Leveraging Useful Tools for Managing Desktops

The key to successful management and deployment of desktops is the administrator's ability to automate and simplify repetitive tasks . Microsoft has provided several tools that help to simplify otherwise manual administrative steps. The following section addresses some available resource kit tools that ease the deployment of workstations.

Floplock

Floplock.exe is a utility, first introduced back in the NT 4.0 days, that puts a Discretionary Access Control List (DACL) on the floppy drive, providing the capability to lock the drive to all users except for Administrators and Power Users.

To install the FloppyLocker Service, run the Inetserv.exe utility. From a command prompt type

  Instsrv FloppyLocker C:\{data path }\floplock.exe  

After installation, use the services applet to configure the FloppyLocker service. Pick the account that the service should start up under and provide the correct password for the account. Administrator would be the obvious choice.

To remove the FloppyLocker service, type the following:

  Instsrv FloppyLocker remove  

The FloppyLocker Service can be a useful security feature in both the administrator workstation and kiosk workstation scenarios discussed previously in this chapter.

Netdom

Netdom.exe is another resource kit utility that was first introduced in the NT 4.0 days that has many uses. It is most commonly used in a scripted installation to join a client computer to the domain. The correct syntax is

  netdom join <ComputerName> /domain:<DomainName> /userd:<UserName> /passwordd:   <UserNamePassword>  

Using * in place of <UserNamePassword> will prompt the user for password.

Con2prt

Another old-school utility that is still useful today is Con2prt.exe, a command-line utility used to both connect and disconnect connections to network printers. Con2prt.exe is a useful tool for adding network printers while performing a scripted or automated XP desktop deployment.

From the command prompt type

• CON2PRT /f ” Deletes all existing printer connections.

• CON2PRT /C \\printserver\share printer ” Connects to specified printer.

• CON2PRT /CD \\printserver\share printer ” Connects to specified printer and sets it as default printer.

User State Migration Tool (USMT)

The User State Migration Tool (USMT) provides the same functionality as the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard but on a larger scale for migrating multiple users.

USMT is driven by a shared set of customized .INF files designed to manage the user's environment and needs.

USMT consists of two executable files: ScanState.exe and LoadState.exe, and four migration rule information files: Migapp.inf, Migsys.inf, Miguser.inf, and Sysfiles.inf. These files can be found on the Windows XP CD-ROM in the Valueadd\Msft\Usmt folder.

To migrate user data you need to first modify the .INF files to identify which file types, folders, or specific files you wish to migrate. To then gather the specific data run ScanState.exe. ScanState.exe gathers the specified data and copies it to a specified location where it can later be retrieved. Use Loadstate.exe, via script, to then add the user data to the new location, for example a newly imaged XP workstation.