December 1, 1996
Sunbelt Windows NToolstm Electronic Newsletter
Vol. 1, # 18
USA: www.ntsoftdist.com
EUROPE: www.sunbelt.co.uk
Sunbelt Windows NTools E-News Sunbelt Windows NTools E-News is the world's largest E-newsletter
designed for NT System Managers that have the job of getting and keeping WinNT up & running in a production
environment. Sunbelt launched this electronic newsletter so that we could keep members of the Windows NT community
informed and aware of what is happening with 3-rd party NT System Management Tools, and to provide hints and tips that
will enable you to better understand and utilize Windows NT. You'll find general Windows NTools related and third party
news, technical information, and 3-rd party beta and release information. By subscribing to NTools E-News, 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.
This Issue of Windows NToolstme-news contains:
1. "EDITORS CORNER"
* NEW NTOOLS LIST SERVER IN FULL SWING
* SOME INHOUSE NT4.0 RESULTS
* PRIZE WINNERS ON WEBSITE TOMORROW
2. "TECH BRIEFINGS"
* DISKEEPER 1.09 FOR NT3.51 with SP5 NOW DOWNLOADABLE
* NORTON SPEED DISK BETA AVAILABLE FROM SYMANTEC
3. "NT RELATED NEWS"
* MICROSOFT LEAVES COMDEX WITH A WHOPPING 17 AWARDS!
* PHOENIX TECHNOLOGIES BRING PORTABLE NT CLOSER
* EXCELLENT NT-FOLK NEEDED
* NEW FREE PUBLICATION FOR NT SYSTEM ADMINISTRATORS
* NOVELL'S SMALL BUSINESS UNIT CLOSED
* A FEW NT4.0 BUGS YOU NEED TO BE AWARE OF
4. "THIRD PARTY NEWS"
* EQUINOX: MODEM POOL MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE FOR NT & CITRIX
* -- UNDO --
* SOFTWAY SYSTEMS HAS UNIX UNDER NT FOR YOU
* INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH LIST SERVER FOR NT
6. "HOW TO USE THE MAILING LIST"
*Instructions on how to subscribe, sign off
and change addresses.
"EDITORS CORNER"
Dear NT-ers,
The Sunbelt NTools-Listserver is in full swing. Over 400
subscribers are solving NT-problems every day now. The level
is technical and high. All kinds of topics have already been
discussed, too many to mention. Keep in mind that this is a
list that can be set to Digest and also has Archives so if
you subscribe, you can get access to all previous threads.
TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE LIST
send the command 'subscribe ntools-list firstname lastname'
as the first line of your message to listproc@intnet.net
To get help: as first line, send HELP to listproc@intnet.net
TO SET THE LIST TO DIGEST: (after subscribing as above)
send the command: 'set ntools-list mail digest'
to listproc@intnet.net
---------------------
And now some in-house experiences with NT4.0 that you might
like. In our US subsidiary we have 15 staff, each one with
a workstation. About 8 are NT 4.0WS and Servers, the rest
NT3.51 and Win95 systems. Last week we got in a new Dell 2100
server with 64Meg RAM, 2Gig fast-wide SCSI drives and a 180 Mhz
PentiumPro.
Installation of 4.0 was smooth sailing, we then cut over our
contact manager ACT from the old 16-bit V2.0 to a new 32-bit
Version 3.0 and hammered the hell out of the new 90MB
test database. This new combination stood up to the most
horrible torture test we could imagine: 10 stations doing
a simultaneous lookup searching a keyword through the full
database. The new Dell with NT4.0 and ACT 3.0 withstood the
attack with flying colors. We decided to go live immediately.
Then I ran the defrag analysis of the new Diskeeper for NT4.0
and saw that the ACT database was chopped up in just under
200 fragments. There was a 9% fragmentation of that brand
new drive just after 2 days, with an average fragments per
file at 1.44.
