The first time you run the Master program you have to type in the supplied registration UserKey. This registration key is related to your BiosKey (see the image on the right):

If you do not have a UserKey you can type 'TRIAL' to run Master in demo version (in this case, you will only be able to access Slaves with the password 'TRIAL' and the port number '4000').

If you are in front of the PC where you wish to install the Slave, you can open a DOS box to do so:

If you define a port number different from 4000, you also have to configure your Master (see how to do that on the next page).

You can now invoke Slave.exe with the -h parameter to get the following help:

The Slave service can be run (without arguments) from command line or with a double-click on any Windows version.

 The button detects Slaves installed on the local network. If you click on it, you will see the list of the IP addresses and machines names (209.237.155.62 and dev_jadams for example), then you just have to select an IP address. You can also simply type an IP address or a machine name directly in the 'Slave' edit field.

After having selected a Slave, type a password (the one you defined for your Slave or 'Trial' if you use a demo version) and click on the button.

You have many columns of useful information when using the detection feature (Password, Port, UserName, PC working for hh:mm:ss, OS version, CPU type, Total and Free RAM, Total and Free Disk space, Internet Connection Status, Modem or Switch). Also, the the position and size of the window and the columns are saved after each session.

You can resize each column to a null size if you want to hide some of them.

 The   button opens a dialog box to start a Chat session with the selected Slave User(s):

 You can change your Nick Name and enable or disable on-the-fly the Conference Mode. In the normal mode, the answers you receive from Slave User(s) will not be visible to the other Slave User(s). The Conference Mode will broadcast every Slave User answer so all of them will know what was written (they will not only see your text). The Conference Mode is only available when you establish a session with more than one Slave.

 The button allows you to save the Chat text in a Text File.

 There is an extra column (reduced by default) which you can enlarge to check the location of a person. To show it, just put the mouse cursor between the two columns and drag it to the right.

 The Options button opens a dialog box which allows you to change the port number used by the Master. If you change it, do not forget to change it also for Slaves (see 'Security Options'). You can also enable or disable:

 Progress Bar (show incoming transfered data)

 Hide Passwords (will not show them any more)

 Clipboard Sharing (between Master and Slave)

 Hide Splash Screen (discarts the dialog box)

 Tell Slave we connect (Slave will be notified of when the Master connects)

 Remove Wallpaper (before getting first frame)

 Monitor Only (define here the default value)

 Streaming (speedup slow connections)

 Compression (speedup slow connections)

 Data Encryption (secures transmissions)

 Acks (keeps alive the connection)

 Log out when disconnect (log off from Windows 9x, NT and 2000 and start the screen saver on Windows 9x)

 Specify a Log File (where all operations will be stored, this is useful in case of severe security requirements or for isolating or debugging a problem). Alternatively, the log can be redirected to a Console window.

 Max Frames per second, this is important:
This value will define the number of screen updates per second you want the Slave to send to the Master. The fastest the best for animation speed but also the most demanding for the Slave CPU.
If you are using a slow connection (Internet or dial-up) you will set a value in the range of 1-4 because the bandwidth you have will not allow you to get more. On fast networks, use 10, 20 or 50 (up to 100).

Adress Book: clicking it will display all the IP addresses you used to establish a connection with (they are represented by a black PC image in the Slaves' List).

Each time a connection is established, the IP address and the machine name are stored in the Address Book. You can quickly fill this Adress Book just by testing Slaves after the installation.

You can now store both port and password, and import (*.reg file) or export the AddressBook.

Broadcast: it sends an information request over the network to detect Slaves which are running. Detected PCs, if any, are displayed (with a blue PC icon) in the Slaves' List. This is very useful for finding Slaves the first times, when addresses are not yet stored in the Address Book. And this allows also to check which PCs are running and available on the network at a given time. If you do not see the address of a PC and know that this PC is available, click two or three times on this button. The PC you are looking for may be too busy to answer immediately or may be too far from where you are and the answer of the distant PC may take a few seconds to come back to you.

If the broadcast does not work for you because you have devices which are not routing those packets (see the FAQ for more about this), then you can use Ping or Hardware Inventory from the combo box.

Master.exe <IP_Address> <Password> [Port]

This feature allows the Master to be called by any other program or even a script.

 Connection details opens a dialog box with information about the current connection:

 Connect to a new Slave allows you to open a new window on another distant PC (thus you can intervene on more than one computer at the same time).

 Full screen switches the Full Screen mode and the windowed mode (and vice-versa). To toggle  the Full Screen mode and the windowed mode, you can also use the Ctrl+F12 hotkey.

 Refresh screen sends a request to the Slave to update the distant screen on the Master.

 Full screen Updates (default mode) scans the full screen to find changes and updates the full screen.

