W2Knews[tm] (the original NTools E-News) Electronic Newsletter
Vol. 5, #19- May 1, 2000
Published by sunbelt-software.com since 1996 - ISSN: 1527-3407
'Immediate Notification Of Important Windows NT/2000 Events'
******************* over 600,000 SUBSCRIBERS*****************
This Issue of W2Knews contains:
1. EDITORS CORNER:
* Recommend a Friend & Win $500!
2. TECH BRIEFING:
* The difference between W2K certified and W2K supported?
3. NT RELATED NEWS:
* SQL Server 2000 sent to second beta.
* No BootCamp for Windows 2000?
4. NT THIRD PARTY NEWS:
* Sunbelt's Top 10 tools ALL run on/support W2K
* Just released - New NETOP V6.5
5. HINTS AND TIPS:
* Data mining definition / Bad hotfix / NT->W98 popups
6. THE NT/2000 STOCK WATCH - Thursday Friday 28, 2000
7. HOW TO USE THE MAILING LIST
Instructions on how to subscribe, sign off or change your address.
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**********************WHAT IS W2Knews?***************************
Sunbelt W2Knews (the original NTools E-News) is the World's first
and largest E-Newsletter designed for NT/2000 System Admins that
have the job to get and keep NT up & running in a production
environment. Sunbelt launched this electronic newsletter early 1996.
Every week we keep the Windows NT/2000 community informed and aware
of new developments of NT and 3-rd party System Management Tools.
You get hints and tips that will enable you to better utilize and
understand Win NT/2000 and help to pass your Certification Exams.
Info and Stu's bio: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/w2knews.htm
Via (separate) NTools E-NewsFlashes we will send you important
breaking news like new service packs, killer viruses, etc. Sunbelt
Software is the first and largest provider worldwide of Third
Party System Management Tools for Windows NT. Tell Your Friends!
All back issues are here, searchable and indexed on key words:
http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/scripts/lyris.pl?enter=nt-list&text_mode=0
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1. "EDITORS CORNER" : Recommend a Friend & Win $500!
Hello NT/2000 Pros,
Been having your eye on a digital camera, a Palm, color printer,
MP3 player, camcorder or other cool gadget? Here is your (weekly)
chance to win a $500 Amazon.com gift certificate and get one!
Over the years, the reason this newsletter has grown so fast has
been 'Word of Mouth', it's the best advertising. We decided to give
ourselves a big goal for the year 2000. Some one said 'Shoot for
the moon, and if you miss at least you'll wind up in the stars' ;-)
So, we are now over 600,000 but we want to try to be at a cool
One Million subscribers at the end of the year. We're inviting all
of you to find AS MANY friends or colleagues that are using NT/2000
and tell them to subscribe. Send as many recommendations as you
want, there's always room for another subscriber. We will continue
to cover both NT and W2K in the coming years.
You fill out the form, we send them an invitation, and when they
subscribe BOTH of you will be entered for the draw that week. It's
a classic Win-Win proposition. The more people you recommend (and
that subscribe), the better your chance every week. Mouse your way
over to our welcome page, click on the smiling face and fill out
the form. Less than 1 minute work, and do it as many times as you
like! CLICK & WIN AT: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/index.htm
Warm regards,
Stu.
Email me with feedback at: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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2. TECH BRIEFING:
* The difference between W2K certified and W2K supported?
Quite a few of you asked me about the difference between on the
one hand software that has W2K certification and on the other
hands products that run on it or support it but are not certified.
Well, if a tool has W2K certification that means it has passed the
fairly stringent new tests. Products that _run_ on W2K (or support
it) may not have the new certification but most have been running
stably on NT for years and now also run on W2K.
If you are currently running NT you are very likely to use W2K
somewhere in the future, but the tools you are already running
successfully today, will most certainly also run on W2K. They may
need a new version to benefit from the new features in W2K but
I think pretty much all of the products you run now will of be
upgraded to W2K-ready versions.
