Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit Utilities

More than a manual

Microsoft Windows NT Workstation Resource Kit and Microsoft Windows NT ServerResource Kit are full of useful information and belong on every administrator's bookshelf. (Fora review of the resource kits, see Jonathan J. Chau, "Resource Kit Review," March 1997.)This article does not focus on the volumes of documentation but rather on the tools that come on theCD-ROM packaged with the resource kits. The tools alone are worth the price of the resource kits.

What Is the Resource Kit?
The NT Workstation resource kit includes a thick book--1350 pages--and a CD-ROM. The text of thebook is also on the CD-ROM. In addition to a selection of the tools I'll discuss below, the NTWorkstation CD-ROM contains the NT client-based administration tools. You can install these tools toadminister an NT network from a computer running NT Workstation. The tools include User Manager forDomains, Server Manager, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), Windows Internet Name Service(WINS), Remote Access Manager, and Remote Boot Manager. You must install these tools separately;they are not part of the default resource kit installation process.

The NT Server resource kit includes three volumes: Microsoft Windows NT Server ResourceGuide, Microsoft Windows NT Server Networking Guide, and Microsoft Windows NT ServerInternet Guide. The NT Server resource kit CD-ROM includes the complete text of the three NTServer volumes and the NT Workstation resource kit's book. The CD-ROM includes about 30 utilitiesthat are not on the NT Workstation resource kit's CD-ROM. These utilities include the Browser andDomain monitors, some DHCP tools, and time synchronization utilities, most of which will interestonly systems administrators. The CD-ROMs are valuable for those of us who work outside the officeand don't want to haul around a suitcase full of manuals. Briefly, the resource kits expand on theinformation in the NT manuals and Books Online, providing the background you need to troubleshootand optimize NT systems.

The resource kits include tools that systems administrators and systems engineers can use daily.You might wonder why Microsoft did not include the tools with NT. Well, Microsoft can, and does,market them as an additional product. But other reasons for separating out these tools exist. Noteveryone will need them, so the tools would just take up additional disk space on most systems. Manyof these utilities do not conform to the standard interface or fit neatly into a category. TheMicrosoft programmers wrote many of the tools for their own solutions, and the tools became part ofthe resource kits as other people adopted and applied them.

Most of these utilities have not been through the regression testing that NT has undergone. Inother words, watch out for bugs in the code! Microsoft does not guarantee the performance of thetools, response times on support, or bug fixes. But Microsoft supports the tools as time permits andwill attempt to provide fixes as needed.

When you install the tools from the CD-ROM, they are grouped in folders. I'll discuss them inthe order they're grouped. I used the NT Server resource kit's CD-ROM, so some of the tools mightnot appear on your system if you install just the NT Workstation resource kit CD-ROM.

Configuration Tools
The first group consists of the configuration tools. With Auto Logon, you can bypass theusual NT logon screen with a default username and password. This utility restricts you to thecurrent username, and you can supply the password. Before you systems administrators go into orbitover this obvious major breach in security, you must know you can do the same thing from theRegistry. From the Registry, you can specify the default domain, username, and password, just as youcan with Auto Logon. And the password is not encrypted in the Registry. I do not recommendthis utility or Registry change in most situations.

C2 Configuration Manager, shown in Screen 1, checks how your system measures up against the C2security specification. With this utility, you can modify some settings to bring your system intocompliance. For example, you can remove the POSIX and OS/2 subsystems, display a logon message thatwarns off unauthorized users, and disallow blank passwords.

Command Scheduler lets you schedule commands on your computer or any other computer on whichyou have administrative rights. The commands must be batch or CMD files, which you can set to occurevery day or on specific days. This utility is simply a graphical interface for the AT command.

Time Service for NT sets the time of an NT computer accurately from a variety of sources andsynchronizes computers over a LAN. The icon in the folder takes you to a document file thatdescribes how this utility works. (For more information about Microsoft's time synchronizationutilities, see Tao Zhou, "Time Synchronization in an NT Network," February 1997.)

Time Zone Editor is handy if you live somewhere that does not conform to NT's preset timezones. However, most zones are already covered.

When you add another processor to a single processor computer that has NT installed, apply theUni to MultiProcessor utility. Do not run the utility if you install it with multiple CPUs in place,because the system finds the CPUs during installation. Run this utility for upgrading.

Desktop Tools
Next, let's review the resource kit's desktop tools. 3D Paint, Animated Cursor Editor, and ImageEditor are graphics manipulation tools that you can create (given a little artistic ability) someinteresting images with. 3D paint is a 3GL application. With Animated Cursor Editor, you can createthose fun, moving cursors that Microsoft introduced with NT. Image Editor handles BMP, icon (ICO),and cursor (CUR) files.

Microsoft Desktops, formerly known as Multidesk, creates multiple desktops so you can work ontwo or more projects at the same time and keep each on its own desktop. Each desktop shows all theshortcuts and icons of the usual desktop. The only difference is the open applications. To switchfrom one desktop to another, click the appropriate icon.

Diagnostic Tools
The next folder contains diagnostic tools. Browser Monitor is useful for checking the status ofthe various browsers on your network. You can see in Screen 2 which computer is acting as the masterbrowser (MDR in this case), and where the backup browsers are (I have only one backup browser,BLACKHAWK, in the example domain). This utility can help you balance the load on your browsers andconfigure the browsers for best performance and minimal impact on the network.

