. When the viewer is closed it will wipe all remnants of VNC off of the target machine
   
7. In the event the connection is severed before cleanup commences a script is placed in startup that will clean it up
   

 

I wrote it a number of years and order of things probably escapes me now. I wrote it to work with Windows 7, but it and the version of TightVNC I have rolled into it work on 10. It has been a lifesaver over the years and I even used it this morning.

Edited March 10, 2017 by Duke5A

[mdrabble]

Salamander - so nice not to faff with email groups!

[MattGibson]

Activman - automatically extracts users from SIMS and creates their AD account for you including shares etc..... saves so much time and very cheap!