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Using Rdisk /s
Alessandro Iacopetti's "ERDs and RDISK" (Reader to Reader, April 1999) correctly explained how to use the rdisk /s command to create backups of the Emergency Repair Disk (ERD). However, when you run this command, the current SAM overwrites the existing SAM in the \winnt\repair directory. If the SAM is large (i.e., 20MB or larger), the Repair copy of the SAM won't fit on a 3.5" disk. Thus, you can't create a 3.5" repair disk. Microsoft discusses this problem in the article "RDISK /S and RDISK /S- Options in Windows NT" (http://support.microsoft.com/support/ kb/articles/q122/8/57.asp) and suggests that you make a backup copy of the \%systemroot%\repair directory before you use the /s option.
—Mark Mann
mmann@abbeyoffshore.com
Browsing Follow-up
I enjoyed Michael D. Reilly's "The Browser Service" (March 1999), which provided an excellent description of how the browser service works. One thing Michael didn't mention in the article was how to break browsing on a network. Two methods exist for breaking browsing on a Windows NT network. One method is to have multiple NICs in the domain master browser (i.e., the PDC). The other way to break browsing is to have multiple NICs in a segment master browser (which the author refers to as a subnet master browser). If NetBIOS over TCP/IP (NetBT) is bound to two segment master browser NICs, the machine maintains two browse lists. However, the two NICs can't exchange the two browse lists in this multihoned configuration. Thus, you'll have an incomplete browse list for the client. To fix the problem, you need to single-hone the machine and edit the Registry. Start regedt32, go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ Browser\Parameters\MaintainServerList Registry entry, and change the value to false. Close the Registry Editor, and reboot the machine.
—David Capeci
dcapeci@harleysvillegroup.com
MCSE Cheating
I recently earned my MCSE and was disturbed by another test taker's behavior and Microsoft's response. The last test I took to earn my certification was TCP/IP. Several days before the test, I received a confirmation letter from Sylvan Learning Center (the test administrator) reminding me of the test time and telling me I would be taking an adaptive rather than a standard exam. The day of the test, I noticed that my exam was standard, but I felt comfortable taking the test because I had studied well and knew the material.
The same day I took the TCP/IP test, one of my coworkers took the Networking Essentials exam. His confirmation letter also said he would be taking an adaptive test. He started the exam and got to question 26 (on the 30-question test) before he noticed that the test was standard rather than adaptive. At that point, he told the test proctor that he wanted the proctor to load an adaptive test and let him start over. Of course, the test proctor couldn't reload the exam and thus told my coworker to just finish the test. My acquaintance rushed through the exam, not trying to pass. He failed the test, and the test proctor told him he would need to email Microsoft to complain.
My coworker emailed Microsoft, telling the company that his confirmation letter said he was supposed to take an adaptive test and that when Sylvan administered a standard test, he got confused. Unbelievably, Microsoft sympathized and sent him a voucher to retake the test.
In my opinion, this person wasn't prepared for the exam and is using the type of test as an excuse. After all, you don't prepare to take an adaptive or a standard exam—you study the same material for either test. In addition, my acquaintance should have notified the test proctor that the type of test was wrong before he started taking it rather than when he was almost finished (and knew he was going to fail).
By letting someone retake a test because it was the wrong type, Microsoft is giving MCSE candidates the impression that they don't have to fully prepare for the exams. This situation makes Microsoft and the MCSE program look bad.
—Marc Crawford
crawfordm@usa.net
NT and Win95 Logon Scripts
I had to carry out a complete migration from Novell NetWare 4.11 to Windows NT 4.0 at my previous employer's office. The desktop environment was a mixture of NT 4.0 and Windows 95 workstations. I needed to use logon scripts to complete the migration, which was difficult because the logon script setups for NetWare and NT are quite different.
In NetWare 4.11, you can use one logon script to serve all the users in a department or location. To accomplish this task, you assign a logon script to the Novell Directory Services (NDS) container the users are in. Then, users get various drive mappings depending on their group membership.
In NT 4.0, you must assign a logon script to each user. You create logon scripts as batch files with .bat or .cmd extensions. Then, you need to place these files in the \winnt\system32\repl\ import\scripts directory on the PDC and use the Directory Replication service to replicate the files to the BDCs. To map various user drives depending on users' group membership, I used the Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit's ifmember.exe utility. This tool is equivalent to NetWare's If member statement. (You can also use the shareware utility KiXtart 95. This utility is more powerful than ifmember.exe.)
I set up user home drives as h in User Manager for Domains, and I experienced several problems. First, home drives weren't mapped on the Win95 PCs. To map user home drives on these machines, I used the following command in the logon script: net use h: /home. (This command doesn't work on Win98 machines.)
Second, some applications didn't work because they required access to the root of users' home drives. To solve this problem, I shared the user home drives (granting Full Access to the user and the Domain Admin group) and changed the Uniform Naming Convention (UNC) path in User Manager for Domains.
Finally, the ifmember.exe utility wouldn't run on the Win95 PCs; I received the error message Bad Command or File Name. Because the Win95 users belonged to various departments that required different drive mappings, I needed to use a set of logon scripts that depended on users' departments. Listing 1 shows this logon script. (Listing 2 shows a similar script that employs ifmember.exe for NT users.)
For my NT drives to map successfully and for the logon script in Listing 2 to run, I needed to create local and global groups. I created a local group called recep and gave the group access to a folder called faxes. Next, I added a global group called recep to the local recep group. Finally, I added all the necessary users to the global group recep.
—Tariq Sharif
tariq.sharif@itnets.freeserve.co.uk
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