In other words, you can continue with your normal procedures you
use to test and acquire software tools and when you move to W2K
most of them will be ready for you, but not necessarily certified
yet. That process is going to take much longer than for instance
the BackOffice Certification which was rather light.
As an example, last week we looked at what tools we have in
Sunbelt that are already prepped and tested for W2K and a very
high percentage can be run already! We created a new column
on both our Alpha_Search and Category_Search pages that indicate
if the tool is W2K-ready. Check them out and you will have a
pleasant surprise:
Alpha Search: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/search_alpha.cfm
By Category: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/search_category.cfm
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3. NT RELATED NEWS:
* SQL Server 2000 sent to second beta.
The latest SQL beta of MS' main database product is supposed to
be the last one before the next batch of Release Candidates will
come out later this spring 2000. Like everyone including Oracle's
Larry Ellison, MS claims that SQL 2000 was created to 'build the
business Internet'.
The last Beta 1 went only to technical testers, but this Beta 2
is now also going to customers. That is obviously a move to create
as much market penetration as possible. MS wants to compete with
IBM's DB2 and Oracle in this very lucrative database market.
One of the most important new features is support for XML, and
that includes utilities inside the database itself you can use
to work with SML and get your hands on XML-based data without
having to write any code yourself. Another important new piece
of SQL 2000 is the built-in data mining capability. See the
Hits & Tips below for the definition.
MS also claims improvements in both scalability and reliability
that include distributed partitioned views, support for a 4-node
cluster with fail-over, and support for SAN technology. It's
going to be a killer piece of software, and it will certainly be
a challenge for the competition. But... when??
------------------------
* No BootCamp for Windows 2000?
Q: If have not seen any W2K BootCamp offers yet, whatsup?
A: I am sure some of the training companies will offer boot camp
style courses for the 70-240 exam. But since the objectives for
that exam are pointers to the objectives for 70-210, 70-215,
70-216, and 70-217, another way to prepare would be to take
classes on all four of those topics. I don't expect that such
classes will be available until early fall, since most trainers
will wait to take the exam, then build their training materials
based on their experiences. Since the release date for 70-240
is still unclear, it's going to be a while before any form of
training is available. Ed Tittel.
*****************************************************************
4. NT THIRD PARTY NEWS:
* Sunbelt's TOP 10 tools ALL run on/support W2K
Many people ask us about the sales of NT/2000 third party tools.
They like to know what their colleagues are running and where
the market is moving to. You may be surprised to know that all
our TOP 10 tools are already supporting Windows 2000. There is
no reason to wait in getting your system management tools, ALL
the top ones are ready to run on both NT and 2000. Have a look.
1) DOUBLE-TAKE 4.0 is our #1 seller. Double-Take 4.0 is available
for Windows 2000, NT, Solaris, and Netware. Double-Take Netware
is now cross-platform and compatible with Netware 5.0.
INFO: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/product.cfm?id=111
2) STAT is our best selling NT and now also 2000 vulnerability
scanner and ready for both platforms. More than 850 known holes
are found and reported on. STAT goes very deep into the O/S,
and is NT/2000 only. It does not do Unix, Netware or other
platforms. That makes it exceptionally complete and powerful.
INFO: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/product.cfm?id=899
3) QUOTA ADVISOR usually is the very first storage management
tool that system admins run on their systems. Microsoft Redmond
chose this as their internal standard, even after comparing it
with the W2K built-in user quotas (which are quite bare bones).
QA is available in English and French.
INFO: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/product.cfm?id=421
4) TRUSTED ENTERPRISE MANAGER is a tool that expands on the
W2K built-in delegation of system admin rights. It also auto-
mates many repetitive admin tasks. It will support W2K.