Next applied Service Pack 1 to NT4.0, as Diskeeper suggests
this to be done before you run it, and defragmented the whole
drive to 0% fragmentation. This was done in about 10 minutes,
and the ACT database load time on a NT4.0 WS went from 7
seconds down to 3 seconds, a major difference in speed! So
we are happy campers at the moment with NT4.0 in full production.
---------------------
The NT System Admin Thanksgiving Treasure Hunt was a major
success, over a 1000 people entered the contest and the
winners will be on our website tomorrow, check out our URL
www.ntsoftdist.com after 12:00 noon EST Monday December 2 :-)
Let's get going on the latest NT news!
Warm regards,
Stu
*************************************************************************
2. "TECH BRIEFINGS"
* DISKEEPER 1.09 FOR NT3.51 with SP5 NOW DOWNLOADABLE
Diskeeper 1.09 is available on our Web site now, and will be
As usual, you must have a Diskeeper 1.0x CD to install the
Diskeeper 1.09 download. Diskeeper 1.09 will run under Windows
NT 3.51 with or without Service Packs 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5, and
includes our Undelete utility. There are no changes in
operation or features from Diskeeper 1.06.
You can download Diskeeper 1.09 for Intel platforms by accessing
our web site, or point your browser to www.ntsoftdist.com. You
must have a Diskeeper 1.0x CD to install the Diskeeper 1.09
download. There are seven Zip files totaling 9.3 MB. Diskeeper
1.09 CD-ROMs for the Intel and Alpha platforms will be available
soon for a small shipping/handling charge.
--------------------------
* NORTON SPEED DISK BETA AVAILABLE FROM SYMANTEC
As I already predicted about 6 months ago, Symantec is also
coming out with a defragger, and found out about it on our
ntools-list where some one posted that a beta copy is
downloadable from www.symantec.com. So of course I had to
try this out and got a copy, the file name is sdbeta.exe
and about 2 Megs. I have a Dell Latitude 133Mhz laptop with
NT4.0 Server on it running at home and decided to take the
plunge. In about 4 passes of each a few minutes the disk
was fully defragged and the graphical presentation was clean.
I saw no noticeable speed increase but on a single use laptop
that is hard to establish. The product expires on Feb 15 '97
but it was interesting to see a second product come on the
market. To me it seems this would be a contender for NT4.0
Workstations as there are no scheduling options. Diskeeper
seems the best choice at the moment for Win NT Server 4.0.
---------------------------
**********************************************************************
3. "NT RELATED NEWS"
* MICROSOFT LEAVES COMDEX WITH A WHOPPING 17 AWARDS!
They got 17 awards for product excellence from leading industry
publications. NT4.0 received PC/Computing's Most Valuable Product
(MVP) of the Year award. This is the second consecutive year that
Microsoft has received this award.
In addition, Office 97, that includes Word, Microsoft Excel,
Microsoft Access, PowerPoint and the Outlook(TM) desktop
information manager, won BYTE magazine's Best of Show award,
which recognizes products that are expected to have a great
impact on the industry.
Microsoft also won several awards in the Internet arena:
Microsoft Internet Information Server won PC/Computing's MVP
award for Web server software; Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0
beat Netscape Navigator in PC/Computing's Web browser
category; the Microsoft FrontPage(TM) Web authoring and
management tool came away with two awards, an MVP from PC/Computing
and an Editor's Pick award from Home Office Computing.
The following Microsoft products received awards:
* Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 and NTWS 4.0,
PC Computing Product of the Year
* Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 and NTWS 4.0,
PC Computing MVP award, operating system
* Microsoft Office 97, BYTE magazine Best of Show, COMDEX
* Microsoft Office 97, BYTE magazine, Best Application
* Microsoft Office 97, Home Office Computing Editors' Picks award.
* Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0, PC Computing MVP, Web browser
* Microsoft FrontPage 1.1, PC Computing MVP, Web page publisher
* Microsoft Internet Information Server, PC Computing MVP
* Microsoft FrontPage 1.1
* Microsoft Publisher 97
* Microsoft Office for the W95, PC Computing MVP
* Microsoft Excel 95, PC Computing MVP, spreadsheet
* Microsoft Word 95, PC Computing MVP, word processor
* Microsoft Access 95, PC Computing MVP, database
* Microsoft Publisher 97, PC Computing MVP, business graphics
* Microsoft Visual Basic(R) PC Computing MVP, application development
* Microsoft Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) technology (in
conjunction with U.S. Robotics Corp.), PC Magazine Technical Excellence
award, networking software
-------------------------
* PHOENIX TECHNOLOGIES BRING PORTABLE NT CLOSER
Phoenix Technologies demonstrated at COMDEX the Phoenix Portable
Software Suite for NT 4.0.
This follows the company's commitment in July that Phoenix would
deliver a set of portable solutions to enhance the use of NT4.0 on
notebook computers. The products are specifically engineered for
NT 4.0 running on a portable system and include NoteBIOS,
PowerPanel 2.0, BatteryScope 2.0, and PhoenixCard Executive for
PC Card support.
Mobile PC users running Windows 95 or Windows 3.1 expect certain
features and performance from their systems, including 2 to 6 hours
of battery life and the ability to connect while on the road via
PC Cards. NT 4.0 was designed to give maximum performance for
the desktop PC environment, and therefore did not include such
features as power management to maximize battery life, or PC
Card support.
The Phoenix Portable Suite for NT 4.0 provides users of the new
operating system the same level of mobile performance they demand.
- Stop and Start Convenience -- Save to Disk - A Phoenix original
feature, Save to Disk allows the user to suspend his or her portable
PC in a power saving mode and resume at exactly the same spot.
- Longest Possible Battery Life - To maximize battery life,
Phoenix provides highly sophisticated power management to
intelligently power down and power up all of the hardware subsystems.
- At-A-Glance Battery Life Monitoring - Another feature pioneered by
Phoenix, BatteryScope 2.0 provides battery status detection and data
display. More features and info at http://www.phoenix.com.
----------------------------------
* EXCELLENT NT-FOLK NEEDED
Comrise Technology, Inc. is a professional engineering, Network
Integration, and Federal Consulting company on a nation-wide basis.
We provide sysadmin services, engineering design, research and development,
training and maintenance service, to our customers (which include
AT&T, Lucent, Bellcore, etc).
We are looking to discover excellent NT resources in order to
find skilled candidates for our company (MSCE appreciated!).
Please drop Barbara Ling a line at btl@superlink.net if you know
of great locations to find such folk, or visit Comrise
at http://www.comrise.com/ for more information.
---------------------------------
* NEW FREE PUBLICATION FOR NT SYSTEM ADMINISTRATORS
It is called "Windows NT Systems Magazine". Windows NT Systems is
the source of authoritative, practical, hands-on information for
the administration and management of systems running Windows NT.
Windows NT Systems provides technical information on installation,
support, and the day-to-day operational challenges of managing and
using NT-based workstations and servers, integrating Windows NT into
the corporate infrastructure, and planning the long-term use of Windows
NT to help attain enterprise-computing and business goals.
Subscriptions are free to qualified individuals in the US and Canada:
Check out their website: http://www.ntsystems.com/
------------------------------
* NOVELL'S SMALL BUSINESS UNIT CLOSED
In what I see as leaving the small business market to NT, Novell has
folded its small business unit without much fanfare. They reorganized
and consolidated the unit into a more traditional structure, stated Ed
Bartos, who was the head of the group and is a VP sales in emerging
channels and partner marketing.
------------------------------
* A FEW NT4.0 BUGS YOU NEED TO BE AWARE OF
These bugs were reported by WINDOWS Magazine and I'm giving you
a short description so you are aware...
1) Each user logging on locally needs at least list access to every
directory along the path to the Desktop subdirectory for his or her profile.
Without it, you'll get a dialog box titled "Desktop" with the words
"Can't access this folder. Path too long." Explorer then fails to load,
leaving no choice but to use Task Manager or log off. Unfortunately,
that requirement also gives you list access to the Profiles
subdirectory, which contains directories bearing the account names
of every user who has logged on locally since NT was installed.
