It is possible to run the NetSupport Manager Control from a portable device such as USB pen drive, memory stick or flash drive, eliminating the need to have the NetSupport Control installed on a particular workstation. This may be useful if the user of the NetSupport Control moves between machines or sites and wants to keep their configuration. For example, a Support company employee may have his Control setup on the portable device, so wherever they are, they can use the NetSupport Control with their defined configuration.
To use the NetSupport Manager Control from a portable device, you need to install a full copy of NetSupport Manager onto a machine, ensuring you select the Control component.
Note: A typical installation of NetSupport Manager includes all the required Control components.
After installation, navigate to the NetSupport Manager installation folder:
32bit C:\Program Files\NetSupport\NetSupport Manager
64bit C:\Program Files (x86)\NetSupport\NetSupport Manager
Copy the following files to a folder on the portable device:
CryptPak.dll
gdiplus.dll
HTCTL32.DLL
IcoViewer.dll
IPCTL32.DLL
keyShow.exe
KeyShow64.exe
keyshowhook.dll
keyshowhook64.dll
NSM.lic
NSM32.chm
NSMres.dll
pcicapi.DLL
PCICHEK.DLL
PCICL32.DLL
PCICTL.DLL
PCICTLUI.EXE
PCIhtmlgen.dll
PCIIMAGE.DLL
PCIinv.dll
PCIMSG.DLL
PCIRES.DLL
pciscr.dll
PCISYS.SYS
TCCTL32.DLL
You now have a Control that can be run from any machine which has the portable device attached and requires no further installation.
Setting up your portable NetSupport Manager Control
To store a configuration of your NetSupport Manager Control on the removable storage device, you need to save the NetSupport Control configuration to a file and copy this configuration file to the portable device. When you start the NetSupport Control, you can specify to load this configuration using command line parameters.
- Run the installed NetSupport Manager Control.
- Select {Tools}{Configuration} from the Control window drop-down menu.
- Click Save and save the file to your portable device.
To use this configuration with your portable Control, create a shortcut to:
F:\Control\PCICTLUI.exe /LStandard.cfg
Where ‘F:\Control\PCICTLUI.exe’ is the path to the NetSupport Manager Control and ‘LStandard.cfg’ is the name of the file you saved in step 3 above.
The configuration file holds information such as passwords, encryption level etc.
Automatically running the NetSupport Manager Control when you attach your portable device
The NetSupport Manager Control can be configured to automatically start each time the portable device is inserted into a machine.
A text file called autorun.inf needs to be created in the root of the device. In this file, place the following text, replacing the path with the relevant options for your portable device:
[autorun]
open=Control\PCICTLUI.exe /LStandard.cfg
When the operating system recognises that the device has been inserted, the command listed in the “open” parameter of the autorun.inf will be executed.
Note: This functionality relies on the ‘Auto Insert Notification’ of the operating system and the portable device hardware in use – subsequently, this may not function in all configurations.