When managing your Windows NT servers, you will use a wide variety of utilities. Whereas the tools that come with Windows NT itself are basic necessities that you will use on a regular basis, the NT Resource Kit utilities are invaluable for more advanced functions. And the tools that come with applications such as BackOffice or related utilities such as the BackOffice Resource Kit make it possible to provide sophisticated services from your NT Servers. Even with all these tools, however, you will still be left with a need for some basic functionality. Norton Utilities can satisfy this need.
Norton Utilities is one of the classic applications that have grown up with the personal computer industry. Symantec, which now produces Norton Utilities, has evolved a set of Norton Utilities for Windows NT 4.0, useful on both servers and workstations. This appendix looks at the product's version 2.0 incarnation and how it can be useful in managing your Windows NT servers.
Norton Utilities for Windows NT has solutions to various problems. These include:
On your Windows NT Servers, these utilities can be valuable by ensuring that your system is running optimally and by enabling you to recover from various problems or even to prevent them. Other third parties also provide some of these options, but Norton Utilities brings several of the solutions together as one product. Some Microsoft tools provide similar functionality, but Norton Utilities makes more information available in a more useful form.
Symantec has a few Norton products available. They also have Norton Tools, which is very similar to Norton Utilities for Windows NT but also includes their full-featured antivirus software and a file management utility. In addition, they have Norton Administrator, which is similar in some ways to Microsoft's Systems Management Server, in that both have inventory collection, software distribution, and other management features.
At the time this was written, Norton Utilities for Windows NT, v2.0, retails for approximately $100 U.S. per copy. This allows you to use it on one work machine and on a machine at home if you use that machine part-time. It's available for Intel machines only. For more details, check Symantec's Web site at http://www.symantec.com.
Installation of Norton Utilities for Windows NT is very simple, and as a seasoned Windows NT professional, you already know how to do it. Because of this simplicity, there is virtually no documentation on it. The documentation for the rest of the product is all online, in traditional Help format. Most of the details are intuitive, but there is quite an extensive discussion of NTFS that you might find quite interesting. The README.TXT has various caveats that are worth reading.
The specific tools included with Norton Utilities for Windows NT, v2.0, are:
Norton System Doctor (see Figure F.1) is the command center of Norton Utilities for Windows NT. By default, it provides a nice graphical display of CPU utilization, disk usage, disk fragmentation, memory usage, active threads, and found viruses. It also tells you when you last updated your copy of Norton Utilities or its virus definitions. You can add various other system parameters to monitor, such as paging, physical memory, users (connections to be exact) connected, network activity, Internet speed, cache performance, and up-time. There is even a "Performance Data" option, which enables monitoring any Windows NT performance statistic, including those on remote machines.
With all of these options (except "Performance Data" and up-time), you can specify alarm levels. If the alarm levels are hit, then a message displays on the monitor, accompanied by a sound file, if you want. With the disk fragmentation monitor, if the alarm level is exceeded, then it can run Speed Disk, either right away or at a later time that you specify.
This is System Doctor, as it appears by default
Norton System Doctor enables you to access all the other utilities available with Norton Utilities for Windows NT (except Norton Protection), either from the Utilities menu or from the context-sensitive (right-click) menu. Of course, there are still the conventional Start, Programs menu options, and Norton Protection is available from the Recycle Bin.
For all the system parameters that can be monitored (or sensors, as Norton Utilities puts it) there's the option of displaying a separate large graph of the historical details of that item. The basic display of the sensors can also be controlled in terms of the kind of graph used, whether the alarm level is set, how often measurements are taken, and so on. All this functionality is available by using the context-sensitive menus.
If you want to control the overall display of System Doctor, you can use the View menu's Options item. This enables you to set the specific size of the sensors and some other values. System Doctor can even be set as an auto-hiding task bar, as in Figure F.2, much like the NT or Office task bars. After you're done with the various settings, you can save them as configuration files.
When experimenting with System Doctor, you see a couple of sensors, the purpose of which you might not intuit. One is slack space, which refers to the amount of wasted disk space due to files being stored in clusters of fixed size, wasting space at the end of some clusters. Another nonintuitive sensor is SMART status, which refers to Self-Monitoring and Reporting Technology disk drives. These drivers try to detect when disk problems are developing, so this sensor alerts you if any such problems start to occur.