Compare TEM with the W2K built in features and you'll see why
TEM is a very valuable addition to your W2K environment:
INFO: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/TEM3_W2KComp.htm
MORE: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/product.cfm?id=255
5) STORAGE CENTRAL is an excellent and low cost solution to
manage all your NT/2000 storage. It is the only tool that
does real-time storage monitoring, Active Disk Reporting
and it gives you powerful capacity planning capability.
INFO: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/product.cfm?id=423
6) DISKEEPER is one of the most used performance utilities
and is actually built into W2K in a manual (bare bones)
version. We have found that quite a few people upgrade to
the full version when they have seen the built-in version.
INFO: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/product.cfm?id=455
7) NETOP is a very fast Remote Control tool that gives
pcAnywhere a run for its money. The brand new Version 6.5
has a few very powerful additional features worth noting:
- Full integration with NT users and groups, W2K Support,
Push technology for batch deployment. And, very important,
Printer redirection. See article below for more details
INFO: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/product.cfm?id=888
8) EVENT LOG MONITOR is simple to use, very low cost compared
with what is out there, and packed with features. ELM collects
event log messages from Win NT/2000 servers and notifies you
when important events occur. It's powerful filtering and
notification engine help simplify administration tasks.
INFO: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/product.cfm?id=533
9) SECURITY EXPLORER is a powerful and intuitive utility to
search for and modify Windows NT security on NTFS drives,
the Registry, and Shares. Search across subdirectories for
permissions. Grant, revoke, and clone permissions across
subdirectories without affecting any other user's permissions.
Security Explorer makes finding holes and fixing them a snap!
INFO: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/product.cfm?id=788
10) PRINT MANAGER PLUS V2.64 allows centralized tracking
and management of all printing activity on your NT/2000 LANs.
See it as a print quota and print queue manager with a whole
bunch of powerful features. It will track pages being printed
from 2000, NT 4.0, 3.51, W98/95, W3.1, DOS, Mac, UNIX (all
flavors), and OS/2. Great print tracking and control tool.
INFO: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/product.cfm?id=668
All these tools run on/support Windows 2000. Check them out!
------------------------
* JUST RELEASED - NEW NETOP V6.5
Danware, the developer of NetOp Remote Control released v6.5,
which adds full support for Windows 2000 PCs in addition to
adding integration with Windows security management and a new
two-tier push technology for fast and easy software deployment
and distribution to target PCs. The new version also provides
additional remote connectivity options and a marker mode that
enables you to 'draw' on the remote PC to highlight items or
for training purposes. Here are just a few of the new features
in NetOp for Windows v6.5.
New - Windows 2000 support:
* Full support for Windows 2000
* Command mode implemented for fast transfer of screen
* Windows 2000 "gimmicks" can be disabled during remote
control to obtain even higher speed
New Protocols
* New TCP/IP (TCP) for faster and better support of remote
control across firewalls
* New Infrared (IrDA)
* New Auto setting of MTU size
* New Auto-select TCP/IP port
New Windows Security Management Integration:
* Upon connection to the Host, the Guest user must enter
Windows' user name and password. NetOp access rights are
then assigned, either to the individual user or to a group
of users.
* Supports Windows 2000, NT, 98, 95.
Plus Much More:
* Drag & Drop File Transfer speeds -- 30% FASTER
* New Long DNS name support
* New Windows Logon Name support. A Guest can connect to
a Host PC by simply calling the logon name used by the
person who has logged in on the Host PC. So you connect
to a person rather than a specific identified PC.
* New duplicate logon feature lists duplicate names in case
a user is logged on to more than one PC.
* New Marker Mode -- Draw on remote screen to highlight
areas of interest, e.g. during a support or training session.
Many different styles, color and line sizes similar to MS Paint.
DOWNLOAD: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/product.cfm?id=888
****************************************************************
5. HINTS AND TIPS:
Data Mining Definition:
A hot buzzword for a class of database applications that look for
hidden patterns in a group of data. For example, data mining
software can help retail companies find customers with common
interests. The term is commonly misused to describe software that
presents data in new ways. True data mining software doesn't just
change the presentation, but actually discovers previously unknown
relationships among the data.
