ravashaak

I too have used SAV and SCS in a managed environment. The software does its job but in many cases proves to be a resource hog, bogging down otherwise idle systems. However, the worst thing is the time required to manage the entire thing. Control and configuration layouts are often duplicative and seldom make much logical sense. Options and settings are spread out all over the place and can prove a bear to handle at times. The documentation often proves poorly-worded, causing further confusion instead of providing solutions. I have a long laundry list of issues with this software, primarily on the administrative side of things. I could list pages of issues for you. These problems add a great deal of administrative overhead and headache. My employer currently holds a site license for this software, so we continue to use it. However, I too am reluctant to recommend this product to others. - Ravashaak

I once went over to a friend's to help him resolve some issues with his home network. He'd agreed in advance that if I fixed his stuff, he'd give me this extra ATX case he had. And I needed another case, so it was a good deal. Anyway, I go over there and am able to get his home network up and running without too much fuss. So, he goes and grabs a cd binder he has, fishes out a friggin' Windows ME cd, and says "Here, I have an extra one of these, and it's worth more than a case anyway". I just love it when people change the deal. When I left, I hummed the friggin' CD out my window and into someone's yard as I drove down the street. ME is a garbage OS if there ever was one. And of course, I don't help that friend with his computer problems anymore - Ravashaak

How about enabling NetBIOS over TCP/IP for the network connections of both systems? - Ravashaak

I see no problem with your structure. However, you might want to write a subkey for each application instead of just values all lumped into one key. It really depends upon your needs. However, if you created subkeys for each application, you could create a value for the application version within each subkey (just in case you later needed an easy way to programatically determine the installed version of an application). - Ravashaak

Soulin is correct. You can use REG ADD and REG QUERY to write and read data from the registry. Errorlevels are returned for the presence or absence of the value for which you query. Also of note: In many instances, programs will write registry keys and values when they are installed (silently or otherwise). You can often determine these on your own and query for them without needing to add a custom entry yourself. *Most* applications write a subkey to HKLM\SOFTWARE\. That's usually the first place to check for registry entries. They will most often appear under either the application name, or the company name. Many developers (but not all, unfortunately) even include values reflecting program versions. This can be handy in certain circumstances. - Ravashaak

Tokugawapants: That's a beautiful nature scene. Too bad some jet had to drop a big nasty contrail! - Ravashaak

It's almost certainly a name resolution issue on some level. You can: 1. Fix DNS 2. Use WINS 3. Use lmhosts files for trust validation (easiest) For item #3 above, this link HERE should provide all the information you require. For general troubleshooting tips related to this problem, go HERE. Hope this helps you. - Ravashaak

Oh...almost forgot: Hope you're recovering well - Ravashaak

I'm trying to recall if it requires exclusions under ICF. I just can't remember for sure. If it does, just run it against a firewalled system, then check the log for the blocked traffic. Make your exception(s) accordingly. - Ravashaak

With work alone I have at least 17. Add my various combos for personal use, etc, and it's likely up somewhere in the neighborhood of 25-30. - Ravashaak

You can use psshutdown from sysinternals.com to perform this task. Just include it in a small script that runs as a scheduled task. The syntax would be something like the following: psshutdown -s -t 05 -f \\remotecomputername You can get psshutdown HERE. I use many of sysinternal's free utilities every day. I highly recommend that you check out their offerings, particularly the utilities in their PSTools package (of which psshutdown is but one). And no, I am in no way affiliated with sysinternals.com, just a big fan. - Ravashaak

Windows 2000 Pro doesn't have the capability to accept remote desktop connections. You can run the *client* from Windows 2000 Pro, but not connect *to* a Windows 2000 Pro box. In other words, it has no terminal server capabilities. You'll need an alternate solution such as PC Anywhere, VNC, etc. - Ravashaak

<duplicate post so I removed it myself>

Dude. Please don't take this as a flame. It's not. However, the above quote sounds like music to a hacker's ears. Having to type a password is a minor inconvenience compared to the damage that not having one can bring. Choose your own path of course, but I STRONGLY recommend against using null password on any account on an internet-connected PC. I'll also echo the suggestion to rename the administrator account. However, remember that it's pretty trivial to enumerate a windows system's accounts. If there's no password, then it's partytime if I'm scanning your PC for a way inside. - Ravashaak

Try updating your device drivers. Start with your chipset, then video card, etc. Sometimes device drivers can cause this behavior. - Ravashaak

MS couldn't just *purchase* Linux. It's not owned by a corporation or individual like proprietary operating systems. It's basically public domain, with a GPL license. Now, they *could* make their own distribution, but I still consider this highly unlikely. - Ravashaak

Yeah. File extensions aren't important anyways. - Ravashaak

I don't know why MS enables Simple File Sharing by default. It's merely led to many many wasted hours of troubleshooting worldwide. - Ravashaak

Would a microsoft-provided utility be allowed? If so, then you can install the MBSA (Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer) and run it from the command line as follows: mbsacli.exe /hf <options> This gives you pretty much the same functionality as hfnetchk, but in a MS-supplied tool. If even this is verbotten, you're most likely stuck using scripted file version and registry checks in order to ascertain patch deficiencies. Filever.exe and reg.exe are your friends in this case. Most security bulletins contain information on how to manually determine what patches are installed (ie registry keys/values altered, file version numbers, etc). Google can also prove helpful. By searching for the patch name/number along with terms such as "detection", "versions", "registry", etc, you can often find enough information to script a detection routine. As a last resort, you can install the patch on a test box and search for registry entries modified, added, etc. You may even need to use filemon.exe and regmon.exe from sysinternals to accomplish this. In any event, once you've generated a list of needed patches, it's merely a matter of scripting the calling of each hotfix installer (most likely supressing reboots and dialogs), with a nice execution of qchain at the end. Note that you should run this as a startup and not a logon script, unless your users logging on locally have admin rights. - Ravashaak

Did you actually take a look at blat? http://www.blat.net/ To my eye, it does exactly what you are seeking. - Ravashaak

If I'm understanding you correctly, then blat should do the trick: http://www.blat.net/ - Ravashaak

This is more of a suggestion than my outright saying you should do it this way: Have you thought about adding the microsoft baseline security analyzer to your cd and scripts? If you were to do so and run it in from the command line as follows, you could eliminate detection concerns for all hotfixes this program detects: mbsacli.exe /hf -nosum -x <path to mssecure.cab> -f <path to output file> -v You'd need to occassionally update your mssecure.cab file in order to detect the newest hotfixes. You could run the mbsacli scan in your script, then with the output file it generates, you could parse for your hotfix numbers along with the string "Patch not". This will give you instances of needed hotfixes. Your script could then install the necessary hotfixes and run qchain at the end. The above method should work for most hotfixes. However, I think you may still need to do manual detection for a few, such as .NET framework. - Ravashaak

You may need to setup some form of port-forwarding on your router for this to work correctly. It really depends upon how your router, network, and server are setup. Does your router get the ISP-provided dhcp address? Is that the address you are attempting to connect to with remote desktop? Does your server have a private address on your network (ie NAT)? - Ravashaak

Glad it worked

Alternately, you could try the PSInfo utility from Sysinternals: http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/psinfo.shtml - Ravashaak