Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect

scottalanmiller

0.4.2-a. That's three updates so far today.

scottalanmiller

And 0.4.2-b before I could even look at it

black3dynamite

scottalanmiller

@black3dynamite whoa

scottalanmiller

Updated

MordyT

2 questions...

How does mesh agents handle being behind an authenticated proxy? Where can I give credentials, etc?
Where can I find agent logs on Windows? I suspect my issue is due to the authenticated proxy, but want to confirm.

JaredBusch

Does MeshCentral have a way to uninstall the remote agent from within the console like ScreenConnect does?

scottalanmiller

@JaredBusch it has "delete device". I don't know if it removes the remote agent. But it makes the remote agent useless at least. I've never tested to see what the remote agent does when that option is selected. But it definitely removes it from MC itself.

NashBrydges

@scottalanmiller said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

@JaredBusch it has "delete device". I don't know if it removes the remote agent. But it makes the remote agent useless at least. I've never tested to see what the remote agent does when that option is selected. But it definitely removes it from MC itself.

Interesting behaviour I just observed when I tested this. I can click on the "Delete device" option and it does momentarily remove it from my MC installation however the remote device immediately returns to the MC My Devices dashboard. It looks like there may be a bug that prevents it from being removed if the remote agent is still running on the remote device.

NashBrydges

If I first remove the remote device agent, then I can successfully delete the server from the MC dashboard.

The test was on a remote server running Windows Server 2012R2.

scottalanmiller

@NashBrydges said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

@scottalanmiller said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

@JaredBusch it has "delete device". I don't know if it removes the remote agent. But it makes the remote agent useless at least. I've never tested to see what the remote agent does when that option is selected. But it definitely removes it from MC itself.

Interesting behaviour I just observed when I tested this. I can click on the "Delete device" option and it does momentarily remove it from my MC installation however the remote device immediately returns to the MC My Devices dashboard. It looks like there may be a bug that prevents it from being removed if the remote agent is still running on the remote device.

That's odd. I've done this a bit and not seen that happen. But maybe the agent was no longer running?

JaredBusch

@scottalanmiller said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

@NashBrydges said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

@scottalanmiller said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

@JaredBusch it has "delete device". I don't know if it removes the remote agent. But it makes the remote agent useless at least. I've never tested to see what the remote agent does when that option is selected. But it definitely removes it from MC itself.

Interesting behaviour I just observed when I tested this. I can click on the "Delete device" option and it does momentarily remove it from my MC installation however the remote device immediately returns to the MC My Devices dashboard. It looks like there may be a bug that prevents it from being removed if the remote agent is still running on the remote device.

That's odd. I've done this a bit and not seen that happen. But maybe the agent was no longer running?

Most likely. I can remove an agent and it pops back immediately, as @NashBrydges noted.

I want to remote uninstall the agent.

scottalanmiller

No obvious command to remove it in the agent command list...

help
Available commands:
amt, amtacm, amtccm, amtdeactivate, amtpolicy, amtreset, apf, args, av, cpuinfo, dbcompact, dbget, dbkeys,
dbset, eval, getclip, getscript, help, httpget, info, kill, location, lock, log, ls, netinfo, notify,
nwslist, openurl, osinfo, parseuri, plugin, power, print, ps, rawsmbios, scanamt, scanwifi, sendcaps,
setclip, setdebug, smbios, sysinfo, toast, type, users, wakeonlan, wsclose, wsconnect, wssend.

coliver

Is there a way to make Powershell the default shell for Windows instead of Command Prompt?

scottalanmiller

@coliver said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

Is there a way to make Powershell the default shell for Windows instead of Command Prompt?

For Windows, yes...

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/windows-10-april-2018-update-how-to-change-the-command-prompt-default-to-powershell/

scottalanmiller

For MeshCentral, no I don't think so. That would be nice, though.

coliver

@scottalanmiller said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

For MeshCentral, no I don't think so. That would be nice, though.

Yeah that's what I meant.

MordyT

@NashBrydges said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

@scottalanmiller said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

@JaredBusch it has "delete device". I don't know if it removes the remote agent. But it makes the remote agent useless at least. I've never tested to see what the remote agent does when that option is selected. But it definitely removes it from MC itself.

Interesting behaviour I just observed when I tested this. I can click on the "Delete device" option and it does momentarily remove it from my MC installation however the remote device immediately returns to the MC My Devices dashboard. It looks like there may be a bug that prevents it from being removed if the remote agent is still running on the remote device.

Download the uninstaller, transfer with meshcentral to the pc, run with meshcentral remote commands, delete device from portal?

Would be nice for a button, but in theroy that could work...

Heck, could likely make it all a powersehll script with invoke-webrequest, so you can in 1 script download, run uninstaller, delete installer (maybe). Then it's a matter of deleting from portal...

black3dynamite

@MordyT said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

@NashBrydges said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

@scottalanmiller said in Comparing MeshCentral 2 to ScreenConnect:

@JaredBusch it has "delete device". I don't know if it removes the remote agent. But it makes the remote agent useless at least. I've never tested to see what the remote agent does when that option is selected. But it definitely removes it from MC itself.

Interesting behaviour I just observed when I tested this. I can click on the "Delete device" option and it does momentarily remove it from my MC installation however the remote device immediately returns to the MC My Devices dashboard. It looks like there may be a bug that prevents it from being removed if the remote agent is still running on the remote device.

Download the uninstaller, transfer with meshcentral to the pc, run with meshcentral remote commands, delete device from portal?

Would be nice for a button, but in theroy that could work...

Heck, could likely make it all a powersehll script with invoke-webrequest, so you can in 1 script download, run uninstaller, delete installer (maybe). Then it's a matter of deleting from portal...

No need to download the installer.
Create a script with something like this.

$_oFile = 'MeshAgent.exe'
$_oMeshAgentPath = 'C:\Program Files\Mesh Agent'
$_oMeshAgentArguments = @(
  '-fulluninstall'
)

Start-Process -FilePath "$_oMeshAgentPath\$_oFile" -ArgumentList $_oMeshAgentArguments -Wait -NoNewWindow

But having a option to delete device and to uninstall meshagent and then delete device would be awesome.

Edit: Fixed path for C:\Program Files\MeshAgent to C:\Program Files\Mesh Agent
Thanks @JaredBusch

JaredBusch

THis is what ConnectWise shows when you choose uninstall.