David's community posts


Viewer - Details View Columns

David, User (Posts: 25)
Feb 15, 2014 11:31:35 pm EST
Support level: Free or trial
It would be extremely helpful to be able to add custom columns to the details view of the Viewer. Since the Remote Utilities software is focused primarily on Windows, using some native Windows resources would be hugely beneficial here. For instance, I'd like a column that I could name say "Windows Version". I could then define a custom WMI query to run against the remote host to populate the contents of that column. I could customize my WMI query to present the necessary information as I see fit; for exampte, a host running Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition with Service Pack 1 could be displayed as WS2k8E-R2-SP1. The point is that the data that populates the column can be customized and the addition of extra columns that display information I need to know can be created as needed.

The Viewer already seems to use WMI in the Inventory Manager, so it looks like that functionality is already implemented, but just needs to be linked.

Default Connection Settings Improvement

David, User (Posts: 25)
Feb 15, 2014 11:15:25 pm EST
Support level: Free or trial
It would be great if the Default Connection Settings worked a little bit more intuitively. Maybe that isn't the right word, but let me explain...

If I have a connection to several remote hosts and the Default Connection setting for the Auto-ping value is set to 15 seconds, and then I want to add more remote hosts but change the Auto-ping value in the Default Connection Settings to 30 seconds, the change is only reflected in any additional remote hosts that I add from that point on. The existing remote hosts' connection Auto-ping values aren't changed.

I'm not sure if this is by design or not, but it becomes frustrating when there are many hosts that need their Default Connection Settings changed, especially because I cannot select more than one to change those settings. Additionally, there is no way I can see which hosts have the updated settings and which ones don't without opening the properties of each host and editing them manually.

If I've only confused you, please let me know and I'll try to explain it a different way.

External Tools Improvement

David, User (Posts: 25)
Feb 15, 2014 10:18:27 pm EST
Support level: Free or trial
What I'd like to be able to do is setup a list of several tools that I use on a regular basis against remote hosts. For instance, I find myself using the Microsoft Sysinternals tools on a weekly basis - so it would be great if I could add a button or context menu item to run some of those tools against a remote machine from within the Viewer instead of starting the Remote Execute connection mode, browsing to the tool, and setting it's properties each time.

Blank/Locked Screen

David, User (Posts: 25)
Feb 15, 2014 10:09:06 pm EST
Support level: Free or trial
First I would like to quickly introduce myself a new user of Remote Utilities! I purchased a single operator license 2 days ago and already have over 60 hosts deployed! So far, this is the *best* product and does precisely what I need it to. With that said, there are a few features I would love to see implemented. I'll post them to this board as separate requests - so here's the first:

It would be great if the blank screen or lock screen displayed on the console monitor had the option of no scroll bars and stretched edge to edge. In the current implementation there is a small (1 or 2 pixel) border around the lock screen as well as a scroll bar on the right side even when they aren't needed.

I'd like this just to give it a more professional look. I'm an IT consultant and it would be great if I could use HTML (which I know I can) to center my logo on the screen without any borders or unnecessary scroll bars.

[resolved] Reboot into safe mode

David, User (Posts: 25)
Feb 14, 2014 4:03:29 pm EST
Support level: Free or trial
After a little testing, I've found that rebooting into Safe Mode seems to only work on Windows Vista and higher (I say that only because the solution to the OP was using bcdedit - which only exists on Windows Vista and higher). I've tested this on both Windows 7 Professional x64 and Windows XP Professional x86.

Has no one come across this issue in over a year??

Edit: Just for clarity's sake - rebooting into Safe Mode worked on Windows 7 but not on Windows XP. I'm thinking the solution for Windows XP would be to modify "%SYSTEMDRIVE%\boot.ini" and append " /safeboot:network" to the end of the primary boot partition entry. Although, this would get tricky if there are more than 1 operating systems installed that make use of this boot.ini file. The catch to doing this is that it needs to be undone when the computer restarts, or it will continue to boot into Safe Mode. I'm not sure what or where the control mechanism is when this is changed from msconfig or during the boot process (ie: booting into Safe Mode by pressing F8 during the boot process), because in either of those cases, the option is removed when the computer is restarted and it will boot normally the next time. I was attempting to edit my original post for clarity, but I probably just added confusion...
Edited:David - Feb 14, 2014 4:49:43 pm EST (Clarity)