The export files have a lot of empty, repeating rows. Why?
The best way to understand the export format is to think of a
spreadsheet that tracks office expenses.
A very basic one would have column for Date, another Office Space
Lease Payments and another for Office Supplies.
The column for Lease Payments might only have one entry for a given
date. But there may be a dozen entries for Office Supplies for the
same date.
Replace Date for PC name, and the columns for the types of data a PC
audit returns, and it's the same format. There is only one PC name,
repeated along the first column, but you would have multiple rows
for, say, Installed Software Titles.
The format of the table created in the Access export echoes the
format for CSV, let's refer to it using spreadsheet terms:
Each column represents a specific data type, e.g. PC Name, Printers,
Installed Software Title, .EXE (File Name), etc.
If there is only one item of data for a given type, it appears in
the first row. Subsequent items appear in that column in subsequent
rows. So for example if you have a PC with 5 printers available to
it, the first row would have the first printer, another row would
have the next printer, and so on.
Each row begins with the name of the PC.
As such, you can query the data by returning the PC name (PC row)
finding all instances of the desired item, for example "winword.exe",
in EXE_DLL (the file name field) , where version is => than 10 from
the P_VER row (Version number).
In Access export mode, all fields are selected and exported.
You could also export to CSV or tab-delimited format where you can
pick and choose the desired items, then use the file as a source to
import/upload into your own Access or other database as you prefer.
How do I determine
if I am over or under licensed for a particular program?
There is no function within E-Z Audit to enter the license count you
own, however you can easily check your status.
First, run Full audits for best results as this will obtain the
exact version for any program on any PC, as opposed to whatever the
program's installer has registered with Windows. The latter can be
misleading as often times patches and updates change the version but do
not reflect that in how the program appears in the registry.
Here are recommended steps to get information on your licensing status:
1. From your company records get the information on how many licenses
you have for the software of interest. Let's say Adobe Acrobat for
this example.
2. Search by product .exe file name from the Search tab, in this case
"acrobat.exe" (Note, the free reader is "acrord32.exe")
3. The result will show the total number found for Adobe Acrobat,
including the PC name and version number on each PC. You can
quickly see if you have enough, or too many, licneses.
This report can be printed.
How do I know who has the wrong version of a program?
You need to run Full audits for this sort of search.
Go to the Search tab, and then select "Find EXE/DLL/files"
Find the desired file, for example acrobat.exe then click Search to find
all PCs with that file.
The results will show a Version column. Sort by that column to group
by version number.
Why don't I see a
program I know is on a PC in the Installed Software list?
First, be sure you know how it would appear in that list. For
example Citrix shows up as Metaframe to cite a common one we get.
That's up to the software publisher as to how it's named and registered into
Windows. We report what we find.
Legacy DOS and 16-bit programs are
unlikely to show up since they do not conform to current Installer requirements that register the program with Windows.
If that's the case, a Full audit will turn up the "missing" program.
Search by .exe file name and you will see it along with what PCs have it
installed or present on them.
Some "programs" are treated by Windows as part of the operating system and
now shown as "installed" - for example Internet Explorer.
Some products are really modules of a larger product and not directly
listed as installed however the "parent" program would appear. An
example would be Excel not appearing because it is listed as Microsoft
Office [suite name].
How do I find Windows,
Internet Explorer or other Microsoft Hot fixes? How can I find who
does not have a required Hot Fix?
Search for them from the Search tab and
select the Installed Software Title search.
You can enter part of the Hot Fix name (e.g. KB12345) or scroll down to
the corresponding Hot fix names. Click Search and all PCs with
that Hot Fix are located for you. Or you can do a Reverse Search
and find those PCs that don't have it installed.
If you want to know who doesn't have a Hot Fix, check the Reverse Search
check-box.
What kind of database
does E-Z Audit use for it's audit results?
The data used by the Admin Console is
proprietary. Each audit is saved as individual, encrypted files – a format
that is in fact far preferable for a large number of reasons to a single
database. It is encrypted to prevent tampering with the results or
having your users "take a look" if they know where to find the files.
Because we provide exports to flat-file formats (CSV and tab-delimited), as
well as Access .MDB format, you can easily move E-Z Audit data into your
preferred database program.