 Active Window Updates only updates the foreground window (this mode is faster than the Full screen Updates mode and requires less CPU resources of the Slave PC but does not redraw the full screen; some operations like window moves may leave unwanted remainders. To erase them, you just have to click one time on the desktop window (it forces a full-screen refresh). This mode is especially useful to watch real time windowed video. It is also useful when you want to do something accurately with the mouse cursor, like drawing, because the mouse is more responsive.
The smallest the Active Window, the best the results will be.

 Monitor only switches the visualization mode (mouse and keyboard inactive) and the active mode (where mouse moves and keystrokes are transmitted to the distant PC).

 Remove wallpaper on Slave removes the wallpaper from the distant desktop. It speeds up transmissions since there is less information to process (Windows 9x only).

 Save Screen as a BMP file opens a 'save as' dialog box which allows to save a copy of the distant screen as a bitmap.

 Start ScreenSaver on Slave immediately runs a screen saver (Windows 9x only). This is really handy when you want to block the access to a PC after you have finished working remotely on it. In this case, you have to use a password-protected screen saver. NOTE: the screen saver may be immediately disabled if you are moving the mouse to select this option (use the beyboard or switch to 'Monitor Only' before selecting this menu option)

 Switch off Screen of Slave immediately power off the screen (Windows 9x only). This option will really prevent everybody from working on the PC since it is not possible to see the screen contents. NOTE: This option will act like a screen saver if the display is NOT able to power off, in this case this option may be immediately disabled if you are moving the mouse to select it (use the beyboard or switch to 'Monitor Only' before selecting this menu option)

 Transfer Files between PCs displays an Explorer-like window with local and distant file systems and allows drag & drop to send and receive files (rename, delete them, etc.).

 Send Commands to Slave displays a dialog box which allows you to run programs, to open documents, to send e-mail, or to surf on the Internet with the distant PC. This is an equivalent of the 'Run' option of the Windows' Start menu.

 Send a Dialog Box to Slave allows to send a dialog box (with a title, a text, and an icon) on the distant PC.

 Get Passwords of Slave allows to get the passwords cached by Windows on the distant PC. Here is the screen saver password (if any) and those defined by applications, network, Internet connections, etc. (Windows 9x only).

 Play a Sound on Slave plays a WAV sound on the distant PC (this is the default sound: 'ding', if you did not change it).

 Cut Internet connections on Slave stops immediately every active connection on the distant PC (HTTP, FTP, Email, etc.).

 Lockup Slave hangs the distant PC. Nobody -including you- will be able to do something on it until it is MANUALLY restarted.

 Reboot Slave forces all applications to quit and reboots the distant PC. You will be able to reconnect to this PC once Microsoft Windows has restarted.

 Shut Down Slave forces all applications to quit and switches off the distant PC (the PC will power-off if it implements this feature).

 Send Ctrl+Alt+Del, Send Ctrl+Esc, Send Alt+Tab, Send Shift+Esc sends complex keystrokes to the distant PC that would be interpreted by the local computer if typed on the Master's keyboard.

 Ctrl Key, Alt Key will keep 'pressed' these control keys on the distant PC. You will have to deselect those options to 'release' the chosen control keys.

 About Remote-Anything displays a dialog box where the Technical Support e-mail address and the product version number of your copy can be found.

It is faster than a DOS box or than the Explorer since you do not have to look for what you want. Note that this is NOT a DOS prompt equivalent (del c:\autoexec.bat will not work).

Try: C:\Windows, image.bmp, Letter.doc, readme.txt, mailto:bgates@microsoft.com, SysEdit, RegEdit, etc.

Choose an icon if you want one and type the title and text of your message. This message will be displayed immediately on the distant PC and will stay there until someone clicks on the 'OK' button.

This is an alternative way to communicate in the company… and the only one which grants you that the addressee will get the message as soon as he uses his PC.

Note: We intend to enhance its use by allowing the Slave to record answers in a log file.

You will thus be able to obtain the screen saver password of a PC which is inaccessible due to a password-protected screen saver… and stop this screen saver the clean way.

 The [F5] key updates a file list.

 The file copy dialog is now more detailled: you have the transfer rate, current status for each file, the total number of bytes to copy and the total estimated remaining time. The copy is synchronized: if you hit the 'CANCEL' button while a copy is in progress, the process will be interrupted after the current file is copied.

The same synchronized system is used for file deletion. But, as file deletion is an extremely fast process, it may be difficult to stop it and almost impossible to stop it where you want it to stop.

Of course, you can move, or minimize the file browser window at any time so you will benefit from the best possible view and bandwidth.

If you minimize the distant PC window into the Task Bar, the Master will stop sending requests to the Slave but will keep the connection open. This allows to keep a connection active while not using network and CPU resources of both distant and local PCs. When you want to access the Slave again, click on Remote-Anything in the Task Bar (see the image below). You can 'freeze' several connections this way at the same time.

To get free upgrades of our products, come often on our web site to check for new versions.

The Protocols button will allow you to check which protocols are installed on the Master PC (note that some users reported errors on this dialog which only uses Microsoft calls...).