Sunbelt Windows NTools[tm] Electronic Newsletter

Vol. 3, #15 - August 2, 1998

--- http://www.sunbelt-software.com ---



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Sunbelt Windows NTools E-News is the World's first and largest 

E-Newsletter designed for NT System Managers that have the job of 

getting and keeping NT up & running in a production environment.

Sunbelt launched this electronic newsletter early 1996 so we 

could keep the Windows NT community informed and aware of what 

is happening with NT and 3-rd party NT System Management Tools. 

You get hints and tips that will enable you to better utilize 

and understand Windows NT. You'll find general Windows NT related

and third party news, technical information, and 3-rd party beta

and release information. By subscribing to NTools E-News[tm],

you will receive instant notification of important NT related

events and you are also a charter member of the Sunbelt Field 

Test Bonus Program. Sunbelt Software is the first and largest 

distributor worldwide of Third Party System Management Tools for 

Windows NT with 6 subsidiaries in the USA and Europe.

******************** over 100,000 subscribers!*******************





This issue of Windows NTools E-News contains:



1. "EDITORS CORNER" 

* NEW PRODUCT ANNOUNCEMENT: NT NETWORK PROTOCOL ANALYZER



2. "TECH BRIEFING"

* NT'S ANSWER TO THE NETWARE MAP ROOT COMMAND

* SUPERCHARGING YOUR FAVORITE NT SCRIPTING LANGUAGE



3. "NT RELATED NEWS"

* GETTING NEW NT WORKSTATION USERS STARTED

* AUGUST NT BOOK OF THE MONTH



4. "NT THIRD PARTY NEWS"

* MCSE COMPLETE BUG FIX DOWNLOADABLE

* NEW WINDOWS NT 5.0 ONLINE COMMUNITY

* $1,000 WINNER OF CONTEST: FIRST MCSE COMPLETION!

* BREAK THROUGH THE NETWORK PERFORMANCE BOTTLENECK



5. "HINTS AND TIPS - TIME SAVERS AND OTHER GOODIES...



6. "THE NT STOCK WATCH"



7. "HOW TO USE THE MAILING LIST"

NEW Instructions on how to subscribe, sign off

and change your address.



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1. "Editor's Corner"



* NEW PRODUCT ANNOUNCEMENT: NT NETWORK PROTOCOL ANALYZER



Sunbelt has had a glaring hole in the product line up to now. It's

taken us a long time to find a product that would live up to the

expectations we had, and at the same time be competitive. As you

perhaps know, protocol analyzers are a pretty crowded market.

There are a quite a few products out there, as network monitoring

exists since Ethernet was developed. There's products that are over

10 years old with all kinds of bells and whistles built into them

over a decade. Unfortunately prices went up over that time as well

and you get nothing professional under $1,000 with many costing well

over $2,000.



We were looking for something that provides a significant added 

value, has powerful (graphical) functions and is geared toward NT

especially. The product we found was built for NT from the ground

up, is only $599 and covers almost everything you need including

showing you who is visiting which internet site. Network protocol

analysis is not all that easy if you do not have the tools. Ethernet

works in quite a peculiar way actually. What is this CSMA/CA really?

(CSMA/CA stands for "Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision

Avoidance")



A Human Analogy 



A good analogy of Ethernet technology is a group of people talking in

a small, completely dark room. In this analogy, the physical network

medium is sound waves on air in the room instead of electrical

signals on a cable. 



Each person can hear the words when another is talking (Carrier

Sense). Everyone in the room has equal capability to talk (Multiple

Access), but none of them give lengthy speeches because they are

polite. If a person is impolite, he is asked to leave the room

(i.e., thrown off the net). 



No one talks while another is speaking. But if two people start

speaking at the same instant, each of them know this because each

hears something they haven't said (Collision Detection). When these

two people notice this condition, they wait for a moment, then one

begins talking. The other hears the talking and waits for the first

to finish before beginning his own speech. 



Each person has an unique name (unique Ethernet address) to avoid

confusion. Every time one of them talks, he prefaces the message

with the name of the person he is talking to and with his own name

(Ethernet destination and source address, respectively), i.e., "Hello

Jane, this is Jack, ..blah blah blah...". If the sender wants to

talk to everyone he might say "everyone" (broadcast address), i.e.,

"Hello Everyone, this is Jack, ..blah blah blah...".