One possible solution is to have the network administrator use Explorer
to separate users' profiles so they don't share a common parent directory,
then use the Registry Editor to point to the new subdirectories.
2) NT 4.0 also exhibits some interesting behavior over a network.
Even administrative users have problems deleting read-only folders
on the server via the network, if they're working from a Win95 machine.
First, you're asked if you really want to delete the read-only item,
which is exactly what happens when you try deleting local read-only
files. So far, so good- but a "yes" triggers an access-denied message.
You must disable the read-only attribute for the folder before deleting
the file.
3) NetBEUI, the protocol recommended by Microsoft, has a problem
connecting two servers via remote access. If two or more system names
on a server differ only in the first character, the protocol fails,
saying there's already a computer by that name on the network. When
it reports the offending system's name, the dialog box mysteriously
substitutes "IS" for the first letter. Go figure.
Thanks, Windows Magazine!!
**********************************************************************
4."THIRD PARTY NEWS"
* EQUINOX: MODEM POOL MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE FOR NT & CITRIX
Equinox announced EquiView Plus, an NT application that provides
sophisticated monitoring, troubleshooting and management functions
for modem pools, serial ports and other peripherals connected to
Windows NT or Citrix systems using Equinox SuperSerial products.
When used together with Equinox SuperSerial Modem Pool, it adds
enhanced modem management functions to any vendor's internal ISA modem.
By adding management software to its Modem Pool, Equinox now
provides a full-featured solution costing as little as $150 per modem.
Comparable proprietary modem pools can cost as much as $1,000 per modem.
The Equinox Modem Pool uses low-cost PC modem cards and accepts
any vendor's off-the-shelf internal modems conforming to the
standard COM port. Modems from US Robotics, Boca Research, Hayes,
Microcom, Zoom, Practical Peripherals and others have been used
successfully in the product. The Modem Pool consists of a 16-slot
PC-type chassis and intelligent I/O controller which is installed in
the Windows NT or CITRIX WinFrame system. -- news@equinox.com --
----------------------------
--UNDO-- (input from Russ.Cooper@RC.on.ca)
Last Issue we mentioned that "Seagate NerveCenter NT, is the
first application which automatically correlates critical events,
identifies problems and takes corrective actions across Windows NT
servers and network devices." In reality, Heroix Corporation
(http://www.robomon.com/) has been selling Robomon for NT since March
15, 1996, an NT implementation of their event monitoring/automated
rules processing/automated event triggering package for VMS and Unix.
More over, March Systems Ltd. (http://www.march.co.uk/) also offers
a product in this category which integrates into their larger
Security Manager product, albeit with the central server having
to be Unix. Thanks Russ!
----------------------------
* SOFTWAY SYSTEMS HAS UNIX UNDER NT FOR YOU...
Softway Systems is dedicated to bringing UNIX technology to
Windows NT under the name OpenNT. OpenNT is developed as a native
environment on Windows NT under source code license and strategic
agreement with Microsoft. Softway currently offers a UNIX shell
environment, a development kit as well as a telnet server for
Windows NT.
They are currently offering free downloads of the OpenNT
environment and SDK from our web site via: http://www.OpenNT.com
------------------------------
* UPDATE: THE DOMAIN ADMIN TOOL v1.8x
Summary: The Domain Administration Tool facilitates the
administration of Windows NT domains. It enables easy creation
of exports for reporting purposes, and even allows the IMPORTING
of users and groups. It gives you a new and full look at the
security of your domain. The Domain Administration Tool gives
you many new features you always needed to manage your NT domain
professionally.
New in v1.8: Improved User Management.
* Make combined changes (even of passwords!)
* Flags to see if User has ever logged on to this server.
* RAS management
* etc...
Sort information directly in tool.
Usable in stand-alone workstations and servers.
Improved account policy management.
* Password length
* Password age
* etc...
Improved Server Management.
* Shares
* Open Resources
* Hidden server settings
* Announce rate configuration
* Disconnect time configuration
* User default path settings
* etc...
Improved import features.
* Import users, user directories and their hidden shares automatically.
