Very Simply Network Scanner is a free software program for the Windows operating system that can scan a network range. The main purpose of the program is to scan a specific network range, display a list of devices discovered in that range and provide the means to export the findings in a csv file.

The network scanner is relatively easy to use. The network IP range can be selected in the network field. The first three digits of the IP are left untouched but the last digit defines the starting point of the scan. The end point of the scan is the last possible digit in that range (e.g. from 0 to 255).

A click on scan network will initiate the network scan which does not take longer than a few seconds usually unless the network utilizes many devices on different IPs.

Each device will be listed with its IP, DNS, time and TTL, Mac address and device type among other parameters.

Selected information can be copied to the clipboard. The user of the program can select the device type by right-clicking on a line in the results which makes identification of devices easier.

A port scanner is included that can be used to retrieve the ports that are open by the selected network IP.

Very Simple Network Scanner is a work in progress. The portable software program is currently offered as an alpha version that can be downloaded from various software portals like Betanews.

Deployment could not be easier. The network administrator needs to install KontrolPack on all computer systems that should be managed or used to manage the network. The client systems then need to be started in client mode while the administrative systems need to be started in administrative mode.

Network administrators can then, among other things use functionality like:

• Handle remote shell command execution.
• Share files between remote computers.
• Manage your network: LAN (Local Area Network).
• Get an overview of the workstations on your LAN.
• Lightweight XML based message exchange between client and server.
• Handle each client with a personalized tab panel.
• Send commands simultaneously to all computers on your LAN.

You can manage your computers and execute the same shell commands on them regardless of the operating system. On top of this, it provides an easy interface that can be used to view your LAN activity and manage your network without difficulties.

Users who are using this software on any supported operating system will be able to perform administrative tasks remotely on multiple computers that run on different operating systems without any technical issues.

For example, from a machine running a GNU/Linux distribution you can send an order to a hundred computers running MS Windows telling them to restart or to defrag their root partition. You can also retrieve IP addresses and routing tables from a variety of computers in order to help manage a network. Sometimes single commands are not enough, and it is possible to execute batch files and scripts simultaneously throughout the network

All different platform releases of the network management software KontrolPack are available from the developer’s website.

One of the main features of the network monitoring software is the ability to automatically scan a network based on a network adapter, device or selected IP range. The software will scan the selected range and display all connected computers and devices after the fast scan.

A click on a network device opens the Proof Scan window that provides access to information such as Ping, Traceroute, Netbios, running network services and SNMP System plus additional links to advanced traceroutes and a graphical ping view.

Other features of the network monitoring software include a hierarchical view of the network, a search, graphs and network trapping. Trapping will alert the user of network status changes, for example when a network device goes online of offline.

One network management feature is the generation of network status reports which are saved in html format. They display a detailed view of IP addresses including graphs.

Update: The Look@Lan project has been discontinued by its developers. The program is no longer updated and likely not compatible anymore with more recent versions of the Windows operating system.

The developers have released a new program called Fing, which in its current development stage, is a command line utility for network and service discovery. Unlike Look@Lan which has only been available for windows, Fing is also available for other platforms including various Linux distributions, Mac OS X and the Android operating system.

Fing’s developers have promised that they will release a version with a graphical user interface in the future. The latest version of Fing can be downloaded from the project homepage. I suggest you check out the documentation posted there to get started.