Start Up Method

The Startup Method properties determine how Spector CNEs CEAdmin initializes its internal network configuration. The Control Center can be configured to either Discover All Network Computers or Load Startup Computer List From File. If Discover All Network Computers is selected, then the Control Center will attempt to discover all computers on the network at startup.

Note: This can be a lengthy process for installations on large networks. On smaller networks, the time to discover all computers on the network may be minimal.

By default, the Control Center is set by default to Load Startup Computer List From File to prevent auto-discovery on startup. In either case, following the Startup Method, any network computers discovered or loaded are displayed in the Results window when the Manage Computers view is displayed.

In addition, within the Startup Method section are the computer list filename and Select and Edit buttons. These features are provided so that different configuration files can be configured and selected for loading on startup. The default computer list filename is NetConfig.xml. As is evident by the filename extension, the format of the computer list file is XML. The filename does not have to be 'netconfig', but the extension should be '.xml'.

If the specified file is present, it automatically loads from the Control Center. If the file loads successfully, the filename displays on the status bar at the bottom of the Control Center. If the file is not present, the Control Center automatically defaults to Discover All Network Computers on startup.

The computer list file is used to filter out the domains and computers that you want to include in the Control Center. If Load Startup Computer List from File is enabled and the computer list file is loaded, only those domains and specified computers will be included in the discovery process and all subsequent tasks executed from within the Control Center.

Since the file format is XML, you must have Microsoft's msxml3.dll (or later) in your System32 directory. This should not be a problem, since it installs with Internet Explorer 5 (IE5) or greater and with Windows 2000 and XP Professional installations. See NetConfig XML Format for a detailed description of the computer list file format.

Select the Select button to change the desired configuration file loaded at startup
Select the Edit button to create or modify computer list files

The Network Configuration Edit dialog box has various ways to add/remove workstations from the configuration.

The Current Computer Configuration list is initially filled with the original contents of the loaded network configuration (XML) file
By selecting a domain from the Domains list, you can filter the computers in this list to just that domain
The Computers edit control allows you to type any computer name in free form. Three Add buttons allow you to insert individual entries into the Current Computer Configuration list

The Add button next to the Computers edit control inserts the string entered (prefixed with the domain selection)
The Add button next to the Domains list inserts the selected domain (post-fixed with the string '\\*', which denotes all workstations in the domain)
The Add button between the two network lists inserts the selected computer from the Available Computers list into the Current Computer Configuration list (prefixed with the domain selection)
You can delete any item from the Current Computer Configuration list by selecting the item and clicking the Remove button

The Clear buttons next to each list of computers allows you to delete all items from the respective list
The Load buttons next to each list of computers displays a file open dialog that allows you to select an existing network configuration (XML) file to load into the respective list. This is a convenient way to pre-configure either list
The Import button next to each list of computers displays a file open dialog that allows you to select a text file to load into the respective list. This file's format is DOMAIN\\COMPUTER1, DOMAIN\\COMPUTER2, etc. A wildcard character '*' can be used at the start or end of the computer portion of the string. Each entry can be on separate lines, eliminating the need for the comma separator. Additionally, the '\\' between each domain-computer pair can be replaced with a space. This allows you to import a list from a spreadsheet or database, so that you may easily pre-configure either list
The Discover button next to the Available Computers list can be used to populate this list with all computers on your network
The Save button allows you to save the contents of the Current Computer Configuration list in the proper format used by the network configuration (XML) file

Since the Load Startup Computer List From File feature is used to load groups of computers on startup, maintaining different configuration files allow you to maintain multiple configurations. The configuration file may contain all computers that all reside in the same domain, or it can contain groups of computers from different domains. Maintaining multiple computer list files allows you to administer only those computers that you are interested in administering.

Note: For small networks this may not be necessary, since it is relatively easy to handle a small number of computers in the display. For larger networks, it may be very beneficial to reduce the number of computers discovered and tracked to only those computers that interest you.

Sometimes network or remote computer problems cause significant delays in the discovery process. These delays are similar to those detected when browsing the network using your standard Windows based tools. By using the computer list file, you can potentially eliminate those delays by NOT including the problem domains and/or computers in the file.