Labs

Formerly part of Intel, LANDesk Software was rolled out in August 2002 as an independent company when the processor giant decided to focus more on its hardware products. Although LANDesk Management Suite is the flagship, the company swiftly released the Instant Support Suite products, which provide help-desk functions that can be rolled out with the minimum of fuss.

The Pro version provides secure support over the Internet, while the version on review is aimed at the LAN environment. Deployment doesn't get any easier - you install the software on your intranet server, set up shares and tell users which web page to go to when they call for support. Click on the link and the client software will be loaded onto their system, making it accessible to the console component.

Once the session has finished, the client software automatically uninstalls

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itself without leaving a trace behind. The system then becomes unavailable until the user downloads the client again. A resident client is also supplied and can be used for providing permanent remote-control tools for systems such as servers.

The console is just as easy to install and can also be deployed via a web page. Pricing is only based on the console, which LANDesk reckons can control up to 300 clients. Domain authentication provides the security, as console users must be members of specific groups before they're allowed to access client systems. At startup, the console interface lists all systems currently available for connection and selecting one fires up a remote-control session. A separate Advisor console is also provided for passively viewing a client system.

File operations are conducted in a separate Explorer window, where we found transfer performance to be comparatively good. You can open up a text-based chat session with a user, remotely reboot their system and employ basic drawing tools to highlight areas of their screen.

Inventory is also provided, although this is probably the weakest part of Instant Support Suite, as it only provided information about the main hardware components on client systems, while virtually all applications other than Internet Explorer went unnoticed. Even so, we found the software a delight to work with - the simplicity and ease of use for which it aims are largely achieved.