First Time Tester - A Few Questions
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Fri, 2011-08-05 09:15
I've just installed NxTop Engine for the first time on my HP 6530b laptop with a view to testing it both for internal use and potentially the customers we support. While the initial impressions of the product are very good, I do have a few questions which may affect our uptake of the product:-
1. Aero - I understand this is not supported in the current version, is there support in the upcoming version?
2. Mouse - I have a 5 button Microsoft mouse. This is detected correctly in the NxTop Control Panel but within my Windows 7 VM the extra buttons don't work. Is there anything that can be done about this as this alone will probably stop me testing further.
3. Login at Startup - I've registered with a local username and password by I need to enter this at startup and can't see a way around it. Its important that any change is as seemless as possible for end users so having to log in to NxTop and then to Windows is a bit of a pain.
4. Shutdown - is there any way to have NxTop automatically shut down when my Windows 7 VM is shut down? Like above, the experience needs to be seemless so having to shut down Windows then NxTop is not great.
Thanks in advance
The Windows Aero interface requires some fairly advanced 3D graphics capabilities, which graphics card vendors have been supporting in hardware for quite some time, but have yet to be implemented in the NxTop virtual graphics driver. There is a long-term roadmap for 3D graphics in NxTop but the current 3.1 release, and the upcoming 4.0 release, don't support Aero. This has yet to be a deal-breaker or even a significant concern in actual deployments.
For the mouse, we would need to know what make/model it is and possibly acquire one for testing. But there are some limitations with respect to mouse functionality in NxTop beyond the basic 2-button mouse. Is this something needed by just yourself, or is it something that the users you will deploy NxTop to will also need?
For #3 and #4 what you want is the QuickLaunch and Bypass Engine Login features of the engine policy. QuickLaunch will cause the computer to shutdown if the VM shuts down, and Bypass Engine Login will skip the engine login and go right to Windows login. These only work with a single VM deployed to the computer but that is probably what you want anyway.
Thanks for the response
Interesting points about Aero - I agree that it's a "nice to have" feature but wouldn't be a deal breaker.
With regards to the mouse, it's a Microsoft Intellimouse Optical so a fairly basic model. I suspect that I'm possibly being fussier than many users will be (it's a very early test at the moment) but I would really struggle to not have the extra buttons available long term.
For the last two points, are these both features of having an NxTop Center to manage the policies? I haven't got as far as looking at this yet.
Joe
Hi,
Yes, the last two are reliant on you having the NxTop Center management software in place as that allows you to setup policies for how different components of the system behave such as the NxTop engine itself.
Is this something you are looking at for personal use or for the organisation you are working for?
Mark McGinn
MarXtar Ltd
http://www.marxtar.com