Userful Pre-Book Windows Client ™ v2.0.4
Eliminate time consuming sign-up sheets and painful policing of computers
Intended Audience
System and Network administrators for a Windows-based local area network.
Summary
Pre-Book Client for Windows is the client software of the Pre-Book PC Booking & Reservation software from Userful that is designed to operate on Microsoft Windows operating systems. The Pre-Book Client for
Windows needs to connect to a Pre-Book server for authentication and for loading system configurations. The location for the Pre-Book is server is specified during the setup process. On Windows NT,
2000, and XP, it can be modified while logged in as an administrator of the client machine.
Requirements
- Windows 95 OSR2 (with Internet Explorer 4.0 desktop update)
- Windows 98 and 98SE
- Windows ME
- Windows NT
- Windows 2000 (recommended)
- Windows XP and XP SP2 (recommended)
Installation and Administration
Windows NT, 2000, XP:
- While logged as an administrator you need to create a user account for the Pre-Book Client. This will be the default account in which your customers will be accessing the controlled computing
environment provided by the Pre-Book Client for Windows. The account should not be a member of the administrator group. Preferably, you should set it up as a restricted or standard user account.
- Double click the installation file Pre-Book1_0.exe to begin installation. Follow the instructions on the screen carefully.
- When you reach the setup page where the installer asks you to configure the location of the Pre-Book Server, fill the following values correctly:
- Pre-Book Server: The host or IP address of your local Pre-book server.
- Port: The port of your local Pre-Book Server. If the Pre-Book Server is running within a web-server, you should set this value as 80 (default web server port).
- URI: If the Pre-Book Server process is running within a web server, you should set this to the path of the Pre-Book Server script.
- System ID: The unique name of this workstation. See Pre-book documentation for details.
- Example:
- The Pre-Book Server is accessible from http://www.userful.com/userful-pcres/XMLRPC
- The Pre-Book Server value: rhn.userful.ca
- Port: 80
- URI: /userful-pcres/XMLRPC
- Click Install and reboot the machine if the installer instructs you to do so.
- When the computer has finished rebooting, re-login using the account you created in step 1 to start using the client. Re-login as an administrator if you want to re-configure the settings for
the Pre-Book Client for Windows.
Windows 95, 98, ME:
The same process is followed as the installation steps above for Windows NT/2000/XP, except that Windows 95, 98 and ME doesn't have the concept of security and therefore has no administrator or
user-based accounts. You should be careful that the values you entered in the Pre-Book setup page are correct or the client machine where you are installing the Pre-Book client will be impossible to
unlock. If this happens, the only solution to this problem is to reboot into safe mode and uninstall the program from there or use a previous registry backup.
Customer Usage
The login interface should be self-explanatory. When the client is unlocked, the customer can view their remaining time on the timer-box located just slightly above the system clock on the taskbar.
Right clicking the Pre-Book system tray icon, which is shaped like an hourglass, can hide the timer-box. To log-off from their Pre-Book accounts, users either use the standard Windows log-off on the
start menu or use the log-off menu from the Pre-Book system tray icon.
We now have released our free Open Source PC Booking & Reservation and Time Limit Management Client for Windows.
The lockdown Windows client allows computers to be reserved with our Pre-Book™ system.
Downloads
Source Code
Required libraries for building client source:
