Managing multiple computers

[shopper150]

We have grown rapidly from a small company into a mid sized company with around 50 Windows 7 machines.

All machines are networked simply by home networking means and file sharing.

It's becoming increasingly difficult and time consuming to manage all these machines. Examples include:
- Wiping machines and reinstalling software when staff leave and new staff start
- Some machines are laptops for people out on the road
- Implementing changes on each machine individually

I am not an IT professional but have managed everything up until now.

Does anyone have any advice or recommendations on how to make things easier?

I think getting Windows Server and Active Directory logins is probably the way to go for the on site machines but in the interim does anyone have any suggestions of software etc that would make things easier?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Pho]

I'm more of an accidental network admin (I'm a developer) but I'd say for 50 computers active directory is going to be a must. Make sure you use group policies to apply default computer/user settings to all users (mapped network drives, redirect documents onto the server etc) and then for more granular tweaks group users by department or whatever and apply more policies there (e.g., sales department get a mapping to a sales share) or perhaps set-up policies for laptops so users' documents are available offline without needing to VPN in.

For managing software rollouts and re-imaging PCs we use System Center 2012. It also gives you access to endpoint protection antivirus (security essentials for domains basically) and data protection manager which will make your backup operations far easier. Not sure if it's overklll for your size mind.

In the meantime, and post-domaining it if you want to run things on PCs remotely psexec is brilliant. To make your life easier with psexec you'll probably want to ensure each of your PCs have an administrator account set-up with the same username/password.

 

[quackers]

I agree with Pho, with that many machines a server environment is a must. Are all the machines that same? If yes, I would create a base image of Windows and then create an image using clonezilla for now, then something like Windows Deployment once you have the AD environment up and running.

How about anti virus/encryption? Are the laptops encrypted?

 

[Nanobot]

If you have basic networking and file sharing already, you could start by storing batch scripts on a share and getting each PC to run it on start up. That would be an interim to having logon script functionality.
You could then start by collecting simple PC data from each PC to a public share, or even have PC's importing registry updates etc from a share etc.
The AD domain, logons and roaming profiles can come into play when you're ready and able but mimicking netlogon with a public share with scripts is a good starting place.