Something different. Policies that affect the operating system
rather than the users. If you are familiar with the Services snap-in,
then you may already have ideas about which services should be disabled, for
instance Telnet, and FTP.
Security is our watchword in this section, so let us disable services
that will never be needed, especially if they could be used by hackers.
Take the time to go through the list and decide which services to disable with a policy.
In terms of strategy, I advise creating a Group Policy or eve an OU for each type of machine, for example a server OU where you disable services such as IIS.
Once the machine starts, you can over-ride the policy, simply go to the
Services, double click the particular services and select one of these start-up
options:
Automatic
Manual
Disabled.
Free Monitor for Your Network: SolarWinds Real-time Traffic Analyzer
The main reason for monitoring your network is to check at a glance which
servers are available. If there is a network problem you
want an interface to show the scope of the problem immediately.
Even when all servers and routers are available, sooner or later you will be curious to
know who, or what, is hogging the precious network's bandwidth. A GUI
showing the top 10 users always makes interesting reading.
Another reason to monitor network traffic is to learn more about your
server's response times and the consumption of resources. To take the pain out of
capturing frames and analysing the raw data, Guy recommends that you download a copy of
the SolarWinds
free Real-time NetFlow Analyzer.
Finally...
A final thought, rather than being negative all the time, why not seek out
services that you positively wish to
set to Automatic Startup? 'Special Administration Console
Helper' springs to mind.
Guy Recommends: Orion's NPM - Network Performance Monitor
Orion's performance monitor is designed for detecting network outages. NPM makes it easy to see what's working, and what needs your attention.
This utility guides you through creating network maps. It also helps troubleshooting by indicating whether the root cause is faulty equipment, or resource overload.
