Category: w_tools

Most IT Professionals agree that having a lab for proper testing and staging is crucial to a stable, successful Citrix environment. However, some may argue that labs are complicated, costly and seemingly unjustified. Although these may seem like valid points, the risk of having your production environment come crashing down due to an untested patch or software upgrade proves that it’s well worth the time and cost of setting up a lab.

A lab is a great tool to have at your disposal. You can use it to test a new software release or security patch or possibly a new printer driver that a client is requesting. Perhaps you just want an environment where you can learn more about the inner workings of Citrix, Web Interface or Secure Gateway. If you’ll be faced with upgrading your production environment to MetaFrame Presentation Server 3.0, it’s best to do a “dry run” in a lab before victimizing your production environment and possibly causing serious downtime.

Many times, people don’t build labs because there is no spare hardware, no space available, or simply no time to commit to assembling a lab. However, with the advent of server virtualization, building a lab can be accomplished with significantly less hardware and in a much shorter amount of time.

hier gibts den ganzen spannenden artikel: brianmadden

das beste an dem virtual server von microsoft ist neben dem preis mit sicherheit die tatsache, dass er von microsoft supported wird. auch tools wie das Virtual Server 2005 Migration Toolkit stellen einen absoluten mehrwert dar; doch es kommt noch mehr bewegung in die sache; das dokument Running Domain Controllers in Virtual Server 2005 sollte man auf jeden fall gelesen haben…

On servers running Windows Server 2003 and Virtual Server 2005, you can install multiple domain controllers in separate virtual machines. This platform is well suited for test environments. With strict adherence to requirements described in this paper, domain controller virtual machines can also be used in production.

auch, wenn der vmware esx server bei der virtualisierung und vergabe der ressourcen viel mehr möglichkeiten bietet (was ich vor kurzem auf zwei kursen ein wenig genauer kennenlernen durfte) und somit meist in produktiven umgebungen weit besser geeignet ist – so drängt sich ms immer mehr als alternative auf: preis, support, tools, whitepapers – gefällt mir 😉

Microsoft provides a useful command-line tool called err.exe that can help you find the meanings of error codes. When you run err.exe and specify an error code, the program searches all the error-code definitions from the various header files that Windows uses to generate a list of possible error meanings. You can download err.exe at Microsoft Web site. (Although the Web page is called “Exchange Server Error Code Look-up,” err.exe actually handles Windows OS error codes.)

You can use err.exe in several ways. Entering the command

err

with no parameters returns a list of all the header files the command checks. If you run err.exe and specify an error code–for example,

err 1645

the output looks like this:

D:tempErr>
# for decimal 1645 / hex 0x66d :
ERROR_INSTALL_REMOTE_PROHIBITED winerror.h
# The Windows Installer does not permit installation from a
# Remote Desktop Connection.
# for hex 0x1645 / decimal 5701 :
NELOG_NetlogonFailedToUpdateTrustList lmerrlog.h
SQL_5701_severity_10 sql_err
# Changed database context to ‘%.*ls’.
# 3 matches found for “1645”

via windowsitpro

gibts hier:

AccExp – Account expiration tool.

AdFind – Active Directory query tool.

AdMod – Active Directory modification tool.

ATSN – IP to Subnet/Site Information tool.

Auth – Authentication test tool.

Continue reading “free joeware tools”

Automated Deployment Services (ADS). Available as a download, ADS for Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition, includes a new set of imaging tools that enable you to automate the deployment of Microsoft operating systems.

Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM). For organizations that require flexible support for directory-enabled applications, ADAM is a breakthrough in directory services technology based on the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP).

File Replication Services (FRS) Monitoring Tools. A number of tools are available for managing FRS, the replication engine that keeps Distributed File System (DFS) shares synchronized, including both continuous monitoring tools, such as Ultrasound and Sonar, and snapshot troubleshooting tools such as FRSDiag.

Group Policy Management Console (GPMC). GPMC simplifies the management of Group Policy by making it easier to understand, deploy, manage, and troubleshoot Group Policy implementations.

Identity integration. Identity Integration Feature Pack for Microsoft Windows Server Active Directory manages identities and coordinates user details across Active Directory, ADAM, Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server, and Exchange Server 2003 implementations, enabling you to combine identity information for a given user or resource into a single, logical view.

iSCSI support. Available as a free download, the Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) software initiator package works with the Windows platform to help provide low-cost, highly efficient IP-based storage area networks (SANs).

Windows SharePoint Services. Windows SharePoint Services sites take file storage to a new level, providing communities for team collaboration and making it easy for users to work together on documents, tasks, contacts, events, and other information.

Services for UNIX 3.5. Available as a free download, Services for UNIX 3.5 provides services that enable seamless interoperability with UNIX servers, such as an NFS and NIS server, as well as tools and services to help customers migrate applications from UNIX to Windows.

Windows Rights Management Services (RMS). A milestone of trustworthy computing, RMS is an information protection technology that works with RMS-enabled applications to help safeguard digital information from unauthorized use.

hier gehts zu den details – ebenfalls spannend: Windows Server Road Map Deliverables

ein kleines aber feines keyboard macro script; einfach die gewünschten keycodes und wiederholungen ändern, in eine textdatei kopieren und mit endung vbs abspeichern; und dann hat man 5 sekunden zeit, um auf die gewünschte applikation zu wechseln in der das script laufen soll

Dim WShell
Dim i
Dim KeyCount
Dim KeyCodes

set WShell = WScript.CreateObject(“WScript.Shell”)

WScript.Sleep 5000 ‘5 Sekunden warten, um die Applikation zu wechseln
KeyCount = 3 ‘Anzahl der Wiederholungen
KeyCodes = “{TAB}{TAB}{TAB} ” ‘Zu sendender Keycode
For i = 1 to KeyCount
WShell.SendKeys KeyCodes ‘definierte Keys senden
WScript.Sleep 100 ‘Sicherheitshalber 100ms warten
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