One of the most important System Doctor sensors is the virus sensor. It displays a message if any viruses are found, and the sensor switches to a red stoplight. The properties for the virus scan can be adjusted by using this sensor's properties dialog box. The frequency of scans, which files are included, and so forth can be set there. Because hackers are writing new viruses every day, it's important to have fairly recent definitions of all known viruses. Symantec provides these updates, and the LiveUpdate option (discussed shortly) makes it easy to get them.
This is System Doctor in the docked, nonhidden state, with additional sensors.
The System Information (see Figure F.3) component of Norton Utilities for Windows NT provides a huge number of details about your server. Often they are obscure bits of trivia that are only useful to system programmers, but some information will prove very valuable to you. Amongst these are disk and memory usage and browser details.
System Information displays details about a server.
In many ways, System Information is much like WINMSD.EXE (Windows NT Microsoft Diagnostics), which comes with Windows NT. Each displays some different details, however, and System Information tends to do so in a more user-friendly fashion. WinMSD is more useful in that it connects to other computers and gives you details about them, but System Information is more useful in that it gives the valuable memory, disk, and browser information mentioned earlier. Even Microsoft Office comes with an application similar to System Information, called MSINFO32.EXE. However, MSInfo32 is very cryptic.
System Information is laid out as a series of tabs. The Display, Printer, Input, and Multimedia tabs contain very trivial details that are not likely to be very useful. The System tab provides some important things you should know about your computer, but it is information you could easily find elsewhere. The Memory and Drive tabs are very useful because they enable you to see at a glance how each of these is being used. The Network tab provides information about the computers in your network.
What surprises me about the System Information utility is that it provides no information about network cards, protocols available, network addresses, and so forth. The thing I regret most about the System Information utility is that the pie graphs of memory and drive use show only the free space and the space being used by the selected program (or directory or directory tree). For example, if the usage were divided into slices, you then could click the largest slice to immediately find out who the biggest hog is.
System Information has no options, other than to get more details by clicking a button or by traversing a tree. You can print out any or all the details, and I personally find it most useful to print a custom full report of the Network tab so that I can have a permanent record of all my workgroup names, members, and the shares they offer. Another great thing about printing is that you can "print" via e-mail. You can check out one of your servers and then e-mail a copy of the details to yourself for future reference in electronic form.
Norton Disk Doctor (see Figure F.4) is one of the perpetual favorite tools of computer technical specialists. How many times have you saved the day with this program? The Windows NT version continues the tradition by checking the various structures that reside on your disks and fixing them if it finds problems that it can handle.
Norton Disk Doctor in action--notice the variety of checks that it will do.
Disk Doctor has few options. You can scan for problems without trying to fix them (there is always that remote possibility that the cure will be worse than the disease). You can also have Disk Doctor test your disks as soon as Windows NT boots up, or you can tell it to do a complete test of free disk space (so that it's safe when you're ready to put files there). You can have music play while the scan is occurring. When problems are found, you can have your own message appear in addition to the Disk Doctor messages (so that the user will call your helpdesk, for instance). Results of disk scans can be printed, or e-mailed, much as with System Information.
TIP: If Disk Doctor finds any problems, be sure to run it again. The first problems might have made it impossible to find other problems, which can be caught the second time around. Continue to do this until Disk Doctor runs cleanly.
Speed Disk (see Figure F.5) is a conventional disk defragmenter. This means that it brings files together on disk and will even bring parts of individual files together. This way, the available free space on disk is at most a few large contiguous spaces. Then when additional files are created, they can be created as contiguous wholes, one after another. It is thought (and sometimes demonstrated) that by having files as contiguous wholes, it is more efficient to read them off the disk. Otherwise the disk controller would have to read some bytes here, go for some more bytes there, go to still another place for more bytes, and so on.
However, this might not always be the most efficient way to lay files out on disk. For instance, there are limits on how many bytes can be read at any given time. Therefore, if the file is contiguous, the maximum number of bytes will be read and processed, and then the controller will have to wait until the disk comes around again almost the full distance before the next group of bytes is read. Ultimately, the point to remember is that your mileage can vary, as they say, so you should consider whether or not your servers would benefit from defragmentation. Speed Disk is at least worth a try.
