Reader to Reader - August 1998

[Editor's Note: Share your NT discoveries, comments,experiences with products, problems, and solutions and reach out to other Windows NT Magazine readers (including Microsoft). Email your contributions (400 words or less) to Karen Bemowski at [email protected]. Please include your phone number. We will edit submissions for style, grammar, andlength. If we print your letter, you'll get $100.]

After reading "Optimizing NT RAS" (May 1998), Taed Nelson asked mewhy the Windows NT 4.0 serial.sys driver installs with the default first in,first out (FIFO) values of 8 for the receive buffer (RX) and 1 for the transmitbuffer (TX). I decided to investigate the matter in the Microsoft Windows NTServer 4.0 Resource Kit.

The resource kit's Registry documentation refers you to a nonexistentKnowledge Base article (Q112559), making the mystery even stranger. You can'thelp but wonder why Microsoft removed this article. And you are still leftwondering why Microsoft selected the NT 4.0 default values of 8 for RX FIFO and1 for TX FIFO, especially when Windows 95 uses the default values of 8 and 16,respectively.

You can improve modem performance by increasing the TX FIFO value to 16. Inregedit, change the TX FIFO value in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesSerial subkey to 16. However, before youexperiment with this modification, make sure you have backed up your Registry.In addition, be aware that modifying the TX FIFO value is a global change thataffects all serial ports on the system. As a result, this change might causeproblems for other types of devices (such as plotters, mouse devices, anddigitizing tablets) attached to serial ports. After you change the TX FIFOvalue, verify whether all the serial-based devices are working properly.

If you encounter any problems with particular devices on other componentobject model (COM) ports, you can make the following change, which is specificto a particular serial port. In the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesSerial subkey, create an additional Registry subkeyfor a specific serial port number by adding a Serialn key (where nis the number of the COM ports connected to the dial-up adapter) under thiskey's Parameters subkey.

For example, a specific entry for COM1 is HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesSerialParametersSerial. Inside thisnewly created key, create the same REG_DWORD value for TX FIFO as that found inthe Serial subkey and set it to the desired value for that port (e.g., 16decimal). You can also create custom values to this port for other entries, suchas RX FIFO.

—Sean Daily
[email protected]

Try Before You Buy
I have been testing Symantec's pcANYWHERE32 8.0 for Windows NT 4.0, NT 3.51,and Windows 95 in a development lab to determine its compatibility andfunctionality with my company's legacy systems. In particular, I wanted to testpcANYWHERE32's ability to upload and download files to and from distributors'bulletin board systems (BBSs) using Pulsar Systems' ZMODEM.

My company has been running pcANYWHERE32 on UNIX servers in its US systems.For several years, I have used a script to automate the ZMODEM transfers.However, my company plans to replace the UNIX boxes with NT. Initially, Ibelieved that I could still use pcANYWHERE32 with NT to maintain the BBS filetransfers to the distributors. But when I tested pcANYWHERE32 for NT and Win95,I discovered that Symantec has not incorporated the functionality of the earlierversions into version 8.0. This version doesn't support script-based filetransfers to legacy BBSs.

Calls to Symantec have been fruitless. No one seems concerned that thisfeature doesn't work with NT. (It works with other platforms, however.) And noone appears to know whether this feature will ever be functional. So buyerbeware. Before you part with your hard-to-come-by IS budget and purchase aproduct, make sure it works.

—Robert J. Birkett

Remotely Change the LMHOSTS Table
Suppose you have a network of Windows NT workstations at local and remotesites (some of which are far away). You don't have either fixed IP addresses orWindows Internet Naming Service (WINS), so whenever you install a new computer,you must change the LMHOSTS table. You can perform this task remotely by usingthe .reg file in Listing 1 to change the Registry keys.

In Listing 1, Elnk31 and AMDPCN1 are network adapters that might exist in acomputer. Although this file contains entries for several adapters, NT will useonly the appropriate one.

To install the changes in the Registry, use the .bat file in Listing 2, putin the logon script, and reboot. The script in Listing 3 will not only implementthe Registry changes but also implement the WINS and Domain Name System (DNS)policy. Before you use this listing, change the IP and domain names to the onesin your network.

—Jose Abel Aguiar
[email protected]

Perl Script Helps You Review Event Logs
As an administrator, you probably look at the server logs routinely. If youare responsible for many servers, you might be interested in the Perl script inListing 4, page 58. This script automatically opens the event logs in Notepadand displays only the errors and warnings for that particular day.

