Control your network performance right here and right now!Comments on:

By: Weezie

Weezie — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 08:30:50 +0000

When are we going to have REAL FREE software and not just free trials of everything?????

By: AxCut

AxCut — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 07:28:20 +0000

I downloaded and started this offer and like most posters I wasn’t impressed. I noticed that on the main window there’s a button that says ‘Total Network Inventory’. I clicked it and was told that the software wasn’t installed so it couldn’t run. Fair enough.

Then I remember that my server has Total Inventory installed, so I installed today’s offering and ‘Total Network Monitor’ is much easier to use. The caveat is that you have to have both installed to get the extra functionality.

Maybe GAOTD can ask Softinventive for a rerun on the inventory program.

AxCut

By: Kelly

Kelly — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 06:06:50 +0000

This program has too many errors to be of real use.

By: anonymuse

anonymuse — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 01:25:23 +0000

I currently use Network Magic and I was going to dump it until I found out that Cisco recently bought it. (I hope to see a lot of improvements coming to it with a great corp like that now owning it.)

Needless to say, I don’t need todays offering but it could be good for those who need a network management program. Thank you anyway, GAOTD.

By: dwm

dwm — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:06:07 +0000

@#14. You do NOT have to enter addresses manually. Just an address range. Not very difficult to do.

This program shows ALL my devices, not just the workstations. I like seeing the IP addresses for everything at a glance.

It shows more than Vista’s Network Icon.

I installed it on XP Pro SP2 and Vista Home Premium SP1 and it installed just fine. Note: You can’t run more than one copy at a time on your network.

Thanks to GOTD!

By: Fubar

Fubar — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 23:06:57 +0000

#26, Spiritwolf, thanks for the link to The Dude, it has more features and is much better than Total Network Monitor, although Total Network Monitor does have a few Windows-specific probes which The Dude doesn’t. On Vista, The Dude needs to be run as an administrator. The EULA is lengthy because it uses a lot of open-source components. If you run the server, you can select when it runs. It has a lot of features and provides a great deal of information (has tooltip-like displays, uses double-click and right-click extensively), but it’s still not as good as Vista about identifying devices, nor does it automatically generate maps (you have to manually link). So far, Vista’s network map is the only one to identify that my router has a switch, which Vista displays as a separate component.

To the people giving my comment #6 a thumbs-down, that was just an FYI. It may not be a big deal to you, but I find it very useful that Vista is able to display an actual image of the hardware. Obviously, it had to come from somewhere. When I have time, I’ll dig through my firewall logs and try to determine whether the device supplied the icon, or whether Vista’s network mapping tool looked it up online. Vista supplies a lot of useful information about the devices it finds. For example, I didn’t know that the TV tuner hardware has a webpage. Unlike routers, it’s not the user interface, it’s just informational.

By: Pulsar

Pulsar — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 22:37:19 +0000

Profiessional and free alternative..
http://www.spiceworks.com/

By: Jewish Georgie

Jewish Georgie — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 21:50:36 +0000

Sucks when people leave comments about why would I use this, or anything that shows a biased/personal comment to then rank it as being bad software. If you don’t understand what is being offered or have no use for it, DON’T VOTE!!! This could be an extremely valuable tool for network admins but then you see the votes are so out of wack, one would think its a pos and pass on it. I’ve seen some extremely useful applications here and votes showing around 75% thumbs down and comments like I have mentioned. Seriously people don’t vote if you have no use for such a program or don’t bother to even test it.

I personally like CAPTURIX NETWORKS myself for a network toolkit.

By: Patsy

Patsy — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 21:39:59 +0000

Thanks GAOTD.

Not sure how often I will use it but I gave it a shot.

By: Don

Don — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 21:07:51 +0000

Installed on XP fine. Wizard ran fine but didn’t identify any of the nodes correctly. Node info is easily reconfigurable but limited to a small list of icon types.

To tell you the truth, I have no idea what the purpose is for these types of network monitoring programs? All this information & more is available through the web-interface for most routers. More importantly, it can be configured at the router to appear like you want it throughout the network.