* Extra import criteria (Home drives, etc.)
* Automatic creation of home directories
* "Update by overwriting" or "Leave alone" when importing existing users.
* etc...
Now supports up to 20.000 users. Over 20.000 users with a corporate license.
Improved user interface, including:
* Toolbars
* Tool-Tips
* Status bar entries for UserName, Browsed Server and Found Entries.
* etc...
And of course all the features of the previous releases:
* Copying, viewing and editing users and groups.
* Export functions for all data viewed (to tab or comma delimited files).
* Rudimentary viewing of disk space used, sorted per user.
* Viewing user information, even of administrators, without administrative
priviliges.
* Importing of users and groups directly including passwords. Ideal for
batch creation of userid's.
* Exporting integer format dates.
* Editing of scripts and profiles directly from the tool.
* The possibility to sort users and groups by the various information
columns, just by clicking on the
* Add groups to users or users to groups when creating the user or group
from scratch.
* Import is possible of features like disabled-user-id, cannot change
password with next logon, or cannot change password.
* The ability to copy a user in the same way as copying groups.
The Tool can be downloaded from: http://www.bart.nl/~pukka in Europe
and the USA:http://www.dynamic-web.com/software/pukka
-----------------------------
* INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH LIST SERVER FOR NT
LYRIS produces an industrial-strength email list server for NT
called "Lyris". You might be interested in having a look at it:
http://www.lyris.com has info.
*********************************************************************
5."HINTS AND TIPS"Q: Does anyone know of a utility that will dump my user list to a
file? Also any good ftp sites with NT utilities ?
A: At the MS-DOS prompt execute the command: net user > filename
This only provides a list of all accounts created on a unit rather
than the ones in use.
A: Have a look at DumpAcl V2.7.5 from Somarsoft. You can download
an evaluation copy at http://www.somarsoft.com/
A: addusers.exe from the resource kit will do this.
The first answer is only true (accounts created on a unit) if the NT
workstation is not a PDC or BDC (i.e. it has local machine context in
addition to domain context). If the command is issued at a PDC/BDC you
will not get "unit" accounts but, rather, domain accounts. As with so
many things in NT, what you see depends on where you sit...
-----------------
One of our readers sent us this: "I would just like to warn, make it
known, that there is a problem when using/installing Mcafee PC Firewall
on a Windows NT 4 system. Their file name is pfwi32e.zip. I downloaded
the evaluation copy yesterday, installed it, and rebooted my computer.
When the computer reached the login screen, various error message
started appearing, of the type:
"Cardinal value xxx not found in WSOCK32.DLL" - where xxx was a different
number. This error was reported many times during the login procedure,
and appeared to come from different tasks as they tried to start, and
failed (with that error message). The login procedure, which normally
takes less than 1 minute, took over 10 minutes, with the computer
hanging, tasks reported as 'Not Running'.
Luckily, after rebooting back into DOS, I managed to find a copy of the
WSOCK32.DLL that PC Firewall had copied into a backup directory, and
overwrote the WSOCK32.DLL that PC Firewall provided (PC Firewall's
WSOCK32.DLL was some 10k bigger). Doing this allowed proper running of
my server, and allowed me to boot up and uninstall PC Firewall...
6. "HOW TO USE THE MAILING LIST"
Instructions on how to subscribe, sign off
and change addresses
TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE LIST
send the command 'subscribe nt-list firstname lastname'
as the first line of your message to listproc@intnet.net
_____________________________________________________
TO QUIT THE LIST
send the command 'signoff nt-list' or 'unsubscribe nt-list'
as the first line of your message to listproc@intnet.net
_____________________________________________________
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:
http://www.ntnews.com
USA: http://www.ntsoftdist.com
EUROPE: http://www.sunbelt.co.uk
Email for US sales information to:
ntsales@ntsoftdist.com
Email for US Tech support to:
daved@pssi.com
Email for European Sales to:
chris@sunbelt.fr
Email for European Tech support to:
robdixon@sunbelt.demon.co.uk
webmaster
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 information 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. 1996.
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