Sunbelt Windows NTools[tm] Electronic Newsletter
Vol. 3, #16 - August 16, 1998
--- http://www.sunbelt-software.com ---

*****************************************************************
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" 
* WHAT ARE THE REAL LIFE NT SYSTEM ADMIN HOLES?

2. "TECH BRIEFING"
* TECHNICAL FEATURES OF OUR NT-BASED LIST SERVER LYRIS
* TECHNICAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MS NETMON AND LANTRACE?

3. "NT RELATED NEWS"
* OPEN LETTER TO MICROSOFT ABOUT SERVICE PACKS
* WHAT'S IN THIS NEW SP1 FOR EXCHANGE SERVER 5.5?
* NETWARE 5 WILL SHIP SEPTEMBER 20-TH.
* GOOD SQL LIST SERVER FOR MS SQL ADMINISTRATORS?
* IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: EMAIL SECURITY ISSUE

4. "NT THIRD PARTY NEWS"
* PRINT MANAGER PLUS RELEASES END USER INQUIRY TOOL
* NEW AUDIOCLASS NT4.0 SERVER MCSE TRAINING
* NEW TESTGENERATOR ADD-ON UTILITY FOR TRANSCENDERS

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"

We talk to NT production sites all day long. The majority have now 
at least dozens and in many cases hundreds of NT servers. Having 
to manage this many systems gets interesting to say the least. 

We have identified the brick walls you run into when you get that
many servers under your control. NT is a young platform, there are
still a good many system admin holes that you can run a train through. 
Since Sunbelt has done system management tools since 1983, we pretty
much know in advance what 3-rd party utilities you are going to need
at each stage of your site's development.

Most of you are under pressure to keep your system admin headcount
low, but more and more stuff gets thrown your way. What we did is 
listen to the way you described your problems, and indicate what tool 
would solve this situation. All of that on one webpage that takes about
5-10 minutes to read. Your job is a difficult one, there are 5 areas
you need to keep under control: Security, Admin, Performance, Storage
and Network management.

Why don't you click on this hyperlink, and look which of these 
'Nutshell Problem Descriptions' sound like your own situation?
http://www.sunbelt-software.com/probsolu.htm 
These are the real-life headaches that you and your colleagues are
running into every day. You might want to create a hyperlink to this 
page and have a look at it every so often, we'll keep it up to date.

It's our business to make your life easier. That's why our tag-line 
is: What Problems Do You Want To Solve Today?

Warm regards,

Stu Sjouwerman

PS, very soon I will have some _very_ interesting news for you about
something I discovered about SMP servers at prices you would not 
believe. More to follow later this week.

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

2. "TECH BRIEFING"

* TECHNICAL FEATURES OF OUR NT-BASED LIST SERVER LYRIS

I'd like to talk a bit about some of the technical features of
the list server we are using. Many of you have asked what we are
running and why we chose for this particular product.

* Web Interface. Lyris was the first email list server to offer a 
web interface for list administrators and members. Users and 
administrators can do everything from their Web browser (and via 
email, if they wish). You can read, search and contribute to a 
discussion using the Web or email, your choice.

* Failsafe Unsubscribing: No more "get me off this list!" messages. 
(And yes, we are almost done fixing our own web-interface )

* Automatic Error Mail Handling: Lyris automatically identifies and 
handles invalid email addresses and other problems normally 
associated with mass email. 

* Security: Access to your list administration via the web interface 
and via email is password protected. If your list is announcements, 
only you can post to your list. 

* MailMerge: You can incorporate a member's name (and/or email 
address) into the message body, i.e. "Dear Jennifer Smith". 

* Archives: You can archive list messages which can be read via 
the web interface or a newsreader (MultiView option). You can also 
choose for your archives to be searchable. 

* Private Newsgroups: (MultiView feature) In addition to reading and 
posting to your lists by email, Lyris also lets you use your news 
reader. These newsgroups are private and are not distributed 
throughout usenet. 

* Action Phrases that allow the administrator to filter out profanity,
but also prevent infinite loops between mail servers like this:
User's Server: I'm gone for the week
Your Server: Please send this message to [email protected]
User's Server: I'm gone for the week
Your Server: Please send this message to [email protected]
User's Server: I'm gone for the week
... Ad infinitum ...

* Blinding Speed: With its built-in mail engine, Lyris is one of the 
fastest list servers around, and it's getting faster all the time.