The Domain Monitor, as Screen 3 shows, lists the domains, the Primary Domain Controller (PDC)in each domain, and the status of links to trusted domains. This utility is useful for tracking downproblems with validations and broken trust relationships.

Network Watch is a quick way to look at the resources shared on a specific computer andadminister the shares. You can add or drop a share, see who is connected, disconnect users, andconnect and disconnect network drives. This utility replicates some of Server Manager'sfunctionality but with a neater interface.

Process Viewer, shown in Screen 4, lets you see what processes are running and how much memoryand how many threads the process is taking. You can also kill a process from this dialog box.

Quick Slice is a quick substitute for Performance Monitor. It displays %CPU usage as a barchart for the currently running processes.

SNMP Monitor monitors any Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) Management Information Base(MIB) variables across multiple SNMP nodes. The monitor also logs the results to an Open DatabaseConnectivity (ODBC) data source.

Disk Tools
Disk tools are also on the CD-ROM. Disk Probe is a sector editor that you can use to edit, save,or copy data on the physical hard disk. With Disk Probe, you can repair damaged partition tableinformation, replace the Master Boot Record (MBR), and repair or replace damaged Partition BootSectors. This utility can save the MBR and Partition Boot Sectors as files so that you can replacethe MBR and Partition Boot Sectors later if they are damaged. Obviously, you don't use this programunless you have no other alternative.

Fault Tolerance Editor (FTEDIT) lets you create and edit fault tolerant sets for disk drivesand partitions. Although you can perform these functions with Disk Administrator on the localcomputer, FTEDIT lets you set up fault tolerant sets on remote computers. Be aware that FTEDIT editsRegistry entries directly.

File Tools
Next, let's review file tools. File and Directory Comparison shows the differences amongspecified files or folders. Unfortunately it lacks any browse capability, so you have to type in thefull path and filename.

File Expansion expands a compressed file or group of files, typically from a distributionCD-ROM, onto your hard disk. This utility is useful for replacing corrupted, deleted, or overwrittenfiles.

Text File Viewer lets you look inside files with an NT Explorer-like split-window interface.This utility is set up to include .html and .c file extensions but not Word or Excel files,confirming that this tool is for programmers.

Internet and TCP/IP Utilities
The next folder includes Internet and TCP/IP utilities. FTP Configuration sets the maximumnumber of users. You can determine whether to allow anonymous connections and set other FTPvariables.

Mail Server (click Install Mail Service on the resource kit menu) configures an NT server (notworkstation) as an email provider for intranet or Internet users. With this software, the computercan connect directly to the Internet to send and receive email, and provide user postofficeservices. This software raises some security concerns, so read the documentation before youimplement it.

IP Configuration is a useful utility that should be in the NT retail product. The tool lists IPdata comprehensively, as Screen 5 shows. With this utility, you can quickly check IP parameters withthe DHCP and WINS databases. IP Configuration will be even more effective when it can display datafor a remote computer. (Are you listening, NT developers?)

NT UUCode is a 32-bit GUI program that encodes and decodes files and applies the UUencodingstandard for transmitting files over the Internet. If you use a service such as CompuServe, you needa utility such as this one to encode files from transmission to accounts on other services orInternet accounts.

Management Tools
The resource kit includes a management tools folder. Shutdown Workstation lets you shut down aworkstation on the network. This capability can come in handy if a user locks up the workstationwith some out-of-control process. Or you can shut down the workstation and reboot after you changeparameters, for example.

Setup Tools
Another folder contains setup tools. Windows NT Setup Manager, shown in Screen 6, is hiding inthe Setup folder, which you might think is for the resource kit setup. Not so. The Setup Managerhelps you create the answer files that you need to install NT without sitting in front of thecomputer to answer questions.

Other Tools
Several other tools do not have shortcuts in the resource kit folders. You can run these toolsfrom the command line or the Run option in the Start menu.

Use SYSDIFF.EXE to gather information needed to perform an unattended installation ofapplications software. You can even use it with applications that don't support an install script.Create an NT system snapshot with SYSDIFF. Then install the application, and run SYSDIFF again. Itwill create a difference file, which includes Registry modifications and any other changes the newapplication makes. You can use the difference file with the unattended install, or at another time,to install the same application on multiple computers without having to go through the installprocess. The SYSDIFF documentation clearly warns about configuring the sample computer the same wayas the target computers. If you must install software on large numbers of computers, you'llappreciate this utility. SYSDIFF is on the NT CD-ROM but without the documentation. (For a moredetailed explanation of SYSDIFF, see Bob Chronister, "Tricks and Traps," May 1997.)

The resource kit has a group of tools for user administration, including utilities to add usersand add groups. SHOWACLS.EXE lists access rights for files. The resource kit also has a set ofPerformance Monitor tools that help stress test your system.

Late-Breaking News
As I was writing this article, Microsoft published a supplement to the NT Server resource kit,Microsoft Windows NT Server Resource Kit, Version 4.0, Supplement One. Microsoft revised thedocumentation, with extra emphasis on Internet Information Server (IIS) and Internet security. TheCD-ROM includes the service packs, and Microsoft improved the utilities with more tools. For moredetails, see the Microsoft Press Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/mspress. Microsoft Press alsois planning a resource kit Web site, which will (for a subscription fee) help you keep up with thelatest resource kit information.

You Be the Judge
The resource kits have other useful tools that I can't describe here for lack of space. I hopethis article gives you some idea of the tools available in the resource kits so that you can decidewhether the kits are a good investment for you and your company.