Today networks are becoming quite pervasive – and as a by-product, so too is the remote control application. Today we have a number of application choices when it comes to controlling a computer remotely. Of these choices there are often small quirks that make them easier or harder to work with. For example with VNC you don’t get more than a few recent entries as an address book goes but you can save your connection as links, with Radmin, you get a decent address book utility but don’t get the options of saving links to file or desktop. Both these applications are powerful, but without something to augment them, they can be very tedious.
The Virtual Admin Utility is a solution to the above problem and more! Working with IconIP 2.0 you can extract all related information about computers on a network that might run remote control software, then from a central location on your network, use the Virtual Admin Utility to run your favorite remote control program and connect. The Virtual Admin Utility is about making computer identification and connections fast!
Here’s how it works: You need to download the freely available IconIP on all computers in your home or office – make sure that you place it in a location that is accessible to all computers as you go out an install the program. When IconIP runs, it will place an Icon in your system try that represents the last number of your IP Address. Double-Click on this icon to access the main window of IconIP. Click once on the “configuration” link on the main window to access IconIP’s configuration options.
You will want to configure IconIP for your remote control application (VNC or Radmin) and then enter the filename and location of the hosts file. if you click on the button labeled “…” you can browse the network to find the location where you’d like to place the file – iciphosts.txt is the recommended name for the hosts file.
IconIP should be configured to run when anyone logs into the computer and will update at a default interval of 10 minutes or as often as you would like. When you have all computers running IconIP 2.0 and configured correctly, there will be a hosts file on the chosen computer (\\PROD in this example) that will contain all the necessary information for the Virtual Admin Utility to help you connect to these computers.
Using the Virtual Admin Utility
You’ve setup your local computers and servers to use the IconIP utility and have a file on one of the computers (\\PROD\shared\iciphosts.txt in the above example). Now that you have this setup, place the Virtual Admin Utility program file (iiadmin.exe) file in the directory where your iciphosts.txt fileis located. The first time you run the Virtual Admin Utility you will see that it has automatically loaded your iciphosts.txt file and is ready to allow connections.
The Virtual Admin Utility main window with the configuration options displayed.
This is where the Virtual Admin Utility shines. You can see in the main window all of the computer names and users logged in, and if you double-click on any of the entries in the window, your chosen remote control program (Radmin or VNC) will automatically run and connect. You don’t need to keep an address book, or worry about port numbers or computer names. If you are an administrator, knowing the username and the computer name will help you easily and quickly connect to, and support your network computers without the need for requesting information. This kind of speed if what the Virtual Admin Utility is about.
The Virtual Admin Utility also includes a number of advanced features that let you control the use of Radmin or VNC to optimize connections. One such feature is adding your own custom connections, this can be done by making use of the right-click menu. For a more complete list of features, please consult your manual.
The Virtual Admin Utility is no longer available, it’s a remnant of a different time.