Labs

If top-notch security is high on your list, Symantec's pcAnywhere won't disappoint. It starts by refusing to allow access to any host system without a valid username and password, beefs this up with features such as modem callback, limited login attempts and encryption, and tops it off with support for NT domain authentication, ADS, NDS and LDAP. And, if that's not enough, this latest version also includes a host-assessment tool that evaluates each connection type and advises on possible security risks.

The product scales well with demand and the full version on review includes a Package utility for remote deployment. There's a huge choice here - you can deploy selected pcAnywhere components with custom configurations and Symantec also includes a web server remote-installation option that we found only took a few minutes to set up. Option sets also

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allow different default settings to be applied easily to installation packages or to local systems.

Each system can either be a host, where it receives incoming requests, or a remote that controls other systems. The host component can be deployed easily and configured to run at system startup. The pcAnywhere Manager keeps your profiles and packages neat and tidy and it's possible to create custom profiles for specific connections. Remote systems can browse from a list of available network hosts and start with a remote-control or file-transfer session, or you're able to load both and swap easily between the two. The remote-control window offers controls for copying clipboard contents between systems, having text or voice conversations and sending restart and keystroke combinations. You can also record your actions for later playback, although we could find no way of broadcasting these files to multiple clients.

The file-transfer window is easy to use and supports drag-and-drop between guest and host. You get file and folder synchronisation, folder comparison and an automatic file-transfer tool, although LapLink's agent utility is far more elegant. Furthermore, LapLink provides a scheduler, whereas the only automation pcAnywhere offers is to run a job at startup or when a control session is initiated. Even so, along with the tough security measures and deployment tools, pcAnywhere is a far better candidate as a support aid.