Speed Disk has a few options that you should consider setting. When running Speed Disk interactively, you might want to show the map and its legend. You can also specify how intensively things should be made contiguous, whether or not activities should be logged to the Windows NT event logs or sent as an alert to an administrator, and how many resources Speed Disk can consume. For best results, it's recommended that you run Speed Disk more than once.
You can schedule the defragmentation of your disks to occur with any combination of these options that you want, at any time. You can even tell it to stop at a specific time (such as when users might start arriving in the morning). When run as a scheduled job, defragmentation does not display any windows.
The Windows NT Recycle Bin is an intermediate place for files that you delete while using Explorer (the GUI interface to NT4) prior to their final demise. That way you have some time to decide whether or not you really want to get rid of those files. If not, they can be restored. Norton Protection works behind the scenes to extend this functionality to files that are deleted from the command prompt or that are deleted by most applications.
Speed Disk in operation--notice the visual feedback on the defragmentation status.
The options for Norton Protection are set by choosing Properties from the Recycle Bin context-sensitive menu, displaying the dialog box shown in Figure F.6. You can also empty the cache of Norton Protected files from that menu, if you're running low on disk space. The Norton Protection properties enable you to set how much disk space is used for the Norton Protection cache, how frequently it's automatically purged, what files are excluded from protection, which disks are included, and so forth.
NOTE: When Norton Utilities for Windows NT is installed, the Recycle Bin is automatically renamed Norton Protected Recycle Bin. This can be undone by changing the appropriate Norton Protection property.
The UnErase Wizard (see Figure F.7) makes it easy to restore files that either the Recycle Bin or the Norton Protection features make available. The regular Recycle Bin gives you much of the same functionality, but the UnErase Wizard makes it possible to limit the files shown (to RESUME*.*, for instance), and enables you to see files deleted by any users of the machine (as long as you have administrator privileges).
LiveUpdate (see Figure F.8) is a simple wizard that eases the process of getting any bug fixes or virus updates for Norton Utilities. Updates are a normal part of life, especially for antivirus software, so this wizard is a nice touch that makes this task a little easier for you. Updates to Norton Utilities itself typically take about 20 minutes (using a 19.2 dial-up Internet link), whereas antivirus updates take about 10 minutes.
The Norton Protection properties dialog box--notice the variety of options that can be set.
The UnErase Wizard's initial dialog boxes--notice the user-friendly interface, appropriate for all types of users.
Norton Utilities updates are initiated by invoking LiveUpdate from the Start Programs menu tree or from the Utilities menu of System Doctor. Virus updates are initiated by selecting LiveUpdate from the context-sensitive menu of the Virus Definitions sensor in System Doctor. In any case, LiveUpdate gives you the option of using whatever Internet connection you have or dialing into Symantec's BBS via your modem. From there, the rest is automatic.
LiveUpdate getting new virus definitions--notice the various phases involved.
You've seen that Norton Utilities for Windows NT has a lot of functionality, but how can you realistically use it to benefit your Windows NT Servers? Norton Utilities provides several general features that are useful in that context, namely virus protection, disk repairs, performance monitoring and optimization, disk management and capacity planning, network administration, and even delete protection.
The benefits of virus protection, repairing disks, and undeleting mistakenly deleted files should be quite obvious. Norton Utilities offers various options for performance, disk, and network management, however, that you should consider in more depth.
NOTE: There are two significant issues to consider when using virus protection on a server. The first is that effective virus protection requires regular updates of the virus definitions. Don't forget this--and see the discussion in the section, "The LiveUpdate Wizard." The second is that virus protection imposes a performance penalty, like anything else, so refer to the performance management section that follows.
One of your most significant responsibilities as a system administrator is to ensure that your servers are tuned properly. This is a complex subject, dependent on various skills, but it basically boils down to understanding the system and how it can be configured, understanding how well it's currently performing, and making changes accordingly.