As you can see, it can be tricky to find out what is going on with 

this relatively chaotic Ethernet. Have a look at the following 

scenario:



Users are calling in hot and heavy... things are slowing down. Why? 

It's mid morning, everybody is already logged in but they complain 

loudly about response times. Quickly checking the server shows nothing 

wrong, CPU is humming at 20%, memory is only used 50%, and the I/O 

queue is empty... What the heck is going on? 



You may have a Broadcast Storm on the network...



So how do you find out about that? You need a Network Protocol analyzer. 

These tools capture and decode the traffic between two or more systems 

or devices. Decoding allows you to view the conversation in English, 

as opposed to "binary" language. Packet Capture and Packet Decode help 

you to isolate problems. Viewing specific packet details shows exactly 

what is happening. One of the NIC's is faulty and swamps the LAN with

packets, which one?



Protocol analyzers allow you to quickly locate potentially crippling 

problems, and diagnose these throughout your network. LanTrace also 

includes network monitoring, that is statistics and trend information 

on your network traffic. With LanTrace you can do many things, such as:



- Determine why the network is slow and when 

- Locate the top talker or sender immediately 

- Set alarms to detect both existing and potential problems 

- Highlight problem areas via powerful graphics 

- Monitor your NT Exchange, SQL or WebServer in real-time 

- Pinpoint overloaded bandwidth, and grade your LAN efficiency 



We have created a new webpage for all of you to have a look at this

new product and at least check out the cool graphics that show you

what's goin' on inside that wire... ;-) Of course you can download

the 30-day eval (it times out August 31-st) and check out your own

NT LAN. It was revealing to see who was looking at what on the Net!

http://www.sunbelt-software.com/lantrace/lantrace.htm



Warm regards,



Stu Sjouwerman





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2. "TECH BRIEFING"



* NT'S ANSWER TO THE NETWARE MAP ROOT COMMAND



NetWare administrators switching to a Windows NT server often complain

about losing the flexibility of the MAP ROOT command, which allows you

to assign a drive letter to a server-based folder (for instance, 

\APPS\OFFICE\WINWORD) and work with it as though it were the root 

directory of the mapped drive (for example, W:\). NT doesn't support 

the MAP ROOT command, but it does have the SUBST command - dating back

to MS-DOS - to accomplish the same goal.



Used in NT system login scripts (along with some standard variables),

the SUBST command lets you define a drive letter pointing to a folder

but looking like the root directory of a drive. For instance, using

Drive U for a user's personal folder is a popular choice. To map U: to

the personal folder stored in each user's profile, add the following

to the login script for each user:



SUBST U: %userprofile%\Personal



With this command in the login script, NT will add an extra icon to the

My Computer window. Double-clicking this icon will take the user 

straight to the personal folder on the server. And be assured that the

NT version of SUBST is far more stable than some earlier versions (for

those of you who remember losing files because of it).



(From the Network World Fusion NT Newsletter that you can find at:

http://www.nwfusion.com/focus/subscription.html )

----------------------------



* SUPERCHARGING YOUR FAVORITE NT SCRIPTING LANGUAGE



How many scripting languages do you have? One for login scripting 

and another for copying files and a third for batch. Maybe another 

for web scripting and one for ActiveX Scripting. Well, Sunbelt is 

pleased to announce Version 2 of XLNT, the Enterprise Scripting and 

Command Language for Windows NT/95/98. 



With XLNT, you can write scripts to perform all your administrative 

and applications tasks and more. XLNT supports Microsoft's ActiveX 

Scripting technologies so you can use XLNT with Windows Scripting Host, 

IIS and for Microsoft Exchange Scripting. While there are several good 

scripting languages for NT, only _ONE_ is also a Command Language! 



This means you can interactively issue commands to perform various 

tasks without writing a script at all. And when you do need to write 

a script, the script is even simpler because commands actually DO the 

things you need to get done. Need to start a service on a system use 

the START SERVICE command. Need to set permissions on files, services, 

printers, and other non-Kernel mode objects, use the SET PERMISSIONS 

command. 



What's more, XLNT features "remote system targeted execution". This 

means you can issue more than 99% of XLNT's commands and target the 

execution for a remote machine. So you can add that user on another 

domain using the SECURITY CREATE USER command without even installing 

XLNT on the target machine (or domain). XLNT is packaged in "Product 

Editions" so you can purchase just want you need. 



