The Control Center

The Control Center is a program that plugs into the Microsoft Management console framework on a Windows NT/2000/XP Professional computer. The Control Center is used to create Computer Lists consisting of network domains and computer names on which the Spector Client (Client) will be managed. The Control Center provides tools that allow:

The automatic discovery of all computers on a network, from which Computer Lists can then be created
The tools to import computer names for creating Computer Lists, or to manually create Computer Lists

The Control Center loads a Computer List in order to define the computers on the network for recording management. Each computer in the Computer List will be accessed to determine:

Its presence on the network
Whether it is accessible by the Control Center
Whether or not the Client is installed

The Control Center can be configured to allow for each computer in the Computer List to be assigned to a Computer Group.

A Computer List can contain computers that are logically organized into multiple Computer Groups
A Computer Group can contain computers from multiple Windows domains

The ability to manage your computers as Computer Groups in a Computer List allows you, through the Control Center, to perform group installations or group configurations, which will simultaneously install or configure all Clients in a Computer Group. This capability significantly reduces the time required to manage a large number of Client installations.

Although only one Control Center installation is necessary, the Control Center can be installed on other computers to allow multiple individuals to manage different Computer Lists or to share monitoring privileges for the same Computer List.