Hi there -
and welcome to our quick tour of the NetSupport School installation process.
As you can see on the screen in front of us, on our Windows 7 computer,
we have the NetSupport School installation wizard;
the beginning of the process.
We have run that from the setup file we have downloaded.
As we go through the process, you will see that the first thing it asks us
when we hit "Next"
is to agree to the licence agreement that is provided by NetSupport.
We click on "Next" again.
And at this point it is asking us for information for our licence.
We have two options here. By default,
we can select the 30-day evaluation.
That will allow us to use all of the features within the product for free
for 30 days.
Alternatively, if you have just purchased your copy of NetSupport School,
you will have received from your supplier
an e-mail which will have all the registration details needed
for your unique copy.
Those can be entered into the system here just by selecting "Register"
and filling in the appropriate information.
Again, do not worry, because later during this tour
we will show you how you can apply
the licence key you have just purchased
at any point once the product has been installed.
So we will leave it on the 30-day evaluation for now
and we will hit "Next".
You will see it is giving us a selection of options here.
The first option is to install and set this computer up
as if it were a student.
So the student software will
allow the machine to be connected to by teacher or an IT technician
and managed within the classroom.
Similarly, if we would rather that the machine was set up as a teacher,
we have the Tutor option -
and that will install all the components that a teacher might need
within the classroom.
The third option is an IT technician
and that will install the Tech Console,
allowing a technician to
browse and discover all computers on the network
and perform system management on them.
Finally, we have a custom option -
and we will go into the custom option just to show you
what some of the different available options are.
So if we say "Custom" -
in effect, everything is presented to us on one screen.
So had I selected the student,
I have the option to add a configurator on the student machine
as well as include that configurator on my Start menu.
As a tutor,
I have the option to include a desktop shortcut for the tutor,
and the choice to install the remote deployment utility.
The deployment utility is a tool that we can use to push out a copy of
NetSupport School to other computers across the school.
That, of course, avoids the need for us to visit each PC individually
and apply the settings.
We have a Tech Console
that allows us
to provide system management functionality for our technicians.
We have a Name and Connectivity Server;
that is something a little more specialised. The Name and Connectivity Server
allows NetSupport School to identify and locate students around the campus
using a connectivity server.
So, rather than us having to browse and find them, the student machines will
always be registered and their current location displayed
on the connectivity server.
We have a Replay Conversion Utility.
One of the nice features in NetSupport School is the ability to record and replay
activity on student computers.
It can also be used by a teacher
outside of the lesson to record the steps they need to undertake on a certain
project - perhaps creating a table and charts within a spreadsheet.
Then that recording can be played back and shown to the class
as part of the lesson plan.
The Conversion Utility allows us to take those replay files and output them,
after editing,
in a range of supported mainstream video formats.
Finally, we have a Test Designer.
A Test Designer is
a tool for creating tests and quizzes within the classroom.
Again, because we recognise that teachers may want to prepare those
tests outside of the classroom,
we give you the ability to install the Test Designer as a stand-alone utility
so that it can be done on any computer,
irrespective of its location.
For now, let us go for the full summary
- we will not bother with the Connectivity server - but we will put all of the main features
onto our computer.
You can see here that we also have a default installation folder
- the NetSupport folder -
a subset of which is the NetSupport School sub-folder.
Let us say "Next".
And it is prompting us for a room.
At this point you may think,
"What is a room and what is the context of that within NetSupport School?"
Well, by default, our mechanism for grouping students and allowing for easy
connectivity within the classroom
is to create virtual classrooms.
In this example, it is prompting us to create a virtual classroom
called "Eval".
The idea will be, when we first run our
teacher software
it will browse and automatically connect to all students that are in the matching
room, "Eval".
Similarly, all students that were installed for the evaluation will carry the same
room name. So automatically that process of locating and handshaking will be
undertaken for us.