Norton Utilities can help you understand how an NT Server is performing by displaying a wide variety of system parameters, or sensors. Windows NT's own Performance Monitor provides much the same information, but when its window is reduced to a reasonable size, its legend of the values being graphed disappears. Furthermore, System Doctor summarizes the network traffic on all protocols as one statistic, which is more interesting than the multiple networking statistics of Performance Monitor. Similarly, you can get a continual count of users connected in the same display. You can even get an indication of turnaround time to your favorite TCP/IP site, which can be particularly useful when there's an important intranet site that you want to ensure is always responsive. Norton Utilities' System Information program can also be useful in that you can see how memory is being used in a nice graphical output. This might make it more obvious which programs are being hogs, and if you don't need these programs, you can delete them or at least minimize their requirements.
Norton Utilities can also help make changes to the system to optimize performance. It does this using Speed Disk, which defragments the disk. As discussed in the section, "Speed Disk," the benefit of defragmentation is not always certain, but if you find that it helps with your system and applications, then Speed Disk makes it possible.
One concern to keep in mind: System Doctor is intended to perform functions on the computer on which it's installed, and any alerts are displayed on the system itself. Therefore, if you lock your Windows NT Servers away in a computer room or a closet, you might never see the results or the alerts. Not only does this make them useless, but running any program on a system creates a load. Norton Utilities takes some memory and CPU cycles, so memory and those cycles won't be available for server processes. That's fine if you've got capacity to spare, but if performance is tight, then having this program display useless information is actually making things worse. You might be able to minimize this issue by decreasing the frequency of updates, turning off certain options (including virus scanning), and so on, but it's still worth considering whether you need System Doctor at all in such a case.
A similar argument can be made about Speed Disk. If you're getting a 5 percent performance improvement, but it's taking 10 percent of your system capacity to defragment the disks, then you're actually making things worse by using Speed Disk. Mind you, this won't be the case if you're using that 10 percent at night when the system usually sits idle and getting the 5 percent during the day when the users are pounding on the system. In that case, the daytime performance is the only thing that's valuable to you, so you shouldn't care how much capacity it takes at night to improve it. You can minimize this issue by having System Doctor check for fragmentation and only invoke Speed Disk (via its alerts) if the fragmentation becomes bad enough.
Performance management is important for current server management, but to minimize future performance problems, you must think in terms of capacity planning. This can also be a complex subject, but it boils down to understanding the current capacity and how it's being used, understanding future requirements and how the old requirements will grow (or change), and adjusting accordingly.
Norton Utilities can help with capacity planning for disk space by enabling you to readily see how the current disk space is being used and by giving you a permanent electronic record of some of that information. System Information tells you how much disk space each directory tree is taking up, which you can routinely note. Then you can use Excel or a similar tool to graph the usage from your notes and thus be able to project when you will run out of disk space and how much additional capacity you will need to buy next year. For general disk information, use System Information to print its results to a file or to e-mail them.
System Information's disk usage information is also important in terms of managing the current capacity. With many users and applications potentially accessing your disks, it's difficult to ensure that old junk is not wasting space that could be put to better use. With the relatively low cost of disks, it's not worth your while to look at every file to find the useless ones that can be deleted. By using System Information's disk usage information, however, you can identify which directory trees, or sub-trees, are using a large amount of space and concentrate your efforts there.
With the proliferation of small, inexpensive computers, anyone within your organization can provide computer services. When things go wrong, however, users still turn to you, as the system administrator, to fix them. You can say that systems outside of your jurisdiction are not your responsibility, but that answer might not satisfy everyone. Therefore, it's advantageous to be aware of the systems out there and how they're being used and to persuade the people running them to do so professionally.
Norton Utilities' System Information program can aid this process by providing you with a complete report of the network, including all workgroups, computers, and shares. You then can go to those users offering shares and remind them of the importance of backups, security, performance, and other concerns that we professionals take care of on a daily basis. When the users of their services find that any of these tasks haven't been adequately done, they won't be happy. So it's in everyone's interest to proactively ensure that they're attended to.
System Information provides you with these details when you print a custom report of the network tab with all details. It can even e-mail the information to you or print it in a simple text file. I find this tool very useful. All the other browser tools I've found haven't given me the whole list at once and usually haven't offered a printing option at all. On a large network, it can take an hour or two to generate this report, but it's well worth it.
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