You can find them at http://www.lyris.com and no, we do not get
any kickbacks ;-)
-------------------------

* TECHNICAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MS NETMON AND LANTRACE

What are the technical differences between Microsoft's NetMon and 
LanTrace? Some background first. Microsoft marketing tactic of just 
entering a certain product space is to come out with a bare-bones
and generally lacking tool. Then, slowly over time it is beefed up
to become competitive with third party tools.

Although we tried to compare this objectively, it was difficult to 
acknowledge the features without qualifiers. NetMon itself appears 
to include many of the major features - eg. packet capture - but it 
does not include the small "touches". Following are the top 10 points 
where NetMon v1.2 was lacking compared to LanTrace.

1. Graphical interface for information - including tables and charts
2. Charting options - and ability to select different charts
3. No internet traffic analysis.
4. No "auto-discovery" for host and site names.
5. NetMon statistics are only applicable for captured packets. You
must capture the packets to view the statistics. This can quickly 
max out available RAM or hard disk space.
6. Save data tables and charts in other file formats.
7. Post capture display filter
8. Number of protocols decoded (NetMon decodes about 30; LanTrace
decodes about 50).
9. No traffic generators (eg. Send Packets to create network traffic
while testing.)
10.The combined alarm, trigger, and filter options on LanTrace give
the user more flexibility than NetMon.

To play with LanTrace for 30 days: download it over here:
http://www.sunbelt-software.com/lantrace/lantrace.htm


********************************************************************
3. "NT RELATED NEWS"

* OPEN LETTER TO MICROSOFT ABOUT SERVICE PACKS

Dear NT Development Team. When you guys released NT 4.0, you told us 
that Service Packs would be available about once a quarter. You may 
have planned this to perhaps to coincide with the Microsoft Developer
Network Issues. If I look at the SP 1, 2 and 3 you were pretty much
on track, but now it has been well over a year since the last one. It's
almost 16 months.

NT System Administrators have voiced their concern about this and do 
not need the SP's just for all the hotfixes. Some are still waiting 
for a fix to a serious networking bug discovered long before NT4 was 
released about 2 ago years now. The general consensus is that you
are dropping the ball here.

Could you get a line established so that SP's come out quarterly OR 
after an X number of _required_ hot fixes? Required relating mainly to 
security issues that anyone running a box on the Internet would want 
installed.

For us in the trenches it looks like a 'bug fix mechanism' has been 
hijacked as a new feature release vehicle. It's difficult to understand
why this is done. There is some hesitance to install SP's as the new 
features introduce new bugs. The priority is the old bugs fixed first, 
and sooner the better. Can some one clarify the Service Pack vs Option
Pack strategy? If some one in Microsoft wants to comment, I'd gladly 
make space for you in the next issue.

Thanks in advance,

Stu Sjouwerman
------------------------

* WHAT'S IN THIS NEW SP1 FOR EXCHANGE SERVER 5.5?

Last week I sent you quick NewsFlash announcing the Exchange Server 
V5.5 Service Pack 1 was available. But what are the highlights in it?

The free downloadable SP1 will offer X509.v3 support, a new antispam 
user interface, 'organization merge' utility, a web forms creation 
and migration Wizard, and Routing Objects Libraries to allow you to 
integrate workflow into you applications.

It will also include a Lotus Notes migration Wizard and the Outlook 
98 client. You can now use the Outlook HTML form converter, a set 
of components that generates HTML forms, and the Exchange Routing 
Objects, which lets application designers add routing capabilities 
to existing applications. The Exchange Key Management Server has 
also been updated to use Microsoft's Certificate Server as its 
certificate authority. Get yours here: 
http://backoffice.microsoft.com/downtrial/moreinfo/ex55sp1.asp
------------------------

* NETWARE 5 WILL SHIP SEPTEMBER 20-TH.

NOVELL announced NetWare 5 will ship by September 20, 1998. NetWare 5 
allows customers to extend their networks and effectively manage 
distributed applications across diverse platforms including the World 
Wide Web. A NetWare server with a five-user license retails for $1195, 
suggested retail price. Additional 5,10, 25, 50,100, 250 and 500-user 
client packs are available for customer purchase in any combination. 

Upgrade pricing is available for current NetWare customers. Customers 
and partners can visit http://www.novell.com/passport for complete 
pricing. If you want to read the full press release, here you go.
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2555487886-9f1 
-------------------------

* GOOD SQL LIST SERVER FOR MS SQL ADMINISTRATORS?

