DameWare NT, offered by DameWare Development, is an excellent set of PC utilities that let you configure just about everything on a PC, including starting and stopping services remotely and viewing disk-partition details with an added remote-control feature.
DameWare NT integrates more deeply into Active Directory information reporting than any other product tested, letting you search and connect via an Active Directory listing and group clients by domains. Although the product offers enormous detail on PC innards, its remote control lags slightly behind the other offerings.
Connections are touchy, requiring two logons in many cases, and there’s no apparent way for remote clients to initially signal they need to be serviced. Reaching out to the remote clients means using IP addresses and navigating through firewalls, which is difficult when supporting mobile users. On the local network, screen performance is middle of the pack.
One nice security feature is DameWare’s support for smart card readers for authentication.
Once linked to a remote PC, extra support tools are surprisingly limited for such a detail-heavy product. There are several command buttons to send Control/Alt/Delete or lock the keyboard commands on the remote side (a great feature to stop “helpful” users), but fewer than expected.
Oddly, DameWare does not offer a two-paned file-transfer utility, as do many of the other products, but separate upload and download folders on the connected systems.
DameWare NT should appeal to companies tied to Active Directory looking for detailed PC diagnostics along with the ability to do some local remote-control chores.
Return to remote-test introduction
