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Re: Inventory question
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Inventory question
1:47 PM EDT 4/4/07
Hi everyone. I was just informed that I need to do an inventory of our computers using TechAtlas, and I have a question about which method would be best for our use.

We have three Windows servers - two running Windows 2000 Server and one running Windows 2003 Server. All three of these servers are part of a workgroup, not a domain. All of our public computers belong to this same workgroup. Our staff computers, however, are different. Our County Government's IT department has a domain controller, of which the vast majority of our staff computers are a part. The rest of our staff computers belong to the same workgroup as our servers and public computers.

Confused yet? My question is whether I should be doing the manual entry for the inventory. Will the automated vbs tool inventory all of our workgroup AND domain computers, while at the same time ignoring the several hundred other County Government computers that belong to the same domain?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Donny
Re: Inventory question
3:03 PM EDT 4/4/07 as a reply to Donny Frank-Rice.
Hi Donny,

I'm guessing that you are completing this inventory because you are participating in the Opportunity Online Hardware Grants from the Gates Foundation. If that is true, you only need to inventory the public access computers that are in the library. And to do that you actually have three options: 1) the manual form 2) the local tool or 3) the network tool.

It sounds like the best options for you would be the manual tool or the local tool. The local tool will still run the VBS script and you will need to run it on each public machine individually. You will also need to be logged in as the administrator for the tool to work. The advantage to this is that you will gather comprehensive information about each machine and the tool works very quickly.

You can also choose to use the manual tool for the inventory as you suggested. If you have a lot of hardware that is identical, you can copy a computer profile that you have already created to help save some time. Just go back and change the name of the computer after you create the copy.

If you run the network tool on the server that is the domain controller, you will be inventorying all of the machines that are listed in the active directory, including any that are part of the county network. That might result in a very extensive list of computers and you would need to go through the inventory and indicate which are public access machines.

Hope this helps!
-Kendra Morgan
TechAtlas Outreach Coordinator
Re: Inventory question
3:06 PM EDT 4/4/07 as a reply to Kendra Morgan.
Thanks Kendra,

Yes, this is part of the grant you mentioned. I appreciate your verification of what I suspected.

Donny