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Client management and configuration

Control Center

Article from ADMIN 02/2010

By Björn Bürstinghaus

Many commercial and free solutions exist to centralize the management of Windows clients. Desktop Authority by ScriptLogic has a number of features that set it apart from the crowd.

Centralized client management is possible in the enterprise with the use of group policy functionality included in Windows. However, administrators will soon find themselves encountering restrictions in configuration and deployment. Desktop Authority http://1 offers several options for automating computer and user profile provisioning on top of group policy management (Figure 1). Additionally, Desktop Authority includes remote management and hardware and software inventory functionality, along with the USB port security module and the password self-service for fast resetting of passwords by users.

Figure 1: The Desktop Authority Manager window in a typical Windows layout with the navigation tree on the left and the details in the main panel.

Installation and Setup

To install Desktop Authority, you will need an Active Directory structure: The integration and assignment of various profiles uses the Netlogon share on the domain controllers.

Desktop Authority will install on Windows Server 2003 (R2) and Windows Server 2008 (R2). The configuration and inventory data for the reporting functions are store in a

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