For our environment, we have Altiris NS agent hidden, so it never show on the systray. We never have problem with end user turning off or disable the client.

In our environment, we hide both the NS and DS agents. Eventhough the NS is hidden, you can go and view the settings on it.

Just go into folder where the NS agent is installed and run AeXSWDUsrUIWin.exe.

I have not figured a way to view the DS once it's hidden. But usually, there's nothing I want to look at in the DS anyways, so no big deal for me.

Vinh Huynh

If you want a way to view the DS once it is hidden, there is a way. If you stop the Aclient service, go into the registry to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE->SOFTWARE->ALTIRIS->CLIENT SERVICE and change the ShowTrayIcon to 1, then restart the service it will show the icon.

I created a script that checks for the altiris service and the installation of the agent and made it a group policy. If someone removes the agent, the GP will reinstall it. If they stop the service it will be restarted by the GP.

Emily Duncan
Sidley Austin LLP
Software Deployment Developer

We use Group policy to control access to the Service itself.

Privilege Management Essentials (Application Control and Local Security Solution) can be used to restrict users from killing the Altiris agent as well as other processes.

can be a good start for you!
why you need it there?
i push the agent without the icon in the task bar or any add/remove options.
(beside that my users are not admin... so it kind of great solution for this issue in my case :) )

We don't hide the clients anymore, but when we did, you could get to the admin properties from a run command. Just add a -admin behind the file path (ie: "C:\Program Files\Altiris\Aclient\Aclient.exe" -admin). This should open up the DS properties.

Jeremy I. Boger
MSD of Lawrence Township