Windows NT Administration Tools Overview for Experienced Solaris System Administrators

You may be an experienced administrator of a Windows NT network; in that event, you are already familiar with Microsoft NT administration tools and you can skip this section and proceed to the next, "The SunLink Server Manager or Command Line: Your Choice".

For administrators of a Solaris network, however, this section is a summary of the Windows NT administration tools that make it possible to carry out your Windows NT network responsibilities. Becoming familiar with the functions of these tools will help you discern the difference between a Windows NT network administration task and a SunLink Server administration task.

Nearly all Windows NT network administration tasks are carried out by way of several graphical user interface (GUI) tools. A SunLink Server computer can operate and be administered regardless of whether Windows NT is running on the network. However, client-based network administrative tools running on Windows NT Workstation and Microsoft Windows 95-based client computers enable remote administration of the Windows NT services provided by a SunLink Server system.

To perform Windows NT network administration tasks on a SunLink Server computer from a Microsoft Windows 95-based client computer, you install Windows NT Server Tools. Remote administration is supported for all network functions. Windows NT Server Tools are available in the SunLink Server installation package.

All of the GUI-based tools for Windows NT network administration feature online help.

The most important and most commonly used Windows NT administration tools, and the common administrative tasks associated with them, are described in the following sections. (Depending on which tools package you use and which Windows NT version you are running, you may not have access to one or more of the tools listed in the following sections.)

User Manager for Domains

Windows NT network client computer users gain access to network resources with a single logon and password, from any computer in their own "domain" or other "trusted" domain. No matter which computer they use, their own user environment will be established for them by the Windows NT server at logon. This environment and various other user attributes are maintained by way of the User Manager for Domains tool.

Similar (though not equivalent) information in the world of the Solaris system administrator is stored in the /etc/passwd, /etc/groups, .profile, and .cshrc files.

You use User Manager for Domains for many common tasks, including:

• Managing passwords, including resetting forgotten passwords

• Setting up logon hours

• Setting account expiration dates

• Managing user accounts, including creating, deleting, altering, naming, and disabling

• Creating and modifying a path to the user's profile

• Creating logon scripts for users and specifying their home directories

• Managing groups, including creating, deleting, and changing them and their membership

• Managing security policy, including number of failed logons permitted, users' and groups' rights, and audit policy

• Managing trust relationships among Windows NT domains

Server Manager

Windows NT network resources--such as file services and print services, for example--are allocated from the servers to the client computers as shares. These shares are given names, and accounted for by way of these names. You manage shares and other server-based resources by way of the Server Manager tool.

You use Server Manager for many common tasks, including:

• Setting and managing share permissions for users, viewing a computer's shares, adding new shares, and stopping sharing directories

• Checking who is connected to which server, for how long, and which resources they have open

• Configuring the Windows NT Directory Replicator service

• Specifying path names for logon scripts (script file names are specified by way of User Manager for Domains)

• Sending and managing administrative alerts

• Managing domains and domain controllers

• Managing services

Event Viewer

An event is any significant occurrence in the system or in an application. Some critical events are noted in on-screen messages.

An event that does not require immediate attention is noted in an event log. Event logging starts automatically. With an event log and the Windows NT tool called Event Viewer, you can troubleshoot various hardware and software problems, and monitor Windows NT security events. You also can archive logs in various file formats.

You use Event Viewer for many common Windows NT administrative tasks. Among Event Viewer's features, it:

• Traps and displays all errors and exceptions

• Displays event logs for security, systems, and applications

• Displays event descriptions and details

• Sorts events by timeframe

• Filters events, displaying only those with characteristics you specify

• Searches for events

• Provides Windows NT error codes

System Policy Editor

On computers running Windows NT Workstation or Windows NT Server, the contents of the user profile are taken from the user portion of the Windows NT Registry. Another part of the registry, the local computer portion, contains configuration settings that you can manage along with user profiles.

Using the System Policy Editor, you can create a system policy to control user work environments and actions and to enforce system configuration for all computers running Windows NT Workstation and Windows NT Server.

With system policies, you can control some aspects of user work environments without enforcing the restrictions of a mandatory user profile. You can restrict what users can do from the desktop, such as which options in Control Panel they can use, and customize parts of the desktop or configure network settings.

User Profile Editor

On computers running Windows NT Workstation or Windows NT Server, user profiles automatically create and maintain the desktop settings for each user's work environment on the local computer. (Although you can save user profiles in shared network directories on SunLink Server computers, user profiles have no effect on those particular computers--only on the clients served by them.)

You can create and modify user profiles using the User Profile Editor tool.

In Windows NT and Windows 95, a user profile is created for each user when the user logs on to a computer for the first time. User profiles provide the following advantages to users:

• When users log on to their workstations, they receive the desktop settings as they existed when they logged off.

• Several users can use the same computer, with each receiving a customized desktop when they log on.

• User profiles stored on a server enable the profiles to follow users to any computer running the Windows NT or SunLink Server software on the network. These are called roaming user profiles.

As an administrative tool, user profiles provide the following options:

• You can create customized user profiles and assign them to users to provide consistent work environments that are appropriate to their tasks.

• You can specify common group settings for all users.

• You can assign mandatory user profiles to prevent users from changing any desktop settings.

Other Windows NT tools available to many administrators include WINS Manager, Registry Editor (Regedit32), Disk Administrator, Performance Monitor, and a Backup utility. Detailed information about these and the previously described Windows NT tools, as well as instructions for using them, are included in the tools' online help and your Windows NT network documentation.