I'm interested in implementing this product for a mass WAN that involves mixed enviroments.  I have a few questions as to how/what the product is capable of.

1.) Can the product be used to remote install on Windows XP home, Pro, and windows 98 machines if they are not part of a windows Domain?  Because XP home and Pro don't have admin shares (unless Pro is on a domain), and because Win98 doesn't have admin shares at all, is it possible to create the installer to get around this?

I have no problem with opening shares beforehand to install to, but am concerned about editing the registry if the LDAP domain structure isn't present.

2.) Is there any sort of inherent encryption with this product?

3.) I need to be able to administer thousands of PC's in likely hundreds of different configurations.  Will this product do the job using TightVNC?  Is there any sort of GUI functionality that will tell me what machines are up and down real time?

You can email me at jamesr_bentley@hotmail.com.

Thanks,

James Bentley

1) Win9x systems are not going to be supported, since they don't have a WMI server API. Only Windows NT based computers have it.
ADMIN$ share is available even if your Windows XP Pro is part of workgroup. I'm not sure about Home Edition though. But anyway, in v3.0 it will be possible to specify a user defined share, that will be use to copy a VNC installed. So you will be able to use any share instead of ADMIN$ one.

2) Not really, RDP viewer connection is secured, but VNC connection is not. We are planning to include support for UltraVNC DSM plug-in in v3.0 or shortly after v3.0 release.

3) "Will this product do the job using TightVNC" - I'm not sure what exactly did you mean, but I can answer on the second part of the question. Yes VNC Manager included server status updater feature. It works in background and allows checking registered servers status via user-defined time intervals. Current version 2.5 can update status of VNC server only, v3.0 is going to included support for RDP server status updates.

And just a note, that if you purchase v2.5 now you will be able to upgrade to v3.0 for free.