Under The Hood
Imagine going to a mechanic and telling him you may have an oil leak. Then the mechanic opens the hood and takes out a spatula and frying pan…
Every tech should have the proper tools and know how to use them. One of the first things you are taught when troubleshooting issues in any version of Windows is how to use the command line and the task manager. They are the trusty number 10 wrench and flathead screwdriver that every mechanic should know how to use.
But here’s something that even mechanics cannot do yet; let’s get the command line and task manager to work remotely!! You may say, “So what Mr. Goverlan, there are plenty of remote command line and task manager tools”.
Well, in this blog we are going to talk about how the Goverlan Remote Administration Suite goes above and beyond your expectations for a Remote CMD and Task Manager. The Goverlan Remote Administration Suite adds a layer of functionality to these standard tools to extend their ordinary use, making your job faster and your life easier.
“The Goverlan Remote CMD and Task Manager go beyond the standard functionality of the useful utilities. ”
Goverlan Remote CMD
Let’s start with the Goverlan Remote CMD. When it comes to the command line, the requirements are really simple. Give me a flashing cursor – that’s it. You should be able to troubleshoot anything once you see that command line cursor.
With the Goverlan Remote Admin Suite, one of your best tools will be the Remote CMD.
First of all, the Goverlan Remote CMD allows you to switch between target computers very easily. You can switch from Computer A to Computer B with the ‘Connect To’ link.
The next awesome thing about the Goverlan Remote CMD is that you can also switch the user account that the console is running as. You can run CMD as the console user, as yourself or as any account that is logged into the workstation or server. Now you can see how commands will behave with the permissions of the account you select. This is very useful for troubleshooting access rights issues to network shares, UAC problems or environment variable issues.
Now for the BIG PICTURE! When Microsoft announced they were no longer supporting the ability to natively shadow remote desktop sessions, many Citrix Xenapp and Remote Desktop admins lost the ability to help their users. With Goverlan you can get that power back and more! Point the Goverlan Remote CMD to your terminal server or Citrix Xenapp Servers and run the console as any user who has an active session. Forget about shadowing, just fire up the Goverlan Remote CMD and run a ‘net use’ command to see what drives are being mapped in less than 5 seconds!
Or get down and dirty with Powershell. Run any Powershell command by simply starting the command with “powershell” – like this:
C:\>powershell “get-wmiObject -class Win32_printer | ft name, systemName, shareName” and get a list of printers by querying WMI. This is very handy for troubleshooting Citrix Universal Printer Driver problems.
Here are a few more features that make the Goverlan Remote CMD a tech’s best friend:
- No more Right Click and Marking for a copy operation. Simply highlight the output and Ctrl+C (because we all know how much we love Ctrl+C).
- Save frequently-used and complicated commands, such as the Powershell command to the Send Command section above, and use them with one click.
- Now, if you are feeling generous that day you can share your all-powerful commands with your fellow Goverlan users with one click.
Goverlan Task Manager
Ever since the Windows NT days, we have used the venerable Windows Task Manager to help us determine and locate performance bottlenecks. We know applications run while residing in memory that uses resources such as CPU time, valuable memory space, disk seeking for files, or open network connections that consume bandwidth.
Of course, with the Windows Task Manager you can see at a glance what process may be taking up CPU and memory resources.
Has this ever happened to you?
1) You’re helping someone take care of an issue on their computer.
2) You notice the computer is not very responsive.
3) You open the task manager and set it up so you can see what program is causing the issue but by the time you are ready to see what is going on, the computer starts to respond again.
Sometimes those priceless seconds are all you need to get an idea of what is going on and point yourself in the right direction for troubleshooting.
The Goverlan Remote Task Manager is designed to give you the information you need from a process-centric point of view.
Parent Child Relationships
With the Goverlan Task Manager you can see which process was actually responsible for calling another process. This comes in handy when you need to hunt down the virus that keeps spawning no matter how many times you end it.
The Binary Path and Command Line Parameter columns allow you to see where that process is on the disk and what options were called when it was first run.
Top 5 Active Processes
This is by far one of my favorite screens in the Goverlan Task Manager. Instead of pouring through the Processes tab looking for a process and only its CPU usage or memory, use the Top 5 tab to see the most active processes in CPU, Disk IO, Memory and Page Faults (Virtual Memory) usage. This screen tells you at a glance where your bottlenecks may be found.
At-a-Glance Diagnostics
One screen in the Windows Task Manager is the Performance tab. We all
know how we would rather look at graphs than tables. When we see a spike in CPU,
memory or disk IO, we get that “Aha!” moment. The problem is we never know what
the offending process is. That problem is now solved because when you mouse
over any part of the performance graphs, the Goverlan Task Manager tells you
the most resource intensive process at that moment.
The Goverlan Task Manager has other helpful features such as:
- Network Bandwidth Graphs.
- Switch between several connections using the Connect To option.
- Viewing Startup programs for any profile on the computer.
- Reporting screen contents to text reports with a single click.
In Summary
Goverlan’s unique Remote CMD & Task Manager features that go beyond the standard:
Goverlan Remote CMD
- Run Goverlan as any user with an active RDP, Xenapp, or console – access user sessions without shadowing.
- Save frequently-used & complicated commands – then simply click to run or share with your IT team.
- Quickly & easily switch computers with the Connect To link.
- Simply highlight output and Ctrl+C for copy operation.
Goverlan Task Manager
- See which process called another process using the parent-child relationship view; see location and the options called when first run.
- Pinpoint bottlenecks with the Top 5 tab and see the most active processes in CPU, Disk IO, Memory and Page Faults (Virtual Memory) usage.
- View performance in an intuitive way with graphs that display the most resource intensive process.
- Switch between several connections using the Connect To option.
- View Startup programs for any profile on the computer.
- Report screen contents to text reports with a single click.
Download a free, full 30-day trial of Goverlan today. Learn more about Goverlan’s ROI & benefits.