----
I recently installed the hotfix that Microsoft provided in MS00-026.
After rebooting the machine, the computer hung on the Preparing Net-
work Connections... dialog box during startup. I went to Microsoft's
web site only to find that the hotfix had been pulled from their
download site. I used recovery console to restore the older ntdsa.dll
file, which fixed the problem. (Our thanks to Damien Daspit)
----
Q: Is there a software/way for NT to send popup messages to win95
clients? The "Send message" under the server manager does not work.
I assume it is because of the nature of winpopup which is not(?) a
TSR. I just want to get the results achieved by the "send" command
from a Novell server.
A: Try Realpopup. Excellent Freeware:
http://members.tripod.com/Matro/realpopup.html
(Our thanks to Simon Cook)
****************************************************************
6. THE NT/2000 STOCK WATCH - Friday April 27, 2000
52 WK 52 WK P/E WEEK
SECURITY CLOSE HIGH LOW RATIO CHNG
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Advanced Micro Devices... 87 1/2 88 15 5/8 63 +11.2%
BMC Software............. 46 13/16 86 5/8 36 47 +11.1%
BindView Development Corp 8 1/16 45 3/4 7 1/2 +0.7%
Cisco Systems............ 69 5/16 82 26 +6.4%
Citrix Systems Inc....... 61 1/16 122 5/16 19 5/8 93 +16.8%
Compaq Computer.......... 29 3/16 34 18 1/4 79 +6.1%
Computer Associates...... 55 13/16 79 7/16 39 1/4 44 +7.2%
Data Return Corporation.. 24 9/16 94 1/4 13 3/4 +0.7%
Dell Computer............ 50 1/8 59 3/4 31 3/8 82 +0.3%
Electronic Data Systems C 68 3/4 76 11/16 47 7/8 46 -1.5%
Gateway Inc.............. 55 5/16 84 28 3/8 39 +0.7%
Hewlett Packard Co....... 135 156 67 42 -3.2%
Intel Corp............... 126 13/16 145 3/8 50 1/8 55 +9.9%
Intergraph Corp.......... 6 13/16 10 1/4 3 3/16 -10.6%
International Business Ma 111 1/2 139 3/16 89 3/4 27 +7.4%
Legato Systems Inc....... 12 15/16 82 1/2 9 1/4 76 +13.7%
Micron Electronics Inc... 10 11/16 20 11/16 9 25 -2.8%
Microsoft Corp........... 69 3/4 119 15/16 60 41 -11.6%
Mission Critical Software 36 77 5/8 16 -6.7%
NCR Corp................. 38 5/8 52 5/8 26 11/16 11 -3.5%
NetIQ Corporation........ 36 3/4 81 1/2 14 3/4 -9.1%
Network Associates Inc... 25 7/16 37 3/16 11 5/8 +4.3%
Novell Inc............... 19 5/8 44 9/16 16 1/16 33 -3.9%
Oracle Corp.............. 79 15/16 90 11 1/4 +12.8%
Qualcomm Incorporated.... 108 7/16 200 21 1/2 -0.9%
Seagate Technology....... 50 23/32 76 25 1/8 11 +7.9%
Silicon Graphics......... 7 3/16 18 7/8 6 1/2 -8.7%
Sun Microsystems Inc..... 91 15/16 106 3/4 27 +4.7%
Sybase Inc............... 20 3/16 31 7 1/8 27 +3.5%
Symantec Corp............ 62 7/16 81 5/8 17 3/4 24 +4.9%
Unisys Corp.............. 23 3/16 49 11/16 19 1/2 14 -1.5%
Veritas Software Corp.... 107 17/64 174 13 7/8 +7.2%
Dow Jones 30 Industrials. 10,733.91 -1.0%
****************************************************************
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sign off or change your email address
TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE LIST (Tell your friends!)
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choose the NT-List, use your email address that is at
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********************************************************************
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