What are some things that ZENworks can do that other similar products can’t? ZENworks integrates tightly into eDirectory, which means it can manage user, group, and container objects that already exist. Other products don’t have this capability and require a completely different management structure. Also, the Dynamic Local User is a great way to create local Windows accounts automatically. It completely eliminates the need to manually setup local workstation accounts. Other cool ZENworks features can be found here.

Marvin Huffaker MCNE

How does ZENworks find the workstations and know how to manage them? An agent on the workstation registers with the ZENworks system, which in turn creates a workstation object in eDirectory. The workstation object contains all of the information necessary to contact the actual computer. You create policies and associate the policies to containers or workstation groups, depending on what your needs are. The workstation agent queries eDirectory and applies any policies that are currently in effect.

Does ZENworks Imaging require the Novell Client to operate? No. In fact, none of the ZENworks components require the Novell client. It can run in a completely non-Novell environment. Specific to imaging, the best method for imaging is to use PXE booting. This loads a Linux platform and imaging engine that are completely independent of the system you are imaging.

Do you have a question about ZENworks? I try to answer all questions by email, and post some of the better answers here. Go to our Contact Page for email address information.