I used the DUMPEL.EXE command in the Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0Resource Kit and Perl parsing techniques to retrieve the errors and warningsfrom the three event logs (System, Security, and Application) in all themachines specified in the @machine array in Section B in Listing 4. Inyour script, you must replace ("SERVER01","SERVER2")with the names of your servers in quotation marks. You can include an unlimitednumber of machines. However, the account running this program must haveadministrator privileges on all the machines. You must also haveDUMPEL.EXE in the same directory from which this program is run.

The line system ("dumpel -f tmp -l $source -s $machine -c");in Section B uses DUMPEL.EXE to dump all the events from the Event Viewer intothe tmp file. The script then parses the events to get the errors (Event 1) andwarnings (Event 2) for that particular date. The script writes these filteredevents to a temporary file that has the name of the log (e.g., security.log),and Notepad opens this file. So for each system, the script opens three Notepadsessions. The line print outfile ("Event log for $machine $source");at Section B ensures that each session has the appropriate heading.

The script moves through all the events of one machine before it moves toanother. You can save the events displayed in Notepad or close the Notepadsession. The script deletes the tmp and other log files created at the end ofthe program.

If you need to review the logs from a past date, you can replace Section Ain Listing 4 with the following lines:

Print (_&Enter the date for the Event Logs _&);

chop($date=);

Section A in Listing 4 gives the date in the exact format required for eventlogs. Thus, when you are entering a past date, you must be careful to follow thesame format.

—Sai Prasad Kesavamatham
[email protected]

Is Microsoft Shooting Itself in the Foot?
Although Microsoft has always published the policy that, after a year, MCSEscan no longer participate in Microsoft's beta evaluation program, it did notenforce that policy­until now. I doubt whether Microsoft has begunenforcing its policy because of expense, considering that you can purchase ablank CD-ROM for less than a dollar nowadays.

Who is better to beta test software than MCSEs? Without MCSEs implementingand troubleshooting software and solutions, Microsoft might not be where it istoday.

—Brian Chaney
[email protected]

Calling All Windows NT Supporters
I'm looking for suggestions and assistance in coming up with a special gift(e.g., a giant email card with notes from everyone) to thank David Cutler andhis crew for developing Windows NT. They have persevered and sacrificed much tomake NT a reality. So why not say thanks? Also, if you have any Dave Cutlerstories you want to share with others, send them (including pictures) my way.You can email your suggestions and stories to me at [email protected]. For generalinformation, go to the Dave Cutler Fan Club Web site at http://web.wt.net/~shannonh/dave_fan_club/index.htm.

—Shannon T. Hill
[email protected]

Remove Your NT Workstations from the BrowserElection
In "Remove Your NT Server from the Browser Election" (Reader toReader, May 1998), Tommy Gustafsson explains how to remove a Windows NT serverfrom browser elections in a research and development (R&D) environment sothat your network can run smoothly. You can also remove your NT workstationsfrom browser elections in an R&D environment. Their removal willsignificantly reduce the traffic on your network, and you won't losefunctionality. Because the Primary Domain Controller (PDC) and Backup DomainController (BDC) always win browser elections, stopping NT workstations'participation in elections will have no effect, except less network traffic.

To stop a workstation running NT 4.0 from participating in browserelections, log on as Administrator. Go to Control Panel, Services. ClickComputer Browser, Stop to disable the browser service in the current election.To disable the browser service in future elections, click Startup, Disable, OK.

To stop a workstation running NT 3.51 from participating in browserelections, you need to edit the Registry. Launch regedit. Add this key andvalue: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesBrowserParametersMaintainServerList = No. As always, be careful when modifying the Registry.

—Steve Hong
[email protected]

Correction
Troy Woodfield's Reader to Reader tip "Have More Time to Send NewMessages" (June 1998) described how to set up a shortcut on your desktopthat takes you directly to the New Message Screen of the Microsoft WindowsMessaging email client. Step 3 of the seven-step process instructed you tospecify the following command line:

c:program fileswindows ntwindows messagingexchng32.exe /n

However, you must enclose paths that have long file names in double quotes.The command line should have read:

"c:program fileswindows ntwindows messagingexchng32.exe" /n

Thanks goes to Tredd Barton for pointing out this error. We apologize forany inconvenience this error might have caused.