This tool is launched from the Tools &
Add-ons tab in the admin console. It is an invaluable
feature that assists tech support personnel in diagnosing
problems, checking on the integrity of their PCs and more.
You can compare PCs using this tool in two
ways:
-
Against other PCs from the same audit
group (folder) - for example Mary's PC compared against
Bill's PC
-
Against other PCs from another audit
group (folder) - for example an accounting department PC
from Branch A against an accounting PC from Branch B
One typical use would be to see what's
different on a PC that's having problems compared to a
supposedly identical one that is not. If you do Full
audits, you can compare down to the file level and find if an
.EXE file is a different version (one PC was updated, the other
was not), as one example.
Another use is to create a series of
'baseline' audits. That is, audit clean machines that are
the standard for your company and save those audits to a
separate folder just for those baseline audits.
Then you can compare a user's PC at any time
in the general audits folder against the corresponding baseline
audit for that type of PC in the 'baseline' audit folder.
In the above case, you would have a folder
structure on your server like
\\servername\ezaudit\audits and
\\servername\ezaudit\audits\baselines
When you run this tool from the Tools &
Add-ons tab this is what you get:
You can select to show
differences in Installed Software Titles and/or down to the .EXE
and .DLL file level (the latter if you perform Full audits).
You will see:
-
Unique files on the PC being compared to another PC
-
Files on both where there are differences in the versions.
-
Installed software titles missing from
the PC being compared to another PC, or present only on that
PC
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