Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect
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@Donahue : it's a rare case that we need it but it's nice to have. We're not an apple shop so don't have facetime and aren't about to add our clients to our personal IM clients on a tech's phone.
SC allows us to use an application that we're used to. It also allows us to walk a remote user through setting up email on their phone (when they don't want to follow the nicely provided instructions) as we can see -- though not control -- their phone.
I just wanted to set the record straight that SC DOES support this functionality.
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@Donahue said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:
@manxam said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:
@NashBrydges : You cannot CONTROL an iOS but you can create a view only session where you see the user's screen. In most cases, we setup a support session to an Android or iOS device and have them start their camera and point it where we ask.
Again, as above, you can only CONTROL the screen of a Samsung device via the Connectwise Control Samsung app.
That almost sounds like facetime or equivalent would be easier. Are you just after a way to see what their camera sees?
What the camera sees would be totally different. You'd just see their face or whatever.
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yeah, I would be fine with view access. I am not an MSP, and do not have the same requirements as some of the people here. I am only accessing internal assets, and I dont have any conflicting interests.
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@scottalanmiller said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:
@Donahue said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:
@manxam said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:
@NashBrydges : You cannot CONTROL an iOS but you can create a view only session where you see the user's screen. In most cases, we setup a support session to an Android or iOS device and have them start their camera and point it where we ask.
Again, as above, you can only CONTROL the screen of a Samsung device via the Connectwise Control Samsung app.
That almost sounds like facetime or equivalent would be easier. Are you just after a way to see what their camera sees?
What the camera sees would be totally different. You'd just see their face or whatever.
you know you can just flip the camera right?
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@Donahue said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:
@scottalanmiller said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:
@Donahue said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:
@manxam said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:
@NashBrydges : You cannot CONTROL an iOS but you can create a view only session where you see the user's screen. In most cases, we setup a support session to an Android or iOS device and have them start their camera and point it where we ask.
Again, as above, you can only CONTROL the screen of a Samsung device via the Connectwise Control Samsung app.
That almost sounds like facetime or equivalent would be easier. Are you just after a way to see what their camera sees?
What the camera sees would be totally different. You'd just see their face or whatever.
you know you can just flip the camera right?
Flip the camera to view the screen? That's not how that works, lol.
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What you want is what the user's eyeball sees, now what the devices camera sees.
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@scottalanmiller said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:
What you want is what the user's eyeball sees, now what the devices camera sees.
I think you are confused as to what we are talking about. If @manxam is remoting into a phone to view the camera output, the same thing could be achieved by other means if those other means were installed. Facetime or skype, or whatever, can show the camera output too without SC. Now if you needed to see the screen, which is what I would like, then you would need SC.
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@scottalanmiller : I think he was responding to our use of SC as a remote camera by asking the user to open the camera app while we watch the screen. That's one use of it, the other is assisting setting up vpn/email/whatever when the user is far removed from our offices.
It's not used often, but it's a nice feature to have.
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@scottalanmiller If anyone else is playing with this, the trick in my environment seems to be the "Interactive Only" installer...
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@manxam said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:
@NashBrydges : You cannot CONTROL an iOS but you can create a view only session where you see the user's screen. In most cases, we setup a support session to an Android or iOS device and have them start their camera and point it where we ask.
Again, as above, you can only CONTROL the screen of a Samsung device via the Connectwise Control Samsung app.
OH wow! What an interesting idea and use case!
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@Donahue : While true, I've made the mistake of adding clients to our IM (whether it be skype, hangouts, slack, etc) for "one time" use. Unfortunately, in every instance this has just turned into a "let's bypass the ticketing system".. With SC we don't have to worry about that occurring
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So, kicking this around the office and a possible issue we've stumbled across: there's nothing on the client device to show that someone is watching their screen.... Has anyone seen a config option for this or something that would alert the user that a tech has a support connection open?
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@Donahue said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:
@scottalanmiller said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:
What you want is what the user's eyeball sees, now what the devices camera sees.
I think you are confused as to what we are talking about. If @manxam is remoting into a phone to view the camera output, the same thing could be achieved by other means if those other means were installed. Facetime or skype, or whatever, can show the camera output too without SC. Now if you needed to see the screen, which is what I would like, then you would need SC.
OIC
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@notverypunny said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:
@scottalanmiller If anyone else is playing with this, the trick in my environment seems to be the "Interactive Only" installer...
Good to know.
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@manxam said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:
@Donahue : While true, I've made the mistake of adding clients to our IM (whether it be skype, hangouts, slack, etc) for "one time" use. Unfortunately, in every instance this has just turned into a "let's bypass the ticketing system".. With SC we don't have to worry about that occurring
We make email and chat "channels for opening a ticket". Every conversation is "so you want that put into a ticket?" Chat is to talk to the ticket makers.
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@notverypunny said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:
So, kicking this around the office and a possible issue we've stumbled across: there's nothing on the client device to show that someone is watching their screen.... Has anyone seen a config option for this or something that would alert the user that a tech has a support connection open?
AFAIk it is completely silent. Which is nice about half the time and a problem about half of the time.
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@scottalanmiller That's what I'm seeing too... regardless of all the NDA / confidentiality / super duper secret papers that you sign in IT, some people still don't realize that if IT wanted / needed to see something they could figure out a way
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Hi. Ylian here. I am the guy behind MeshCentral. I am really busy writing code but wanted to say hi. In reading this thread I figured I would answer a few questions. So yes, MeshCentral2 is a complete re-write. The older version was designed about 10 years ago when the web was very different. Only some parts of the old agent code have been kept in the new one, but it's mostly all new. Coding started a bit over a year ago, so progress has been pretty good.
When setting up a MeshCentral server, the first account you create will be administrator on the server. All accounts after that are normal users. If you want to block new accounts, set newAccounts to 0 in the "config.json" file in the default domains section. Take a look at the very end of the User's Guide for an example config.json. If you have not do so already, look at the config.json file and user's guide, there are plenty of customization options.
We currently test on Windows7 and higher. Windows XP is increasingly difficult to support because we use features in the MeshAgent that are not supported in older operating systems (pretty much threading related).
If you have any feature requests, please don't hesitate to add them to the list of issues on MeshCentral Github. Not sure if you guy saw this on the blog, but we just added audio/video chat support.
Any feedback and bug reports are very much appreciated. Obviously I can't always do magic. Just as a fun exclusive fact for this thread: If you press "shift" when you hit the full screen icon in remote desktop, it will use browser full screen.
Ylian
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@Ylian said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:
Hi. Ylian here. I am the guy behind MeshCentral.
Welcome, that's so awesome that you found us!
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@Ylian said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:
Just as a fun exclusive fact for this thread: If you press "shift" when you hit the full screen icon in remote desktop, it will use browser full screen.
Was trying to figure that out, in fact
