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How can resellers
and consultants use WinLocate to support customers? |
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Resellers and consultants can resell WinLocate services
and provide themselves with an annual recurring revenue
stream. Please take a look at the
Reseller
and Consultant page for an overview of how
this can be accomplished.
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Can WinLocate locate
my computer if it has already been stolen? |
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Unfortunately, no. If you had not installed WinLocate
prior to your computer being stolen, you will most
likely never see it again. You should file a police
report, however recovery rates are virtually nil.
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Can WinLocate give
me the exact location of where my computer is at all
times? |
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This is
not something we can answer with absolute certainty for
all installations. WinLocate records the network IP
address where the computer is connected whenever it
"phones home". We provide users with the capability of
determining where the network IP address is assigned
from. Additional information may also be available that
can identify the actual network the computer is using.
This may be the exact address where the computer is
currently located, or it may be the the name and address
of the Internet Service Provider or private company that
the computer is connected through. In many cases the
network IP address can be easily tracked to a specific
location, however in some cases you may not be able to
do this without the assistance of a law enforcement
agency.
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If my computer is
stolen, how can I find out where it is? |
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There
are a few steps necessary in tracking down a missing
computer. You should not try to recover the computer
yourself. You should file a police report and let them
recover your computer for you.
- Log
into the WinLocate user center and click on the
computer name of the missing computer.
- If
it is not currently online, you can have the
WinLocate user center alert you by email as soon as
the computer checks in.
- You
click on the network IP address of the missing
computer and the WinLocate user center will display
everything it knows about the missing computers
location. This information will include the
organization contact information for the network
owner that the missing computer is connected to, and
you should print this information out. The network
IP address is very similar to a phone number. It can
be tracked to an exact physical street address where
the connection originated.
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After obtaining this information, you can then call
the police and file a report. Be sure to provide
them with the network IP address and network owner
contact information. The police can use this
information to contact the network owner, and they
in turn can provide the exact physical address where
the computer is located and the police can recover
your computer.
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Does my computer
need to be turned on to be able to locate it? |
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Yes.
Unfortunately computers are electronic devices. If they
are turned off, they are not capable of performing any
operation whatsoever. For WinLocate to function, the
computer must be turned on, and at some point make a
connection to the Internet.
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Does WinLocate
provide a service to locate stolen computers? |
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WinLocate is primarily an off-site activity
logging utility that makes various system information and
utilities available to you in a convenient, easily
accessible location. When WinLocate is installed, it
will report certain system and performance statistics to
our specialized servers that record and analyze this
information and make it available to you on-line for
your own analysis. As such, we do not actually offer a
"human assisted" recovery service, rather, we provide
you with the details you will need so you can easily
perform this yourself.
Any
Internet enabled application that contacts another
computer over the Internet identifies itself using an IP
address. This is true whether you are using a web
browser, e-mail program, or a specialized application
like WinLocate. An IP address is a unique address that
is assigned to your computer by your Internet Service
Provider or network administrator. All IP addresses are
traceable. This is not rocket science here, this is
simply how the Internet works. When your computer contacts our servers, we
record the IP address that was used by your computer at
the time that the contact was made, and this in turn
enables you to obtain certain information about the
location where that IP address was assigned from using publicly
available lookup tools through the WinLocate customer
account center web pages. These will help you identify
the general location where the computer was calling
from. If your interest is tracking employees or other
authorized users using your computers, this information
will probably be more than adequate. If your computer has been
stolen, this information will help law enforcement
agencies track down the exact location of your computer.
If your
interest in a program of this type is solely to provide
maximum protection against computer theft along with
full service recovery services, there are several well
respected, very secure products available such as
Computrace®,
SecureTrieve,
and
Stealth Signal that
provide a full suite of recovery and data protection
services when your computer has been stolen.
Remember, WinLocate does much more than enable you to
track the location of your computer. Please take a few
minutes to browse our
Information Page for
descriptions of all the features available to you when
you become a WinLocate user.
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My company uses a
firewall that might block WinLocate when it phones home.
Can we still use WinLocate? |
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Yes,
you can set your firewall to allow outgoing traffic for
the WinLocate protocol. We can provide you with this
information. If this is not possible, you can set up a
"relay" in your DMZ that using inexpensive or free
software. This will allow WinLocate installed on the
inside of the firewall to transverse the firewall to the
outside without compromising security.
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Our school has three
computer labs. Can WinLocate tell us what computers are
in use? |
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Absolutely! When you log into the WinLocate user center,
all your computers will be displayed and and are color
coded to indicate their status. If the computer is
offline, this will be indicated in red. If the computer
is online but no user is logged in, this will be
indicated in orange.
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Can WinLocate help
us find virus or zombie infected machines? |
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Yes it can. WinLocate monitors and measures incoming and
outgoing network activity as well as average processor
utilization. It very easy to monitor any number of
computers and detect unusual activity. For example, if
this is a home computer, and you see a lot of outgoing
network activity or high processor utilization at
night while you are asleep, it is likely that the
computer is infected.
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Can WinLocate be
used on servers? |
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Yes, in
fact installing WinLocate on servers can be extremely
useful. We have WinLocate installed on all our servers
and have defined a "group" for these machines. We can
easily remotely monitor both incoming and outgoing
bandwidth, as well as processor utilization and user
logins and logouts. This information allows you to
compare performance, detect denial of service attacks,
quickly find unusual levels of network activity, high
CPU usage, virus infestations and locked up machines. It
is very helpful in finding problems other monitoring
products cannot. You can even log off users, reboot and
shut down servers remotely! |
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Will users know that
WinLocate is installed on their computers? |
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No.
WinLocate installs in "stealth" mode and all reporting
is done in the background. There are no indications on
the computer that WinLocate is running. |
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How often does
WinLocate phone home? |
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WinLocate reports normal "status" activity every 60
minutes. Some activity is reported in real time, such as
user logins and logouts, as well as computer shutdowns
and startups. |
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Where is the data
stored? |
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When
WinLocate phones home, it contacts our server bank. All
data is stored on our high availability servers in a
secure location and regular backups are maintained. No
data is stored on the user computer or anywhere on your
network. If for some reason there is a network problem
and our servers cannot be contacted, WinLocate will
cache the data on the user computer until a connection
can be established so no reports are missed. |
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How long does
WinLocate maintain data for each computer? |
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Data is
maintained on our servers for each computer for a
minimum of 90 days. |
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When we renew our
license, do we have to update each computer? |
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No,
once WinLocate is installed on a computer, you will
never need to do anything to the computer again. All
licensing is handled centrally from our servers. You
only need to perform a renewal once per year, and
whether you have one or ten thousand licenses, they will
all be instantly updated, completely automatically. |
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Can I add computers
at any time? |
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Yes.
Our licensing system allows you to add computers any
time you need to. License fees are prorated for the
remaining term of your original license. All licenses
expire on the same date, so you do not need to worry
about different license renewal dates. Additionally, if
the number of licenses you purchase entitles you to a
discount, the discount will automatically be applied at
the time of licensing. This ensures you will never pay
more that you need to, no matter when you add computers,
or how many you add. |
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What operating
system platforms are supported? |
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WinLocate is available for the following operating
systems:
-
Windows 2000 (professional and server)
-
Windows XP (all editions)
- Windows
2003 (server)
- Mac
OS 10.3 or higher
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