Check out http://www.swynk.com. You can sign up for just one or more 
of the SQL Server lists. These lists are very professional and the
ratio of content to noise is high. Lots of authors that have written 
books about SQL Server are on the list. Some of the developers and
support techs, even SQL product managers from Microsoft are subscribed
together with a few thousand very knowledgeable DBAs. What you will get
is between 60 and 100 messages a day solving problems in every aspect 
of SQL Server. (Thanks to Mike Hotek)
-------------------------

* IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: EMAIL SECURITY ISSUE

(I quote from Microsoft)
This is a special alert message to registered users of Microsoft 
Office, Microsoft Outlook 98, Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4.0 
or later, and Microsoft Windows 98. We want to inform you of a 
security issue that affects e-mail packages including Microsoft 
Outlook 98 and Microsoft Outlook Express versions 4.0 or later. 
Microsoft has created a fix for this security issue, which can be 
downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/security/

This security issue involves how e-mail software handles file 
attachments with extremely long file names. When users attempt to 
download, open or launch a file attachment that has a name containing 
more than a certain number of characters, their action can cause the 
program to shut down unexpectedly. It is possible although difficult
for a hacker to cause malicious code to be executed on a computer as 
a result of this problem. However, this cannot be caused accidentally, 
and to date we have received no reports of users being affected. 
More information on this issue can be found at
http://www.microsoft.com/security/bulletins/ms98-008.htm
--------------------------



********************************************************************
4. "NT THIRD PARTY NEWS"

* PRINT MANAGER PLUS RELEASES END USER INQUIRY TOOL

Print Manager Plus is basically a print quota manager. It allows
sites with a great many users to control printing, toner and paper
and charge for it if needed.

The Print Manager Plus End User Inquiry Tool will run on Windows '95,
Windows '98 and Windows NT Server & Workstation 4.0. This will allow 
the User to see his Quota and Pages 

The End User Inquiry Tool also allows the user to transfer pages from 
his quota to another user. This helps keep down help desk requests. It 
also ensure each user will log off after using the machine. 
http://www.sunbelt-software.com/printmgr.htm
--------------------------

* NEW AUDIOCLASS NT4.0 SERVER MCSE TRAINING

At TechEd I have a chat with Steve Tate of Tate Consulting. We talked 
about the audio training that he had developed for Windows NT called 
"Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Review." Since then, he's made a lot of 
progress. He released the product, and I've got the final version in
my hands. It's complete with 4-color cover, vinyl album, and study 
guide, and contains three audio cassettes with total running time 150
minutes. If you order before 9/30/98, the price is $79.95, and shipping
is free. 

I have listened to the first tape, and they are very useful. It's meant
to jog your memory after reading the MCSE study materials. The new
audioclass is available to order through http://www.audioclass.com
They have a RealAudio 6-minute demo available you can listen to. If you
are receptive to listening as a form of training, this is recommended.
(and you can play them at night when you are asleep ;-) )
--------------------------

* NEW TESTGENERATOR ADD-ON UTILITY FOR TRANSCENDERS

Got this from a new player in the market.

"We are a company in MCSE training and consulting and we have 
developed a product for MCSE Preparation.

The name of the product is "TestGenerator". TestGenerator is an add-on
Utility for Transcender Simulation Exams. Features include generating
random sequences of questions/answers, enhanced printing, and many more.
Great tool for MCSE & MCSD study. "

Visit our site at http://www.testgenerator.com.
---------------------------

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

For System Administrators and HelpDesk people, this site is really
worth checkin' out: http://www.techtales.com/techroom.html
----------------------

I'm an NT admin who does a lot of his work from the command line. We 
have roughly 25 NT servers, which means that I am constantly mapping, 
unmapping, and remapping drives. It gets tedious to type a "net use 
v: /d" and then a "net use v: \\SERVER\SHARE." I've written the 
following batch file, called netu.bat, to automatically do this for 
me. 

Using netu.bat, all I have to do is type "netu v: \\SERVER\SHARE." 
The batch file checks to see if v: is already mapped to something 
(using if exist v:*.*), disconnects it, and then maps it to the new 
share. If v: is not mapped to anything, it maps it to \\SERVER\SHARE. 
If not command line arguments are provided, it just prints out a list 
of mapped drives (just as "net use" does).

