 Custom Search Guy recommends: A free desktop tool that monitors, or restarts, your VMware virtual machines. Download your free VM Console Ezine 132 – SrvInfo and Resource KitsGive a man a fish, and you’ll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll buy a funny hat. Talk to a hungry man about fish, and you’re a consultant. Scott Adams My speciality is getting people started. In the last Ezine we looked at BgInfo, which is a great utility in its own right; however, I hope that you found time to look around the Sysinternals site because it contains dozens of other useful tools, and gems of information. Windows Server Resource KitThis week I want to point you in the direction of the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit. While I have singled out SrvInfo, my real objective is to cajole you into researching Microsoft’s ResKits (Resource Kits). Server Info Tool (SrvInfo.exe)Interesting information (Over and above information displayed by utilities such as BgInfo):
My friend ‘Barking’ Eddie told me in no uncertain terms that I should not be boring you my reader with this old NT technology. I replied that the killer benefit of SrvInfo is the ability to interrogate other machines on the network: for example: SrvInfo \\ machineName Eddie’s reply was the remote switch would not work on his network, but then Eddie has blocked almost every single port on his custom firewall. With normal firewall setting, the remote SrvInfo command works perfectly. Incidentally, there are more SrvInfo switches such as -s (shares) and -ns (don’t display the services). I also tried to explain to Eddie that if you want more control, then you could use PowerShell and WMI to create your own custom version of this type of server information. One man’s meat is another man’s poison.The scene is a training course, the delegates and I are just chatting informally waiting for stragglers to arrive before I start the afternoon session. We are discussing which Resource Kit tool had the shortest name. It was agreed that OH (Open Handle) probably had the shortest name, furthermore all those present agreed that it was a rubbish utility. Then, one of the stragglers returned from his lunch, he was unaware of the previous conversation and proceeded to say how wonderful OH was. He went on to explain that the secret was to use the OH +otl (Object Type Lists) switch. The rest of the delegates were entranced while he regaled us of how Open Handles had helped him cure a file sharing / violation problem. I could not help smiling and thinking to myself, hmm… ‘One man’s meat is another man’s poison’. My point is this, you may find that SrvInfo is not the sharpest tool in the box, but if you look at the rest of the utilities in the Windows Server Resource Kit you WILL find a tool to solve a problem or speed up a task. At an even higher level, realize that other Microsoft products also have ‘ResKits’, for example, Exchange 2003 and SQL. Perhaps you now realize why I exhort you to look around the Microsoft Download area and fill you boots with goodies. Guy Recommends: Tools4ever’s UMRA |
