DanWare NetOp Remote Control 7.6

DanWare's NetOp is one of the main players in the remote-access software arena, and in our last look we were impressed with the level of features on offer. This latest version adds even more to the melting pot and DanWare claims NetOp is the first of its type to support Windows Server 2003. However, platform support goes a lot further than this, as Windows CE, Mac OS X, Linux and even Sun Solaris are now welcomed into the fold as guests as well as hosts, allowing NetOp to offer the most comprehensive cross-platform remote-access features.

Security features were always good, but these see further improvements. Support for NT domain and Active Directory authentication have been complemented with options for guest authentication using Directory Services via LDAP (lightweight directory access protocol), while the levels of access can also be determined by group membership. The connection process may now be sped up as guests can cache login information and reuse it in subsequent sessions.

Unlike many remote-access products, NetOp hosts won't allow incoming access without a valid password and you can specify the same one for all incoming connection requests. Where multiple systems are running this component, you may insist that each guest has its own unique password.

Alas, the documentation doesn't see any improvements and is just as confusing as before - it merely lists each NetOp function in the order it appears in the user interfaces. For a product with so many features, it would be useful to include some task-based advice; as it stands, some tools could remain unnoticed.

DanWare also claims to have boosted file-transfer performance over TCP/IP by as much as 40 per cent and, although we didn't see anything in these realms, testing did show a marked improvement. Using the same files from the group test, we copied the 571MB VideoCD file from guest to host in 169 seconds for a 26 per cent improvement, while the 602MB mixture was delivered to the host in 190 seconds for an 8 per cent increase in speed. Overall, file transfer has been improved noticeably, although NetOp is still some way behind NetSupport Manager 8 (see issue 104, p183), which is substantially faster than much of the competition.

Installation is as slick as ever, with options to manually install components or use NetOp's Deployment tool, which allows the guest and host to be sent to multiple Windows systems. We found NetOp worked fine on our Windows Server 2003 systems both as a guest and host. The main guest interface presents a neat row of tabbed folders for each function and you can browse the network to discover all systems running the host software. The file-transfer applet sees a few more tools. Right-clicking on a file or folder provides Explorer drop-down menu options and opening host files causes them to be transferred to the guest plus the relevant application launched locally if available.

In terms of features, NetOp 7.6 is clearly closing the gap with NetSupport Manager 8, although this still holds a significant lead in terms of performance. Even so, NetOp offers an impressive range of features for the price and should be a serious contender for businesses that place a high priority on security.

Author: Dave Mitchell