There are 2 different flavors: the Professional Edition (which includes 

the XLNT IDE and Script Debugger, client-side script encoding to an 

EXE, and the fully distributed batch job manager - BQMS). Then the Run-

Time Edition (which provides a low-cost package for Enterprise wide 

distribution of XLNT encoded scripts).



Now I know what you're saying. "I code my scripts in Perl, I don't 

need another script language." OK. How about supercharging your Perl 

scripts with the XLNT Command Language. Instead of using freeware and 

various Resource Kit utility programs, your Perl scripts could be even 

better, faster and more powerful by invoking XLNT commands instead.

--------------------





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3. "NT RELATED NEWS"



* GETTING NEW NT WORKSTATION USERS STARTED



We have found in our own organization that getting brand new users

familiar with a few basic terms helps to prevent a lot of simple 

questions and mistakes. Here is a list of bare bones definitions

that are thrown around in organizations using NT, expecting everyone 

to know them. You'd be surprised how many people do not! Make this 

part of your end-user initial training program and save yourself 

some time.



WAN - Wide Area Network. A series of NT systems hooked up together 

over an area larger than a campus. A WAN can be spread over a city, 

province, country, or a whole planet.



LAN - Local Area Network. A set of computers connected up in the same 

building or sometimes a campus. Your workstation is always part of a 

LAN, and perhaps a WAN.



Share - Short for 'Shared Directory', a directory on a disk that is 

available to other people on the network. Can be a local directory from

your workstation, or a 'shared network directory'; part of the hard 
disk of the Network Server.



User Account - A collection of a users's rights, privileges, group

memberships and other settings that define that user's ability to log 

onto NT or an NT Domain and use the resources of that computer or 

domain.



Domain - A group of computers in an NT-based LAN that share the same 

security settings and permissions. (these security settings sit in a 

security account database called SAM, short for Security Accounts 

Manager)



Home Directory - This term is used for a special directory on the NT 

server created for one specific user's files and programs. The home 

directory is defined at the time you log on your workstation and is 

simply put your workspace on the server. Your files in the home 

directory are backed up when the server is backed up.



Hub/Router/Switch - These are all names of different types of network 

equipment used to create the LAN or WAN your workstation is part of.



Blue Screen(Of Death) BSOD - NT has encountered a critical error and

decides to crash instead of corrupting valuable data on the disk. The

result is indeed a blue screen with a series of indications where the

error occurred. When this happens, call your helpdesk.



FTP - File Transfer Protocol. An efficient way to transport files

over the Internet.



URL - Universal Resource Locator. This is an address on the world wide

web that points to a website or webpage. Click on it and your browser

will bring you to that address.

-----------------------



* AUGUST NT BOOK OF THE MONTH



Que Books published the ADVANCED TECHNICAL REFERENCE to Win NT 4.0

Server and it is the NTools E-News Book Of The Month. A truly complete

guide that covers advanced installation and configuration info. I

have a copy of it and been reading through it, John Enck has done an

excelleNT job of compiling a hands-on approach that takes the guess-

work out of optimizing your NT Server. John also happens to be the

Lab Manager for Windows NT Magazine and that job makes him obviously

a good one for a book like this. It gives you expert administrative- and

management techniques and procedures. It's this month Stu's 'Warmly 

Recommended', but this is for pretty accomplished to expert user level. 

The cover price is $59.99 but you can likely get it for less online. 

The ISBN number is 0-7897-1167-2 and you can find more data is at: 

http://www.quecorp.com

-----------------------





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4. "NT THIRD PARTY NEWS"



* MCSE COMPLETE BUG FIX DOWNLOADABLE



The Problem: You may encounter an error message when running 

"TestPrep Navigator". The title of the dialog is "Shrinker". The 

error message is: (3.20) C:\PROGRAM FILES\MCSE COMPLETE\TPNAV.EXE: 

Dispatcher initialization error 11. The fix is explained and down-

loadable here: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/mcsecomp.htm

----------------------------



* NEW WINDOWS NT 5.0 ONLINE COMMUNITY



Want to get the latest scoop about Windows NT 5.0? Go to the Windows

5.0 Community for news, articles, and discussions about 5.0 products, 

technology, and implementation. I went there and found the following

interesting snippet of info:



"We're looking at the sheer amount of code in the [system], and it's 

a 150% increase in size over the previous version," said a beta tester 

who requested anonymity. Aside from requiring more hard disk space, 

NT 5.0 also taxes CPUs and demands more memory than the previous 

version. "A basic installation of NT Server 5.0 pegs the CPU at about 

65%, and the working set alone is over 35 megabytes. And that is 

without any applications loaded." 



