Chapter 9: General Characteristics and Purpose of System Tools

Overview

Long, long ago, in the time of mainframes and mini-computers, every system programmer knew that if the system was in a faulty state, it was time to run a test. Now, in the epoch of the PC and various GUI tools, system administrators have somewhat forgotten that certain handy and powerful diagnostics facilities still exist. Thanks to them, you need not rack your brains over the sources of these problems (i.e., you do not have to try to find the error source logically). You can get useful and extensive diagnostic information (that can be used for further analysis) quickly and easily, or often even get a ready answer — the reason for the error — right away

Since Windows 2000 systems came into the world the importance of these facilities has just been confirmed; since many problems that occur during Windows 2000 deployment and maintenance require the use of various command-line or GUI diagnostic tools. The new server platform — Windows .NET — does not change the situation a bit. Sometimes, you need to even better understand how to use these tools for performing routine operations, since there are no other means to accomplish one's goal.

In this chapter, let us try to classify and characterize various system tools provided by Microsoft that help administrators manage and troubleshoot Active Directory services. This chapter should help you to quickly find an appropriate tool for a specific task. In the following chapters, most of these tools are described in more detail. My aim is not to provide comprehensive information on each parameter or option. (You can easily use the built-in help messages or Help files, and obtain a list of all available keys.) We will focus on the most interesting, useful, or non-evident features as well as examples of how to use these tools in real life.