Windows 2000 Tips And Tricks
It's well worth creating a full report for each machine under your control and filing
away these reports in a central location on a regular basis say every six to 12 months.
These will come in useful when troubleshooting certain problems.
The Registry
Hackers need only two things to gain access to a system's resources: a username and
a password. Unfortunately, Windows 2000 by default actually provides the budding
hacker one of those requirements for free. Without the assistance of Tweak UI, to
prevent a machine displaying the last username to have logged on involves opening
and making changes to the Registry. Windows 2000 provides two Registry editors:
REGEDIT.EXE and the 32 bit version, REGEDIT32.EXE.
Within the registry editor select the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE hive and then
double click Software, Microsoft, Windows, CurrentVersion, Policies, and System.
Then in the right pane of the Registry, double click the DontDisplayLastUserName
entry to open the DWORD editor. In the Data box, type 1 as the value (Figure 5),
and click OK. This prevents the system from displaying the last username to have
logged on at that machine. It will mean users having to enter their usernames each
time they log on, as well as their password, but that is a task even the most forgetful
of users should be capable of performing. It also removes a significant security risk,
especially as many users tend to use their username (or an easily guessable deriva
tive thereof) as a password.
Get Resourceful
Shoddy workmen have a habit of blaming their tools or even the fact that they
haven't any. In Windows 2000, however, administrators have no such excuse
thanks to Microsoft making available a number of Resource Kit tools and user
guides. In the main, Resource Kit utilities are designed to help administrators
streamline important tasks such as managing Active Directory, administering
security features, automating application deployment, and so forth.
Resource Kit tools are usually fairly easy to come by. One method of obtaining
the tools is to download them from Microsoft's Web site. Alternatively, nearly
300 tools are included on the Windows 2000 Server Resource Kit companion
CD, while the Windows 2000 CD ROM contains approximately 50 Resource
Kit tools.
Of course, the value of any Resource Kit tool will depend on the task in hand.
However, any utility that aids deployment of Active Directory has to be worth
investigating. While the introduction of Active Directory should in the long run
make Windows 2000 administration easier within your organisation, deploying
it is a major undertaking and many have not yet taken the giant leap that it
requires.
One useful tool is ADSIZER.EXE. Based on user input and internal formulas,
the Sizer tool (Figure 4) provides estimates involving the following tasks:
G
Number of domain controllers per domain per site.
To stop a stubborn
G
Domain database size.
G
Number of global catalogue servers per domain per site.
program from
G
Global catalogue database size.
launching at startup,
G
Number (and type) of CPUs per machine.
G
Amount of memory required .
open REGEDT32.EXE
G
Number of disks required for Active Directory data storage.
G
Bandwidth required for intersite replication.
and select the
Sizer is available for download from
http://www.microsoft.com/win
HKEY_LOCAL_
dows2000/techinfo/reskit/tools/new/adsizer o.asp
. The download tool is a
self extracting file and includes the files required to run Sizer, a documentation
MACHINE hive.
file, and a readme file containing information about the various Windows 2000
Resource Kit tools.
Issue 139:February 2002
PC Network Advisor
File: E1733.7
page 9
End User Support:Windows
www.pcnetworkadvisor.com
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