Intel AMT SW, part 2: The notification area icon - understanding the pop-up

By Shmuel Gershon (Intel) (21 posts) on September 15, 2008 at 1:26 am

(Hello all, this is a delayed continuation from the Part 1 overview. Please see there the enumeration of all the software we'll see in the articles)

Privacy: "\prī-vuh-sē, noun, freedom from unauthorized intrusion" (one definition from the Merriam Webster Dictionary).
Following the need and willingness to be as transparent to the end-user as possible, Intel AMT provides a notification area icon and application that informs the user on the current status of Intel AMT. Appropriately, this app is called Intel® AMT System Status, but (unofficially) it is known to intimate friends as the Privacy Icon, atchk, or simply the Intel AMT pop-up.

If the application says "enabled" then Intel AMT is (good guess!) enabled on the computer, and ready to be configured.
The user can expect manageability actions to happen in his computer once Intel® AMT is configured/provisioned; for example, an IT manager may query the system's Hardware Inventory, or System Defense policies may reduce his network exposure in case of malware attack.
It is only fair that if the user system/experience can be affected by manageability (even in his own benefit), he should know about it.

On the other hand, if "disabled" is written, then the user knows that Intel AMT manageability cannot affect/protect the computer, as it is not enabled nor configured yet -- even if the system is Intel AMT capable.
The application process is called atchk, and the information comes from a service called Intel® AMT System Status Service (the atchksrv process) that runs in the background from Windows' start-up. This service must be running in order to have an accurate status.

This is what the user sees in his computer:

Notification Area Icon and Application Windows (Intel AMT 2.0):

notification icon screenshot

See the notification area icon? It is the little 'computer' picture on the right, with the 'Ok' mark.

The application window is slightly different in Intel AMT 2.5 and 3.0:

notification icon screenshot

The Intel® AMT System Status is a regular Microsoft Windows' service:

Intel® AMT System Status Service

As you can see, there's a check box the users can select, to disable the window from appearing at start-up, or to have it appearing if desired . This setting is saved in a per-user form, and each user can set his own preferences.

In some systems (it all depends on the manufacturers setting) the default behavior of this window is to appear open when windows start. But in my humble opinion, it is nicer not to have applications opening on startup by default, so if you system does that, I'll show you in one of the next posts how to configure the application's conduct if wanted.

We'll see also how else it can be configured, and even how to disable it completely if wanted (together with the consequences).
Eventually I'll show you the new and revamped application that will be available in Intel AMT 4.0, which has got better configuration options and clearer information.

Until next time -- please feel free to ask any question! :)

Articles in the Intel® AMT software series:

Categories: Manageability

Comments (2)

September 26, 2008 8:34 AM PDT

Gael Holmes (Intel)

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Hi Shmuel, Good Blog! We will be able to send our customers in the forum this link - there are a lot of questions about the "enabled vs disabled" window. I'm looking forward to your next blog as well.

January 26, 2009 10:26 PM PST

Shmuel Gershon (Intel)