PC Inventory Software

You work as a System Administrator for your company, and your superior ask you to do a research and make suggestion to management about the best PC inventory software. You need to use this software as you need to have better and proper PC inventory system. Currently your company did not have PC inventory software. If you want to know the PC status (hardware and software) for your company, you have to go to each PC and manually record the information that you need.

Some time user did not cooperate by saying he/she is busy with a report and ask you to come other time or Production Control Department is doing calculation on that day, so all the staff are busy and can effort stop using their PC even for 5 minute. There also a time where the user is not coming and without user password you cannot open his/her PC.

These are some of the barriers that you face in order to complete your report about company PC status. Even though you already make a proper plan, but you still cannot make it on time because of the barriers that I mention earlier.

Because of those barriers that you face, requirement and expectation from your management you need to find solution to your problem. Well, basically you need a software, a PC inventory software that can help you not only generate report but at the same time did not interrupt user .

Here I list out 5 factors that you need to look at when you do shopping for best PC inventory software.

1.  Your PC inventory software must be able to create inventory database for inventory hardware.  The hardware here means CPU model, RAM type and size, Hard Drive size (total and free space), partition, CD/DVD drives, video card, USB port, flash drive, etc.

2. Your PC inventory software also must be able to tell you what software exist in your company. The software need to tell you how many copies of software install in your company. From that report you can compare with number of license that you have. If the number of license is less than number of software install you need to take action.

Either buy additional license or check which user don’t need that software any more. There are cases where user install the software by them self or previously that user use the software and because of job scope change, he/she did not use that software anymore.

Look how detail the PC inventory software report can tell you. If the software can tell you the version, product key, bug-fixes etc, than it’s better you consider this software. Knowing the product key from the report is crucial, because you can know which user install software illegally.

3. The PC inventory software must be able to help you in planning hardware upgrade. The software must be able to create report on computer that has insufficient RAM size or hard disk space. Also, you can create reports on computers with particular CPU models or video cards brand so your upgrade process will become a lot easier.

4. The PC inventory software that you select not only give you good reporting but at the same time must be able to tell you any hardware changes on network computer. This is important because user like to add or remove hardware from their PC without inform you as System Administrator.

Nowadays USB flash is widely use because very cheap, mobile phone also is a  common device. So what is the problem? The problem is, those two device is good way to spread virus. Normal user never care about virus, they just plug in their USB thumb drive to their friend’s house PC to download/exchange song/movies and than connect that USB thumb drive to company PC.

If the friend’s house PC has virus, 99.9% confirm that the virus already attached to his/her thumb drive. That why some company prohibit user from connecting personal thumb drive to company PC. But it is very difficult to monitor without proper tool. So you need to select PC inventory software that can tell you via screen message, sound or email that somebody is connecting personal thumb drive to company PC or remove/add hardware to company PC. It will help you a lot and the most importantly you are in control.

5. Your PC inventory software also must tell you any software changes on your company PC. User like to install additional software like games. These games that they get from unknown sources can be dangerous because it can contain virus, trojan or spyware that can easily spread to your company network. A good PC inventory software can alert you any software changes to the company PC via popup message on your screen, sound or email.

There you go, 5 factor or criteria that you should look at when shopping and selection PC inventory software. Those 5 criteria also can help you determine best PC inventory software. Good luck! If you have any comment, please share at comment area.

Tags: PC inventory software