I've been using this batch file non-stop for almost a year now. It 
really makes life easier.
--Brian Vogle [email protected]

Thanks Brian!


=====================

@echo off
rem *****************************************************************
rem NETU.BAT
rem Replacement for net use 
rem 
rem It's main use is to remove a drive connection if it already 
REM exists and remap it to %2 
rem
rem Brian Vogle | [email protected] | Sept 12, 1997
rem ******************************************************************


rem *****************************
rem Check command line parameters
rem *****************************

IF "%1"=="" GOTO netuse
IF "%2"=="/d" GOTO delete


rem **************************************************************
rem By default, disconect from a drive letter and remap to a new share
rem **************************************************************

IF EXIST %1\*.* NET USE %1 /D
NET USE %1 %2 %3
GOTO end


rem ***********************************************
rem If no parameters are given, show drive mappings
rem ***********************************************

:netuse
NET USE
GOTO end


rem **********************************
rem If /d is given, disconnect a drive
rem **********************************

:delete
NET USE %1 /d
GOTO end


rem ****
rem Exit
rem ****

:END


*****************************************************************
6. "THE NT STOCK WATCH"

52 WK 52 WK P/E WEEK
SECURITY CLOSE HIGH LOW RATIO CHNG
---------------------------------------------------------------------
BMC Software Inc......... 48 3/4 58 1/2 27 3/8 46 +0.3%
Citrix Systems Inc....... 67 1/8 75 1/2 31 1/2 +3.7%
Compaq Computer Corp..... 34 13/16 39 3/4 23 1/8 +1.0%
Computer Associates Intl. 36 1/4 61 15/16 30 5/8 40 -5.8%
Data General Corp........ 11 1/4 37 15/16 11 -9.0%
Dell Computer Corp....... 105 5/8 118 1/4 35 73 -1.5%
Gateway 2000 Inc......... 56 11/16 68 3/4 25 1/16 75 0.0%
Hewlett Packard Company.. 52 3/4 82 3/8 49 19 +2.4%
IBM...................... 125 3/8 138 1/8 88 5/8 21 -2.9%
Intergraph Corporation... 7 14 3/16 6 25/64 +0.9%
Microsoft Corporation.... 104 1/4 119 5/8 59 62 -1.5%
Ncr Corporation.......... 30 15/16 38 1/2 25 5/8 42 -5.8%
Networks Associates Inc.. 45 13/16 56 7/8 27 3/8 -1.3%
Novell Inc............... 10 15/16 13 5/8 6 13/16 +1.1%
Oracle Corporation....... 23 13/16 42 1/8 17 3/4 29 -5.2%
Qualcomm Inc............. 54 1/2 71 15/16 43 1/4 40 -7.2%
Qualix GroupInc.......... 2 1/16 6 1/8 1 1/4 -2.9%
Seagate Technologies Inc. 27 1/4 44 1/4 17 3/4 +9.2%
Silicon Graphics Inc..... 10 7/16 30 5/16 10 -4.0%
Sun Microsystems Inc..... 46 15/16 53 5/16 30 3/8 24 -2.7%
Sybase Inc............... 8 13/16 23 5/8 6 1/8 -2.0%
Symantec Corporation..... 24 1/16 32 5/8 17 7/8 22 -4.4%
Unisys Corporation....... 26 9/16 30 11/16 10 9/16 +4.1%
Dow Jones 30 Industrials. 8,425.00 -2.0%


**************************************************************
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://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/scripts/lyris.pl?join=nt-list
and fill out the form, simple & easy: 1 minute work.
_____________________________________________________

TO QUIT THE LIST

1) The Web Way:
http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/scripts/lyris.pl?
choose the NT-List, use your email address that is at 
the bottom of each newsletter and leave the list via 
the web interface.

2) The Email Way: Simply follow the instructions at 
the very end of this newsletter.
_____________________________________________________

TO CHANGE YOUR ADDRESS

First unsubscribe and then resubscribe as per the
procedure above.

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

FOR MORE INFORMATION

On the World Wide Web point your browser to:

For the newsletter and our website:
USA: http://www.sunbelt-software.com

Email for US sales information to:
[email protected]
Email for US Tech support to:
[email protected]
Email to the US Editor:
[email protected]

Email for European Sales to:
[email protected]
Email for European Tech support to:
[email protected]

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

Things Our Lawyers Make Us Say:
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])