http://www.softperfect.com/products/networkscanner/
No network admin would be worth their salt if they did not have a network scanning tool in their bag 'o tricks. Granted, this type of utility has a LOT of competition. As such, your use of a tool like this really gets down to: Does it return the results you need?
Some may wonder why you would need a network scanning tool. How many times have you needed to make sure a particular device is up and running, maybe you want to find out if a rogue device is on the network, or who is sharing out their computer with the rest of the world. Heck, I'm just curious to see what is on my network half the time :).
A network scanner is not unlike whipping out that multi-function tool as you are impressing the ladies with your mad computer-disassembly skills (what, the ladies aren't impressed with your Leatherman skills?). OK, maybe not that impressive, but certainly, the tool is useful in a number of situations.
In my experience, a good network scanner should be able to do the following:
- Run against a series of IP addresses or an entire subnet
- Produce computer DNS/NETBios hostnames
- Show accessible shares
- Public SNMP information
- Give some options upon right-click (browse HTTP/Telnet/Computer shares), etc.
- Multi-threaded scanning
- Ability to add your own right-click options (connect via VNC, patch scanner, etc.)
- WMI queries
- Configurable SNMP queries (if you have your public keys configured differently than default Public port 161).
- Open ports (and scan port ranges specified by user)
I've flip-flopped between a few different tools, so I'll talk about the one that I'm using currently, SoftPerfect Network Scanner. The tool fills all of the above requirements (not the all bonus requirements, mind you), and it runs without install, making it a perfect addition to a utility-USB key.
SoftPerfect Network Scanner is a free multi-threaded IP, NetBIOS and SNMP scanner with a modern interface and several advanced features. It is intended for both system administrators and users who are interested in computer security. The program pings computers, scans for listening TCP ports and shows what types of resources are shared on the network (including system and hidden).
In addition, it allows you to mount shared folders as network drives, browse them using Windows Explorer, filter the results list and more. SoftPerfect Network Scanner can also check for a user-defined port and report if it is found open, resolve host names and auto-detect your local and external IP range.
With SoftPerfect, you can specify external applications to attach to a computername via right-click, and this opens up a LOT of possibilities, especially if you are handy with scripting. Not only that, you can configure alternate SNMP strings, filter your scan results, and more. You can save your scan results to an HTM file so you can review it later or forward to another person via email.
For being such a small program, it is very useful and fast.
My only issues I have with the app is that it does take awhile to clean up remaining threads if you want to close the application before it is done scanning a subnet. There also doesn't seem to be a way to tab from the various fields when entering an IP address. Finally, it would be nice to include a port scanning option (although this would increase the scan query time a bit). However, if you have a port scanner tool, you could always set it up as an add-on right-click option.
There are not really any support options available, other than email, but I will say the application is pretty "maintenance free."
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