Installing Grid 3 and voices

Smartbox software is typically installed from a web installer for online devices, or an ISO for devices without internet access. Voices can be chosen during installation – Graham and Lucy are selected by default. Education Licences are supported from Grid 3.0.24 onward.

For remote installation using Active Directory we provide MSI installers. Voices have separate MSI files so they can be chosen according to the users’ needs. Updated MSIs are published here monthly, and can be deployed over older versions to keep Grid 3 up to date on your network.

https://downloads.sensorysoftware.com/public/msi/

Installing Grid 3 Licencing MSI

Grid 3 Licencing.msi must be installed alongside Grid 3 on each device to enable Education Licencing. This is available to download with the other MSIs above, but requires the username and password supplied in your welcome email to access.

Note that Internet access will required each time you start Grid 3 on devices using this, to port 6200 at activate.sensorysoftware.com (77.68.41.110) to verify the licence status.

Anti-virus

We advise system administrators set up our recommended anti-virus exceptions, which you can view here.

Adding these exceptions will help optimise performance.

Installing licence keys

With Group Policy: On a domain machine with Group Policy Management, extract the Smartbox policy definitions to C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions, or to the Central Store in the sysvol folder on your Windows domain controller. Further details for Domain control can be found at Microsoft’s help page. The Smartbox folder should then show in Administrative Templates in policy editors.

For Computer policies this includes the ‘Specify Education Licences’ policy, which makes your keys available to your devices. Instructions on how to enter your keys (supplied in your welcome email) are shown when you configure the policy.

Without Group Policy: Download this template and edit it to create registry keys to configure licence codes for your devices manually.

If you have multiple licences, such as Grid 3 and PODD, each licence must be added into the same entry, separated by commas. e.g. [Grid 3 licence]+[passcode],[PODD licence]+[passcode]

Checking licence status

On devices configured with Education Licence keys, Licence Manager shows an ‘Education’ button after loading. You can use this to view licence details and usage.

Customisation

Additional options to simplify administration and personalise network user profiles. Change the Users path to control where you grid sets are stored – students will then be able to log on to multiple computers and access the same grid sets and access settings, as well as their saved emails and documents.

Changing the Users path

Grid 3 user files are stored in C:\Users\Public\Documents\Smartbox\Grid 3\Users. This can be changed using Group Policy (see above).

Typically there are benefits to changing this to a network path specific to the Windows User. This can facilitate data backup, administering grid set files remotely and roaming with the Windows login. An example User policy setting might be:

\\server\share\%username%\Grid 3

Note that a Grid 3 user profile cannot be in use on more than one device at a time, and that redirecting files to a network share is not suitable for devices that need to operate disconnected from the network.

Changing the grid sets path

Grid sets are stored in a subfolder of the user path.  This means each Grid 3 user maintains their own grid sets and Grid Explorer view, preserves privacy and prevents conflicts from editing and activities.

It is possible to change this location so that multiple users share the same Explorer content. This can be useful for simpler resource administration, but should not be used where grid sets contain personal data, are edited by more than one person or contain activities that edit grid set word lists.

Hiding update notifications

The ‘Prevent checking for updates’ policy allows you to prevent Grid 3 from showing notifications about updates. This may be desirable when users do not have local Administrator rights to install newer versions.