I had a client that needed to monitor multiple computers at the same time from one central location. Cost was a issue, so I started to research ways to do this “on the cheap”.

The first thing I stumbled upon was SmartCode VNC Manager. This looked like a nice product but was cost prohibitive. Digging further I found a project that was started by a teacher for his students computer lab. The projects website is http://thetechnologyteacher.wordpress.com/vncthumbnailviewer/. Once I got VNC installed on all of the client computers, setting up VncThumbnailViewer on the monitoring computer was simple.

Below is a screen shot of the thumbnail viewer with six workstations active and a example of the simple configuration file that can be used to load multiple workstations quickly.

     

If you’re looking for a cheap alternative to monitor multiple workstations from one central system I’d recommend giving this project a try.