Down the line within your school, of course, you could apply different rooms
depending on the location of all of the student computers.
Again, without going off on too much of a tangent, there are four different
connectivity methods supported within NetSupport School:
one being Room Mode;
another being the ability to browse and
connect to computers from a known list of hardware;
another to browse and connect to a known list of students based on
their login names;
and, finally, the ability to simply browse and discover
and then connect to your required students.
Let us leave it as the default "Eval" for now.
And let us say "Next".
At this point here, we are simply going to hit "Install" and let the software go away
and configure itself.
What you will have noticed at this point
is actually, for a standard installation and evaluation of NetSupport School, you simply
really need to go: "Next," "Next," "Next."
Use the default settings and, other than specifying whether the individual machine
you are installing on
is a teacher or student,
all of the pre-set defaults will allow you to start a lesson
and evaluate the product fully.
OK. As you can see,
at the end of that process, our installation wizard has confirmed that
the installation is complete.
So we can finish our installation.
You will see on the desktop we now have an icon for the Technician's Console,
an icon for the teacher software,
and there was a message that just popped up there, letting us know
that our student software (which is sitting down here)
is also running.
So in this example, we have chosen to install all of the components
and we can now use this machine as if it was a student,
a teacher,
or a technician.
All of the tools are ready for us to go.
OK. Now, let us assume that you have been using NetSupport School for the last month,
you have enjoyed all the functionality and features available,
and you have now purchased your own licensed copy.
You will have received the licence file that was sent to you, which will have details of your
licensee name, the number of computers you are licensed for, and so on -
and you will want to be able to add that into NetSupport School to activate your software
and convert it from an eval to a permanent licence.
If we just take a look
in our program manager area -
if we pop this up -
you will see within the program file group "NetSupport", we have a sub-folder called
"NetSupport School,"
and we have a small application called "pci.lic".
If we run pci.lic
- you will see we are prompted to run it -
and we are given a very small NetSupport Manager licence utility.
This utility
has three or four main tabs along the top here.
But, for the purpose of NetSupport School,
only the first tab is relevant.
So, once you receive your licence details from your supplier, you simply need to enter your
new serial number,
the maximum number of clients (that is the number of students that you purchased
your licence for),
the licensee name that you gave (and, almost always, the licensee name will be
the name of your organisation as it was provided).
There is an option here to generate a key for Google Chromebook clients.
The Google Chromebook is the new
web-only-based operating system from Google -
so we can create our client keys from that.
Finally, the authorisation key that was supplied to you will be entered here.
Once you have entered those key bits of information
- and it is imperative that you enter it exactly as it was supplied to you;
it is case sensitive and space sensitive -
clicking the "Generate" button will create a new licence file for you
and your software is now activated.
To confirm - within your software, there are lots of files in here -
if we scroll back up,
you will see we have a file in here called "msn.lic". That is your licence file
that contains all of the information specific
to the licence that you have purchased.
OK. So, a nice quick and easy way to get you started with your
NetSupport School classroom is,
once you have installed your tutor,
if you run the tutor for the first time (which we will do on the screen here now)
- like so -
you will see we were prompted, when we first installed the software,
do we want to push out and deploy our software to our students within the
classroom, or over a network?
So let us choose "classroom."
And we will say "yes"; we want to be able
to do our installation in the classroom.
You will see that
it will pop up with a nice display
which is our NetSupport School deploy utility.
By default, we have a room set as "Eval" (because we are running an evaluation copy).
We can either choose to push out and discover computers on our work group
or network
or enter a range. So let us enter a quick IP address range as an example.
Like so.
Let us say "OK". And you will see it has discovered these computers.
There is one computer in the range that is not visible.
So we will pick the other computers and add them to our list.
And when we click "Finish", it will push out the student software
automatically to all those computers
and pre-configure them
to room "Eval".
Within a couple of seconds, your class will be active, your software will be deployed,
and you are ready to start teaching. Perfect!