So, the old story comes true again, the software trashes the hardware. 

You have to count on beefing up your current 4.0 server SIGNIFICANTLY

before you can run 5.0 on it. Check out http://www.winntmag.com/nt5

---------------------------



* $1,000 WINNER OF CONTEST: FIRST MCSE COMPLETION!



Jeffrey Smith ([email protected]) was the first to complete his

last MCSE exam with the help of MCSE Complete. Jeff was asked what 

he wanted for his $1,000 of free software, and this was his answer:



I've made my decision. I would like 3 copies of Logcaster @ $299.00

each and 1 copy of Norton Utilities at $99.00. This total comes to

$996.00. Thanks again for everything!!!



We will have the new Version 1.65 of LogCaster up on the website

soon, and will warn you all when it's there. It's a pretty cool and

powerful Event Log Management Tool that Jeff chose!

---------------------------



* BREAK THROUGH THE NETWORK PERFORMANCE BOTTLENECK 



The product Balance Suite we carry just won an Editor's Award of

Network Computing Magazine. This is how they started their article:

"A NIC in any server can become a bottleneck or single point of 

failure for a network. Multihoming the server with several NICs can 

resolve some sticky issues, but raises new questions regarding 

management, routing and name-binding. How does the client choose an 

IP host to talk to? How are clients rerouted when a NIC fails? NIC 

array software helps ease these concerns; it lets you bind a single 

network address to multiple NICs and enjoy high throughput and 

increased fault tolerance". Balance Suite is basically RAID for your

network adapters. You can read the full article over here:

http://www.networkcomputing.com/914/914r2.html, and you can download

a 30-day trial copy here: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/balance.htm

---------------------------





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5. "HINTS AND TIPS - TIME SAVERS AND OTHER GOODIES...



Dieter Spaar from Germany sent me the following:

NTAccess can replace the administrator password of a Windows NT system 

by rebooting the computer with a special set of boot disks. This is 

useful if you forgot the administrator password and cannot access the 

Windows NT system. NTAccess looks for the built-in administrator 

account. This account cannot be disabled, it can only be renamed. 

NTAccess always displays the name of this account so you know how to 

log in even if it has been renamed. NTAccess only changes the password 

of the built-in administrator account, it does not affect any other 

accounts or any registry settings and does not destroy any information 

on the system. Check out http://www.mirider.com

-------------------------



CORRECTION: We reported that SBS SP1 was available, but it seems that 

it's only a white paper about the SBS Update that came out a few months 

ago is now downloadable. The pack seems to be too big, like 650MB...

-------------------------



How to set up a full Internet Site with just NT?

One of the major problems of maintaining an Internet presence for any 

site is the complexity of administering the various Services. For this,

Windows NT has advantages over UNIX that very few administrators are 

currently exploiting. Well what makes up a site? It's all here:

http://www.neystadt.org/winnt/site.htm

-------------------------



The best way I know of to find out when the last time a use has

logged in (if you use per-seat licenses) is go into License Manager 

and look up the user under the "Clients (Per Seat)" tab. Double click 

on the user or right click and choose Properties. The last time the 

user logged in is right there. TADA!!! No hassles .. no waiting .. no

14MB text files . . just the information you were looking for.

Sent in by [email protected]

---



The command line command: net user 

also produces a list of  account properties that includes 

the time of last logon. I don't have any idea if it is faster than 

the USRSTAT program. The USRSTAT resource kit utility is designed to 

give a run down of accounts on the DOMAIN which, as the respondent 

pointed out, can be a real pain.

