XP Home on workgroup using tniaudit.exe

[StevenAvery]

Hi Folks,

 

Greetings. Like working with TNI. On trial now.

 

Most important immediate issue ... I would like to have TNI working nicely on the XP Home puters on the workgroup, since I have about 8 of 18 inherited that are in that world of difficulty and convolution. (I note that apparently XP Home puters also struggle in Active Domains, needing workarounds or OS changeovers.) Many, or most, of the network inventory software products do not make much of an effort to handle those puters in any sort of automated way and small business owners often acquired their computers before there was network administration considerations.

 

You have nicely in the FAQ:

 

"Though it is possible to scan XP Home locally by running the standalone audit tool "tniaudit.exe" (located in the program's installation folder) on that machine. It will generate an XML file which should be put to the "Data" folder of the program. This newly scanned computer can be added to the network tree by selecting "Tools - Refresh data storage folder" menu option."

 

Now .. does that mean that the local XP Home puters should actually do a full install of TNI .. or do you just set up the same couple of folders and add the tniaudit.exe file in the same place as on the base puter ? Either/or ? Is there an advantage to an install ? Have I missed some salient point ? Or do you simply put the .exe anywhere on the target XP Home system, where it will create the .xml in the same folder ?

 

Also, when this is done, will you have essentially full real-time integration ? (ie. Real-time as long as you hand-run the tniaudit.exe on the XP-Home puters after any significant updates to make a new .xml file). Or are there differences and lacks ?

 

Do you hand-carry (file xfer) the .xml file over to the main puter, or is that xfer automated ? Looking at what you write, a file transfer-over (not difficult, but a smidgen clunky if frequent) seems to be implied. Is that correct ?

 

Third question.

 

Does Total Network Monitor have any workarounds ? Or is this simply locked out ? This is not a big issue for me, I really am interested in the TNI at this time (till we go Active Directory in a year or so) however .. this is a good time to ask.

 

Thanks for your assistance.

 

=====================================

 

Followup .. I just put the file "anywhere" and it creates the .xml in a "data" sub-folder, which I then copied over with Free Commander. So I think there is no intention for an install. The FAQ might want to be worded a bit more clearly. If there an automated "pick-up" possible ? That question stands, but the running and sending was very easy by hand.

 

Shalom,

Steven Avery

[Support]

Now .. does that mean that the local XP Home puters should actually do a full install of TNI .. or do you just set up the same couple of folders and add the tniaudit.exe file in the same place as on the base puter ? Either/or ? Is there an advantage to an install ? Have I missed some salient point ? Or do you simply put the .exe anywhere on the target XP Home system, where it will create the .xml in the same folder ?

No, you don't need to install TNI itself on any computer except your own (that is administrator's PC or server). There are no advantages to this. You only need to put the file "tniaudit.exe" to any folder on XP Home, run it and it will create the XML file in the "Data" subfolder. Then you copy it manually to the main program's data folder and select the specified menu point to load this file to the program.

 

Also, when this is done, will you have essentially full real-time integration ? (ie. Real-time as long as you hand-run the tniaudit.exe on the XP-Home puters after any significant updates to make a new .xml file). Or are there differences and lacks ?

To update the information you would need to run "tniaudit.exe" again, and replace the old file in the main program's data folder with the newly generated XML file. Then select it again in the program's interface and you'll see the new information (also see below).

 

Do you hand-carry (file xfer) the .xml file over to the main puter, or is that xfer automated ? Looking at what you write, a file transfer-over (not difficult, but a smidgen clunky if frequent) seems to be implied. Is that correct ?

Yes, currently it should be done manually. However, note that when you run "tniaudit.exe", it also creates a file "tniaudit.ini" with its settings in the same folder. If you change the parameter "savepath" there and run the tool with command-line parameter "/scripted", it will load the settings and save the file to that folder. It can be a network folder (but better not the program's data folder itself). So the tool will save the files from different computers to the same network folder. You can then manually update the files taking them from that folder, or specify a path to it in "Options - Audit agent" and then select "Tools - Refresh audit tool folder", and information update will be made automatically. It is described in the FAQ, in the question concerning setting up a domain logon script scan. The most recent version of the FAQ is available here: http://docs.softinventive.com/En/Total_Network_Inventory/FAQ

 

Does Total Network Monitor have any workarounds ? Or is this simply locked out ? This is not a big issue for me, I really am interested in the TNI at this time (till we go Active Directory in a year or so) however .. this is a good time to ask.

Due to the XP Home restrictions, you cannot use Windows probes (Event Log, service state, registry state, system performance). All others are possible.

 

Followup .. I just put the file "anywhere" and it creates the .xml in a "data" sub-folder, which I then copied over with Free Commander. So I think there is no intention for an install. The FAQ might want to be worded a bit more clearly. If there an automated "pick-up" possible ? That question stands, but the running and sending was very easy by hand.

Exactly. As for the automated pick-up, please see above, and the FAQ (question about logon script scan).