AB Tutor Control v 6

[svp06]

Has anyone used AB Tutor control v 6? I havent used their product before but other threads seem to support version 5 and i wondered if people had similar experiences with v 6.

 

Thanks

[EduTech]

We have recently trialed their new version, which infact does everything we want it to do and will be going ahead and purchasing this.

 

Their older versions were not as good, but they have really made me smile with their new version.

 

James.

[Zoom7000]

We use AB Tutor very heavily, mainly as a support tool, the teachers of course use it for classroom management. However, we find it simply brilliant for remote support. Very powerful tool and much cheaper than some of the more well known alternatives.

[rh91uk]

We recently just rolled out v6 and it is absolutley excellent, we use this as a remote control and logging program. It's fantastic! Well worth the money.

[maniac]

I recently evaluated a lot of these programs, and settled on Lanschool (who sponsor part of this forum) as my product of choice, not least of all because they will sell you a site license for a one off fee, but it also works really well.

 

ABtutor was good, but was a tad more expensive.

 

Mike.

[tmcd35]

Just bought v6 myself. I'm very impressed by it. Much easier to set up than NetOp and has every feature I can think of.

 

Most impressive of all is it works with Terminal Server, nComputing ans SoftXpand out of the box. No config necessary. I had a lot of trouble trying to get either NetOp of iTalc to work with TS before.

[Bruce123]

I think we are on version 5.x and would have to pay again to upgrade to version 6 (since it is a major rather than minor version change).

 

One issue is we had with version 5 was that it wasn't very "user" aware (i.e. it doesn't really understand user and groups in ADS). One consequence of this is that you couldn't specifiy that someone using the control software shouldn't be able to monitor/control the PC if a member of staff was logged in. However, AB Consulting did advice us on a solution to this, which we have implemented.

 

Another issue was that the logging (Internet access logs) could be read by any user as long as they knew where was stored on the PC. And I don't think there is an easy way to setup a central blocked list or policies.

 

Finally, it was too easy for students to unplug and plug the network cable to stop a teacher from monitoring/controlling a PC (NB this was reported to me but I don't know if it was an issue if autoconnect was enabled).

 

I don't know whether these issues have been fixed. Other than them I feel it is a useful software, and just as good for postive use (i.e. demonstrating software with the Show/Demo feature), as opposed to locking the mouse/keyboard etc.

 

Thanks,

 

Bruce.

[Outpost]

AB Tutor 6 has a lot of fixes/improvements like central policies and if you have version 5 you can upgrade at a significant discount.

It's been a godsend for us.

[Geoff]

Using v6 here. A few minor bugs have bitten us, but the support and timely patches have kept us happy despite them.

[ChrisH]

Upgraded to V6 a while ago but didn't notice some of the nice additions such as policies for printer control and policies to block USB Mass storage etc. Good product at a good price.

[apoth0r]

We're on V6, it's amazing!

Some cracking new features and utilities, my colleague is very very happy with it!

[ninjabeaver]

We're on V6, it's amazing!

Some cracking new features and utilities, my colleague is very very happy with it!

 

Ditto here. Well worth the money. 10/10 for the product and support.

[fafster]

We're using v5 at the moment. I find it an excellent tool, but the lack of user awareness lets it down. With the current round of funding we have for upgrades, I'm going to be ordering v6 plus a few extra copies for other classrooms.

 

Is LanSchool as good?

[Chriss31]

We've been using it on our IT suites for a few months now and I'm very impressed. Extremely rare crashes, good real-time observation and control abilities, and of course, more power in the hands of teaching staff. I also use it in my support role as technician to identify and close sites that contravene the acceptable use policy (after noting down and blocking them ).

 

For those of you who do use it, have you found an easier way to send out multiple files to users, rather than having to type out the directory location you wish to send the file to?

[cookie_monster]

How many of you have used this on Terminal Server / Citrix? We're interested in replacing Ranger Remote Control for this purpose as it seems to randomly kill the server.

[apoth0r]

We use it here on our citrix/thin client setups (approx 90), a few teething problems at first but have been rectified resonably easily

[cookie_monster]

Thanks for the reply Steve. Am I right that if you fix the IP of the thin client devices that they appear in the control console as the client name rather than the name of the logged on user?

 

Were the initial problems easy to sort?

 

Cheers.

[K.C.Leblanc]

We use it here very happy with it.

[localzuk]

Thanks for the reply Steve. Am I right that if you fix the IP of the thin client devices that they appear in the control console as the client name rather than the name of the logged on user?

 

Were the initial problems easy to sort?

 

Cheers.

 

We use it here too for thin clients, and it works flawlessly. The way it works is you define the Terminal servers in the program settings, then it connects to those and opens the list of connected people, presenting each machine as it would any other.

 

No messing with IP addresses etc...

[cookie_monster]

We use it here too for thin clients, and it works flawlessly. The way it works is you define the Terminal servers in the program settings, then it connects to those and opens the list of connected people, presenting each machine as it would any other.

 

No messing with IP addresses etc...

 

Excellent i'm downloading the trial now

 

EDIT:

 

I'd actually heard that you had to set static IP's to group them into rooms, is this not the case?

Edited September 10, 2009 by cookie_monster

[mortstar]

We use it here too for thin clients, and it works flawlessly. The way it works is you define the Terminal servers in the program settings, then it connects to those and opens the list of connected people, presenting each machine as it would any other.

 

No messing with IP addresses etc...

 

+1

 

Works perfectly with our Sun Ray 2s

[Geoff]

Excellent i'm downloading the trial now

 

EDIT:

 

I'd actually heard that you had to set static IP's to group them into rooms, is this not the case?

 

No, you setup ABTutor on one machine. Then you can either group PCs together manually or use AD Groups/OUs as a basis for groups. You then save your configuration off to a network location and point all the other ABTutor installs at it using a command line option. Thus you get centralised configuration of your groups.

 

AB Tutor Control Knowledgebase :: Version 5 - do we need to recreate a set of policies for each tutor workstation, or is there a file which can be created / copied to quickly put a base set of policies into place?

[gshaikh]

We've used LAN School so much better the other ones on the market plus i've got a very good contact there, If you wanna speak to him, contact me first

[moggy]

Thanks Steve for your earlier replies to Grant.

 

Grant works with me and I've been trying to get V 6.3 working with thin clients. I have an issue where:

1. I installed tutor on my PC setting the connection password

2. Ran up ABT

3. Set a Administrator password (different to the connection one)

5. Closed ABT then re-opened without putting in a password i.e. as a Tutor

6. Tried to connect to clients and they failed with 10061 errors

7. Closed ABT re-opened as Administrator

8. I can connect to the clients OK

 

Does this ring any bells with you or have you any ideas on what may be wrong?

 

Thanks

[IanT]

I've installed this in my last school - excellent program (AB Tutor Control)