Sent in by [email protected] and [email protected]

--



You can also run this in batch mode:

--Begin file user.bat

@echo off

REM To use just save this as user.bat and 

REM type user  or user.bat 

REM This is the actual command that does the trick.

net user %1 /domain |more



Sent in by [email protected]

-------------------------



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6. "THE NT STOCK WATCH"





52 WK 52 WK P/E WEEK

SECURITY CLOSE HIGH LOW RATIO CHNG

---------------------------------------------------------------------

BMC Software Inc......... 49 5/16 58 1/2 27 3/8 46 -10.3%

Citrix Systems Inc....... 63 11/16 75 1/2 27 1/2 -3.6%

Compaq Computer Corp..... 32 13/16 39 3/4 23 1/8 +7.5%

Computer Associates Intl. 33 1/4 61 15/16 33 13/16 37 -14.8%

Data General Corp........ 12 15/16 37 15/16 12 7/8 -1.8%

Dell Computer Corp....... 108 19/32 118 1/4 35 75 +3.5%

Gateway 2000 Inc......... 54 68 3/4 25 1/16 71 +2.6%

Hewlett Packard Company.. 55 1/2 82 3/8 55 3/8 20 -2.9%

IBM...................... 132 1/2 133 3/4 88 5/8 22 +6.6%

Intergraph Corporation... 7 14 3/16 6 25/64 +0.9%

Microsoft Corporation.... 109 15/16 119 5/8 59 66 -3.4%

Ncr Corporation.......... 33 7/8 38 1/2 25 5/8 46 -1.8%

Networks Associates Inc.. 47 11/16 56 7/8 27 3/8 -2.6%

Novell Inc............... 11 3/8 13 5/8 6 13/16 -7.6%

Oracle Corporation....... 26 1/2 42 1/8 17 3/4 33 +7.6%

Qualcomm Inc............. 62 11/32 71 15/16 43 1/4 46 -1.0%

Qualix GroupInc.......... 2 6 1/8 1 1/4 +28.0%

Seagate Technologies Inc. 22 5/8 45 3/4 17 3/4 -2.6%

Silicon Graphics Inc..... 11 1/8 30 5/16 10 15/16 -3.2%

Sun Microsystems Inc..... 47 1/4 53 5/16 30 3/8 24 -1.5%

Sybase Inc............... 8 7/8 23 5/8 6 1/8 -2.0%

Symantec Corporation..... 24 1/4 32 5/8 17 7/8 22 -10.1%

Unisys Corporation....... 27 7/16 30 11/16 10 -1.1%

Dow Jones 30 Industrials. 8,883.29 -0.6%

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7. "HOW TO USE THE MAILING LIST"

Instructions on how to subscribe, sign off

or change your email address



TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE LIST



US: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/scripts/lyris.exe?join=nt-list

and fill out the form, simple & easy: 1 minute work.

(PS, if you get an error message, press the refresh button on

your browser once or twice, this is a bug we are getting rid of)

_____________________________________________________



TO QUIT THE LIST



Two ways to do it: 



1) Go to:

http://www.sunbelt-software.com/scripts/lyris.exe 

choose the NT-List, use your email address that is at 

the bottom of each newsletter and leave the list via 

the web interface.

(PS, if you get an error message, press the refresh button on

your browser once or twice, this is a bug we are getting rid of)



2) THE EASY WAY: Simply forward any newsletter you get to this 

email address: [email protected]

(we tag the email address this message gets sent to at the

very end, so you can see what address we are using, and this

is used to unsub you automatically if you choose to do so).

_____________________________________________________



TO CHANGE YOUR ADDRESS



First unsubscribe and then resubscribe as per the

procedure above.



*************************************************



FOR MORE INFORMATION



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USA: http://www.sunbelt-software.com



Email for US sales information to:

[email protected]

Email for US Tech support to:

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Email to the US Editor:

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**************************************************



Legal Stuff:

This document is provided for informational purposes only. 

The information contained in this document represents the

current view of Sunbelt Software Distribution on the issues

discussed as of the date of publication. Because Sunbelt

must respond to changes in market conditions, it should not

be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Sunbelt

and Sunbelt cannot guarantee the accuracy of any informa-

tion presented after the date of publication.



INFORMATION PROVIDED IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED "AS IS"

WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,

INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF

MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND

FREEDOM FROM INFRINGEMENT.



The user assumes the entire risk as to the accuracy and the

use of this document. This document may be copied and

distributed subject to the following conditions: 1) All text

must be copied without modification and all pages must be

included; 2) All copies must contain Sunbelt's copyright

notice and any other notices provided therein; and 3) This

document may not be distributed for profit. All trademarks

acknowledged. Copyright Sunbelt Software Distribution, Inc.

1998.



(email me with feedback: [email protected])