Homegroup Administration

Question

At my house there are a number of computers that I would like to remotely administer. For example the following devices are present:

1. Windows 8.1 Professional (64 Bit) Laptop
2. Windows 8.1 Professional (64 Bit) Laptop
3. Windows 10 Professional (64 Bit) Desktop
4. Windows 7 Home Premium (64 Bit) Laptop
5. Windows 7 Ultimate (64 Bit) Desktop
6. Windows 7 Home Premium (64 Bit) Laptop
7. Windows 7 Home Premium (64 Bit) Laptop

All computers run with the local account (user) being an admin. There is currently no configured domain or homegroup configured. I would like to be able to perform the following on the devices:

Remotely install applications and update/uninstall applications. [Choco]
Remotely deploy printers using a created batch script.
Remotely execute de fragments, anti-virus scan and windows updates.
Remotely execute backups to network drives.
Configure GP via one centralised point, or simply bulk edit the local PC.

For security reasons, I do not want to prevent them from doing these tasks themselves, I just want to be able to remotely perform these tasks when needed. It may sound lazy, but I want to be able to remotely execute a local backup of the computers simultaneously without needing to manually disturb the users.

Furthermore, each PC/User have a different anti-virus program; I have Bit Defender Total Security on the Windows 8, ESET NOD32 on all Windows 7 except Ultimate, and Kaspersky Total Security on the Windows 7 Ultimate. Administering scans and changes to the settings here could be a problem.

I want to set this up in the most secure manner, preferably without needing to purchase any enterprise software. Would I need to configure some administrator account locally on each computer, then utilise some freeware tool to run programs?

There is a free tool called "Remote Utilities" which uses NT permissions to remotely install, reboot etc. computers. Something along these lines would be preferable.

I am not so much asking for software recommendations, more the safest and most effective way to implement this.

Answer 1

The method I used largely incorporated PS Exec as the method:

Usage: psexec [\\computer[,computer2[,...] | @file]][-u user [-p psswd][-n s][-r servicename][-h][-l][-s|-e][-x][-i [session]][-c [-f|-v]][-w directory][-d][-<priority>][-a n,n,...] cmd [arguments]

Identifying the PC via it's static IP address. With PS Exec I specified the local administrative account and remotely setup task schedules for backups (using robocopy and 7z command line)

I was able to deploy printers remotely with PrintBM and as all PC's have the same printer, any changes on my PC I could relay (again relying on PS Exec).

Remote Scans proved to be too much to schedule from my PC, so I just task scheduled this within the actual application to allow it to auto-run. The same for disk defragmentation etc.