Network Application Usage software

[ledow]

Can anyone help me find a free (or of negligible cost for small networks) program which can be run on a network of computers and log *approximate* times for the execution of each program?

I work in a school who are looking for a program that, at the end of the year, can give them a rundown of which programs were run on which logins on which computers.

There's plenty of (very expensive) ones available but does anyone know of a cheaper one (preferably with free trial)?

We want to be able to measure total application usage (graphs and statistics of how long in total each program was used for across the network, e.g. Microsoft Word was used for 7000 minutes total this year, each session was on average about 20 minutes), login and computer usage (so we can spot the kids who NEVER log in or the computers that go unused or get too busy), and be able to drill down into each computer/login/application to be able to see, for example, what the most popular program was on COMPUTER1, what program user X most likes to use etc.

I've googled like mad and can only find massive programs that cost a fortune and seem to do millions of other jobs at the same time (e.g. controlling licenses, killing programs, restricting logins etc.) which we do not need it to do. Things like Ranger are far too intrusive but generate just the sort of reports we want.

Are there really no freeware/shareware/cheap commercial programs that can do this? Am I going to have to go and write my own?

[vehelpfulguy]

Microsoft provide some very useful web pages for teachers, helping them manage and use PCs at schools.

The US web site is here http://www.microsoft.com/education/default.mspx

The UK web site is here http://www.microsoft.com/uk/education/

There is something on the US site called the Microsoft Shared Computer Toolkit that may do what you want (and it is free). Have not read all the specs so may not.

On the web site they do offer various forums where teachers can ask questions specific to education so maybe you can ask on there.

.

[ledow]

The Shared Computer Toolkit doesn't seem to do what I want and is FAR too much for such a simple problem - it even restricts access to stuff like Windows Safe Mode etc.

I can't find anything on Microsoft's website that even looks close to being able to do this.

Thanks for trying, though. Anyone else?

[LeMarchand]

Until I got to the end of your post I was going to suggest "Ranger"! We use it in our school and while it can be very annoying to get around some of its restrictions, it seems fairly solid. I think it does all the stuff you want (we don't really need that sort of info - thank god!), and I believe it can be tailored to stop being quite so intrusive. Not sure of the cost, as it was already installed when I started!

[ledow]

Yeah, I've used Ranger in another school but it's just not suitable for this school. Looking at http://www.rangersuite.com it would run a few thousand pounds for the school I'm at, which is out of their budget considering they have a brand new �30,000 network which does everything Ranger does (and better) except for the application logging.

Most probably, installing Ranger would be a step-back anyway, given that this system is very locked down (kids can't do *anything* but run the programs that are put on their desktop), it would probably be a pain to configure and might even interfere with the stuff that's already running, hence my reluctance to install it. My experience with previous versions of Ranger show that it's very intrusive and so more likely to interfere with what we have.

The application logging of Ranger was actually my inspiration for trying to get this program up and working. The idea went down well with the staff but it seems that there's no software that will do it without spending �1000's or installing lots of unnecessary garbage.

Really annoying considering that I know that I can write a program to do it myself (albeit not as pretty) for next-to-nothing. I was just hoping someone else had already done it for me. :-)

[Tim B]

Surely your answer's in your reply, write it yourself, if it works then sell it on and give the profits to your school after taking out your costs.

[LeMarchand]

Received an email today at work about a new(?) site/forum for school IT staff. Might be worth you trying there for ideas. You probably got the same mail, but just in case you didn't, try http://www.icttechnician.com/ . Not had much of a chance to look around, but it may be a useful resource anyway!

[Prabhdeep]

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