Guy's Best Practice & Litmus Tests Ezine #18
Contents for Ezine #18
Last weekend I went around to see 'Mad' Mick. I may have mentioned in
previous ezines, 'Mad' Mick is obsessed with getting the last 0.1% out of his
computers. (An obsession that goes back to tuning Mini engines in the 1960s).
We soon got onto Mick's hobby horse of machines having as much free memory and
as little clutter as possible. The discussion turned to Windows Services that
you should change from Startup type = Automatic, to Startup type = Manual. In
fact 'Mad' Mick was of the opinion that you should set the Startup type =
Disable, whereas my point of view was that if set the service to manual then the
user or the application could start the service on an 'as needed' basis. (If
Startup type is set to Disabled then that service would be unavailable until you
change the Startup type.)
If you accept my challenge to tune your XP or Windows 2000 machine, then here is
a list of Windows Services to check. My 'hidden agenda' is that as you change
the settings, so you learn more about each service.
Computer Browser - Provides a list of machines with shares. You do not need the
Browser service if either of these are true: a) You have DNS, b) That machine
does not share out any folders or printers.
Error Reporting Service - Do you really need to tell Microsoft about Office
problems?
Fax - Do you use the fax in this day and age?
IPSEC - are you really encrypting IP traffic?
Remote Registry - Who is hacking your machine?
SNMP - This is for Simple Network Protocol traps, unlikely to need this.
Telnet - Dangerous to enable. Hacker's paradise
WWW Publishing? Do you use PWS?
Now I do not know your machine, so my greatest joy will be if you decide for
your self which services to change, rather than just following my 'recipe'
above.
Calculating IP Address
ranges is a black art, which many network managers solve by creating custom
Excel spreadsheets. IPAT cracks this problem of allocating IP addresses
in networks in two ways:
For Mr Organized there is a nifty subnet
calculator, you enter the network address and the subnet mask, then IPAT
works out the usable addresses and their ranges.
For Mr Lazy IPAT
discovers and then displays the IP addresses of existing computers.
Download the Free IP Address Tracker
I use CMD daily, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that when I
pressed F7 in the 'DOS BOX', up came a history of all the commands that I had
been using for that session.
If you use CMD to any great extent, then you may already be familiar with the
cursor up arrow which replays previous instructions. Perhaps you have already
adjusted the properties of the CMD window to increase the LAYOUT height and
width? I use height 300 and width 54 on a 1024 resolution monitor.
If you are looking for a new executable to test F7 in your 'DOS BOX', then try
netdom. 'Mad' Mick and I had a difference of opinion he loved NetDom, but I was
not that impressed.
The trick to get started is netdom (space) command :
Netdom help
Netdom help add
Netdom help resetpwd
Netdom query fsmo
If you have Active Directory, try this command:
Netdom query fsmo
In fact this tip was sent in by M.A. (Please send me any of YOUR tips)
CMDHere is one of my favourite little utilities, what it does is provide a
'Command Prompt Here' from any Explorer Window. Imagine that you have opened an
Explorer window and navigated to a folder. You think - 'I wish I was in DOS so
that I could issue a command'. With CMDHere installed, no problem, just right-click the folder and then select 'Command Prompt Here' - bingo, a 'DOS BOX'
appears. Installing CMDHere is simplicity itself, and you can get the utility
from this link. free download
Lots of useful computer services
• Solarwinds Orion NPM Review
•
How to Shut Down Win8 •
Win8 Eventlog •
Win8 FAQ • Ezines
• E 167 WinDiff •
E 131 BigInfo •
E 123 WinDiff •
E 102 SysPrep •
E 69 Perfmon •
E62 WinDiff
• E 25 Event Trigger •
E 24 CacheMov •
E 18 Services •
E 16 Perfmon •
Exchange Monitor
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