Support Tools

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The Windows 2000 Support Tools are immensely valuable because they provide functionality not otherwise available in the operating system. You'll probably never use some of the tools, but a few will prove to be worth their weight in Microsoft stock options. This section discusses a few of these utilities. You can see a complete list by choosing Tools Help from the Windows 2000 Support Tools menu.

If you don't see the Support Tools on your Programs menu, you'll need to install them. To install the Windows 2000 Support Tools, insert the Windows 2000 CDROM. Open the Support folder and then the Tools folder. Double-click Setup.

NOTE

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The tools provided on the Windows 2000 CD-ROM are a subset of the tools you can get by purchasing the full Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Resource Kit. The Resource Kit is a separate product with its own companion CD, available from Microsoft Press.

Network Connectivity Tester

Network connections can fail in a spectacular number of ways—at any number of servers and in a variety of client configurations. Determining the source of a problem can be a daunting process. Netdiag.exe can report on an equally spectacular number of functions, running tests on the DNS server, the WINS server, Kerberos, the bindings, the WAN, trust relationships, the IP configuration, the routing table, IPX, NetWare, DHCP, the default gateway, and more. Netdiag.exe can be run on Windows NT and Windows 95/98 as well as Windows 2000, so you can use this excellent troubleshooting tool on servers and clients alike.

Domain Manager

With Netdom.exe, most forms of domain management can be handled from the command line. Machine accounts can be added, removed, renamed, or moved to another domain. Netdom.exe also retrieves information about trusts and lets you establish trusts, synchronize the time, and verify secure channel passwords. The syntax for Netdom.exe is simple, but the range of possible parameters is extensive.

MORE INFO

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Command syntax and examples are available in the Support Tools Help files. To find the syntax for a specific tool, open a command window and enter tool_name /?.

Active Directory Replication Monitor

Rather than merely monitoring low-level replication among servers, the Active Directory Replication Monitor (Replmon.exe) reports on a wide range of Active Directory functions. It displays the site topology while reporting on the server's properties, indicating whether it is a Global Catalog server, and listing its replication partners, its replication history, and the attributes replicated.

The units of replication among domain controllers are directory partitions that must contain the most current information about objects in the domain. If a server is down or the network is disrupted, the information may not be completely up-to-date. The Replication Monitor can synchronize a monitored server with a specific replication partner to get everything back in order. It also generates status reports for servers throughout a forest for troubleshooting replication errors.

Disk Probe

Disk Probe (Dskprobe.exe) is indispensable when a critical hard disk goes bad. It is a sector editor that you can use to repair damaged partition tables, replace the master boot record, and repair or replace partition boot sectors. Even better, Disk Probe will save master boot records and partition boot sectors as files that can be used to restore the sectors if they become damaged in the future. This can be a great benefit because these data structures aren't part of the file system and are not backed up by any backup program. Table 10-2 briefly describes some of the Windows 2000 Support Tools. For a complete list, see Appendix F.

Table 10-2. Additional Windows 2000 Support Tools

Tool	Filename	Format	Description
ADSI Edit	Adsiedit.msc	GUI	Low-level editor for Active Directory; enables adding, moving, and deleting objects within Active Directory.
Dependency Walker	Depends.exe	GUI	Scans any Win32 module and reports all dependent modules. Used to find the minimum set of files needed to load an application and to find what functions a module uses or exports.
Distributed file system utility	Dfsutil.exe	Cmd	Queries and troubleshoots Dfs.
DNS Troubleshooting Tool	Dnscmd.exe	Cmd	Allows you to view and modify DNS servers, zones, and resources.
Global Flags Editor	Gflags.exe	GUI	Edits global registry settings or flags in use by the kernel.
Memory Profiling Tool	Memsnap.exe	Cmd	Takes a snapshot of all of the memory resources being used by all processes and reports the information to a log file.
Registry Console Tool	Reg.exe	Cmd	Modifies the registry database from the command line. Used to query, add, delete, copy, save, and restore entries.
Remote Command Line	Remote.exe	Cmd	Runs command-line programs on remote computers using named pipes only.
Security Administration Tools	Sidwalk.exe Showaccs.exe Sidwalk.msc	Cmd/ Cmd/ GUI	Manage access control lists.
SNMP Query Utility	Snmputilg.exe	GUI	Graphical version of Snmputil.exe used to troubleshoot Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP).