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  1. Documentation Center
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  3. Total Network Inventory
  4. Options
Table of contents
  1. 1. General
  2. 2. Connection
  3. 3. Miscellaneous

Options

Table of contents
  1. 1. General
  2. 2. Connection
  3. 3. Miscellaneous

General

This page contains the following settings:

  • Hide category panel when not needed: if checked, category panel hides itself when mouse is not over it and appears when mouse passes to the right edge of the main window.
  • Cut user name option allows to hide domain part of the computer name (for example if you network does not use domains).
  • Show welcome screen option allows to show welcome screen at each program startup (corresponds to the checkbox at the welcome sceen itself).
  • Maximize main window option allows to maximize main program window at each program startup.
  • Automatically build report option: if checked, a report for the selected computer or group and current category will be generated immediately each time you enter report building mode.
  • Select character set: this option allows to select the character set which will be used for captions in program interface and reports. Variant LANGUAGE_DEFINED means that program will use charset stated in language file for currently selected language. Variant DEFAULT_CHARSET means the usage of default charset, which corresponds to the current system locale.
  • Network adapters view options: this group of options allows to enable or disable displaying of certain network adapters which correspong the specified parameters. Physical network adapters should be interpreted as network controllers present on motherboard. Virtual network adapters should be interpreted as VMWare adapters, various miniports and so on.
  • Sort mode of device classes: this option specifies how device classes in Device category view will be sorted - by descriptions (which can be different for localized operating systems) or by names (which are the same for all Windows® versions).
  • Use tray icon: this option enables or disables the icon in operating system notification area ("tray"). You can choose whether to hide application window when minimized and/or closed by X button in window caption; anyway, a click on the tray icon is the way to restore it again.
  • Log events: this option enables or disables logging of program events to a text log file. You can choose to clear the log file when it exceeds some size, or click an appropriate button to open it now or clear it now.

Connection

This page contains setting concerning network scan process:

  • Global username and password are used for authentication of network access during any type of rescan. The password is not stored as plain text, but it is encrypted by a proprietary non-disclosed algorithm. Beware that for now this algorithm is pretty simple and is not intended to prevent purposeful disclosure of your password by a skilled professional. Reasons for this include impossibility of hash algorithms usage (we need to make backward decryption) and inconvenience of open-key algorithms usage (you would need to provide a key each time scan is made). So if you are concerned of this, do not keep your password here, or protect application directory (or its "ini" file) by means of your workstation file system access rights, which should be enough in general case.
  • Authorize as current user during rescan: if checked, you will be authorized as current user instead of specified credentials during all types of rescan.
  • Use these credentials in scan wizard also: if checked, these credentials will be inserted automatically into appropriate fields in scan wizard.
  • Default IP address detection: sometimes computers have more than one IP address, this option allows to select which of them to use as default address, i.e. address, which will be displayed in network tree.
  • Maximum concurrent ping (scan) threads number: these options allow you to specify the limit of concurrent threads that are started during scan process. Bigger values allow lesser general scan time, but they also need more performance from your workstation. Recommended values are from 20 till 50.
  • Automatically generate inventory numbers: this option enables generation of inventory numbers for all new computers that you scan from you machine through the scan wizard. Domain logon script scan is not affected by this. You may use these inventory numbers for you accounting, or specify your own numbers through Edit computer dialog.
  • Network places overview options: this group of options determine the program's behaviour during network scan through network places overview. It can be defined here whether to ping computers before scanning (this requires obligatory resolving of IP address, thus corresponding options will be force-enabled), and whether to resolve computers IP addresses during scan process. In general case usage of these options may slow down the scan process to different extent, depending on network configuration and DNS service availability, though there is no much necessity in usage of these options, thus they can be enabled at your discretion.
  • IP address ranges options: this group of options determine the program's behaviour during network scan through IP address ranges. It can be defined here whether to ping computers before scanning and whether to resolve computer names during scan process. In general case usage of ping before scan option in this mode speeds up the scan process, because when trying to connect to an unused IP addres or computer which is powered off, the ping timeout usually happens much faster than denial of connection by SMB or RPC protocols. It is recommended to disable this option only if ICMP-traffic is blocked in your network (echo-packets could not be transmitted). Second option - resolve network names - may slow down the scan process to different extent, depending on network configuration and DNS service availability, though there is no much necessity in usage of this option, thus it can be enabled at your discretion.
  • Connection method: this options allows to select the connection method used during computers scannig process. The program uses two methods: local scanning with the help of standalone audit tool, which is launched at remote computer by helper service from the name of LocalSystem (it happens through SMB protocol with usage of named pipes, and requires administrative access to ADMIN$ resource for files copying and IPC$ resource for controlling the service manager, in general case this method is more compatible than the other one; the method is referenced here as "file sharing method"); and remote scanning via direct connection to WMI service (it is made by RPC protocol and ofter requires additional firewalls setup; the method is referenced here as "direct connection method"). The fist two variant of this option allow to define usage of both methods, when second method is used only if first of them failed by any reason (access denial or something else), and differ only in order of these methods usage. The third and fourth variants allow to define usage of only one of these methods. The choice for this option setup ofter determined by the network conditions, for example, if majority of computers use embedded Windows Firewall of Windows XP SP2 with default settings and/or ISA, then variant "file sharing method" would be preferable. The first variant, which is default, is recommended for the early period of program usage as the most compatible one.

Miscellaneous

This page contains settings which have not been added to other pages:

  • Check for program updates: this option allows to define the period of automatic check for new versions of the program (requires direct internet access).
  • Installed software view options: this group of options allow to enable or disable display of specific types of installed software. This can be useful if you don't want to overload the installed software information with Windows hotfixes and system components.
  • Extended display identification data: this group of options allow to enable or disable display of additional detailed data about monitor (display) of a computer. EDID information includes name and manufacturer, video input level, manufacture week and year, serial number, visible image size, picture aspect ratio, maximum resolution and digital power modes support. Detailed information adds monitor ID and model, sync. inputs, horizontal and vertical frequency ranges, gamma value and color features. Supported video modes, which display is controlled by separate checkboxes, are taken from EDID which is stored in monitor firmware and may not always correspong to the modes provided by display driver.
  • Common custom fields: refer to the last section of Changing PC information page of this manual to know more about custom fields and common custom fields. The list in this window allows to define the names of custom fields which will be common for all computers. The values of these fields are defined in Edit PC window for each computer separately, where common fields are displayed first and marked by asterix. The usage of buttons here is the same as in Edit PC window. Note that when you define a value for an empty common custom field, it is stored in data file with all other fields. This means that if you rename a common custom field in options window, the common field with new name and empty value will be shown as common field for such computers, while the field with old name will become simple (non-common) custom field and will keep its value. The same happens when you delete a common custom field in Options - it will not be displayed in those computers that had no value defined for this field, but non-empty fields will become simple custom fields and will not be deleted.
  • Hide user accounts which never logged on: this option allows to hide accounts in User accounts category which have never logged on to the network from the selected computer.
  • Visually separate items information by space strings: this option allows to insert space strings between separate items in main information area and full reports, thus increasing the readability of information (for example, each processor entry in multiprocessor system will be separated by space string and so on).

Page last modified 15:39, 3 Apr 2009 by Admin

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