SmartLaunch

SmartLaunch is a comprehensive application suite made to help you manage gaming centers and Internet cafes. It supports a wide range of useful features, such as generating statistical reports, monitoring costs, or handling customer information.

The suite consists of three separate components: the client installed on the customer computers, the server that all clients connect to, and the administrator that grants you control over customer and employee information.

An initial configuration has to be made with details about your country, language, account email address and password, Windows version on client computers, whether or not you want to install all games in the same folder, and hourly rates.

The server must be active at all times for the admins and clients to connect to, and its configuration panel can be minimized to the systray to become non-intrusive. It shows the server uptime and current licenses, number of clients and administrators, active connections, startups and logins for both clients and admins, along with the current file versions of the server, admins and clients. You can lock it to prevent unauthorized users from modifying settings.

There are numerous options that you can tinker with, such as server and client language, database setup (MS Access, MS SQL Server, MySQL), proxy, IP filtering, employees and user groups.

What's more, you can specify standard client properties, such as the actions to take when a PC logs out, screenshots, PC and layout groups, security profiles, UI customization, headlines and welcome message, together with basic Windows login functions, the welcome screen and lock screen. It's also possible to generate reports and send them via email automatically, as well as to back up and export settings.

SmartLaunch logs client activity for admins to inspect. You can get an overview on computer details and a graphical overview, as well as manage user accounts and bookings. The financial information and employee shifts examined as well, and you can conduct advanced search operations, verify app installations and launch them remotely, or change the connection preferences of the administrator.

When it comes to the client, SmartLaunch can be asked to replace the Windows shell and automatically start. You can enter the PC number used to identify the machine on the network, after which the tool will attempt to automatically find the server in the network. If this fails, you can enter the IP address manually.

Once the client is launched, customers are greeted by a user-friendly interface that permits them to view news and events, tinker with mouse, sound and video settings, launch video games and other types of applications, as well as perform web searches.

Taking into account its rich options and configuration settings, SmartLaunch seems to have everything it takes to successfully manage gaming centers and Internet cafes through server, admin and client modules.