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NT Group Renaming
If you're a Windows NT domain administrator, you know that you can't rename a group under NT. (Although you can rename a group by copying it under a new name, you lose the internal security ID—SID—that numerous access control lists—ACLs—on files and folders refer to.) User Manager for Domains doesn't let you rename groups because of interoperability problems between OS/2 LAN Manager, DOS LAN Manager, IBM LAN Server, and Windows for Workgroups (WFW). For information about these problems, see the Microsoft articles "Windows NT Global Groups Are Limited to 20 Character Names" and "User Manager Cannot Rename a Group" at http://support.microsoft.com/support/c.asp. If you don't have to rely on these systems, you can use the LAN Manager API to rename NT groups.
The NetGroupSetInfo (for global groups) and NetLocalGroupSetInfo (for local groups) LAN Manager APIs let you rename NT groups. The Visual Basic (VB) 5.0 code in Listing 1, page 28, shows how to use these API calls. Use this code in a new VB standard project with one command button. Insert your own values under the command-button code. You must run the code on an NT machine, because most LAN Manager APIs are available only on NT. To guarantee compatibility with User Manager for Domains, you need to limit the group name length to 20 characters.
—Sylvain Lambert
sylvain.lambert@rrq.gouv.qc.ca
Command Prompt During NT Installation
Having a command prompt available during a Windows NT installation is useful. For example, you might need to use the Ping command to test connectivity or to copy files or drivers onto the hard disk. You might also want to use the Nbtstat command to check how NT interprets an imported LMHOSTS file or to verify whether NetBIOS is passing through a router.
You can bring up a command prompt at the network configuration portion of an NT installation. In the network configuration, under TCP/IP Properties, select the WINS Address tab. Select the Enable LMHOSTS check box, and click Import LMHOSTS. Select \winnt\system32\cmd.exe, and click Open. A command prompt appears. Then, you can use the Next and Back options in the NT installation dialog boxes to go forward or backward through the installation process.
—David Mosier
mosier@bigfoot.com
Resizing Columns Even More Quickly
In response to Gilford Grijt, "Quickly Resize Your Columns," (Reader to Reader, November 1998), I have an even quicker way to simultaneously resize columns under Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 95 rather than double-clicking all the column dividers individually. Make sure the window containing the columns is the active window, and press Ctrl+Alt+Num+. All the columns will resize automatically.
—Alun Saunders
saunders@iaehv.nl
NumLock
When you install or configure Windows NT, you can't set NumLock to come on and stay on. You might think Control Panel offers a setting for this function—but it doesn't. In addition, I can't find this information in any NT books or magazines, at any NT seminars, or in the Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit. I did some hacking and finally found the Registry key that controls NumLock. Start a Registry editor, and go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Keyboard/InitialKeyboardIndicators. Set the value to 2. NumLock then comes on and stays on.
—Mike Mulvey
mike@kornberg.com
Redundancy in Outlook 98
I recently started a new job and spent the first week following my boss around the company troubleshooting Microsoft Outlook 98 problems. Our users were receiving error messages notifying them that they couldn't send or receive email because they were close to or had reached their folder-size limit. At first, we deleted messages from users' Deleted Items and Sent Items folders, which freed up enough disk space to let them send and receive email. To calculate how close users were to their limits, we right-clicked the Inbox, selected Properties, and selected Folder Size. After we determined the size of the Inbox folder and its subfolders, we added the sizes manually.
Fortunately, I had some spare time to go back to my workstation and experiment with Outlook 98 to find the problem. I discovered that I could right-click the top folder (i.e., Mailbox - username), select Properties, and select Folder Size to view a larger list of folders than just those under the Inbox. I quickly noticed that my Journal folder's size was huge. (None of the company's employees use the Journal folder.)
I selected Tools, Options from Outlook 98's main menu, and opened the Preferences tab. When I looked at Journal Options, I found that the Journal had been recording every email message with an attachment. Although the Automatically record these items: check box was clear, the option below it, Also record items from:, had a check next to each application I had ever received as an attachment.
I reinstalled Outlook 98 and rechecked the Journal Options. Because I hadn't yet received an email message with an attachment on this installation, the Also record items from: check box was clear.
When I rechecked users' systems, I discovered that some longtime users' Journal folders had stored thousands of emails with attachments (e.g., Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, PowerPoint). These messages were eating up tons of space in the users' mailboxes and were causing the folder-size limit error messages.
I checked my home computer and found the same problem, with more than 2000 entries in my Journal that I had to delete. I remembered that my previous employer, for whom my wife still worked, had never placed a limit on mailbox size and had been continually asking users to delete messages from their Inboxes in the months before I left because the server space was maxing out. I told my wife to check her Journal size, and sure enough—Outlook 98 had automatically recorded every email message with an attachment. No wonder the company was running out of disk space.
Because you can use other folders (e.g., Sent Items, Deleted Items, folders you create) to keep track of messages, having the Journal option automatically record messages is redundant. I consider this default lame on Microsoft's part. Perhaps it's simple overkill, but it seems like a real bug. I wonder how many other companies have the same problem and don't know it. (For a similar problem with Outlook Express, see Mark Minasi, En Garde, "Relearning Lessons," November 1998.)
—Christian Crawford
christian@polarispoolsystems.com
Excel Tip
When you use Microsoft Excel's VLookup function to look up values in a spreadsheet column, be sure to include the false switch as part of the parameter. Using this switch prevents erroneous numbers from appearing. This trick is especially important if you're performing a lookup from a spreadsheet with more than 1000 line entries, because keeping track of the entries is virtually impossible.
—Jack Dunn
jdunn@epi-eug.com
SP4 Bug?
When I installed Service Pack 4 (SP4) on my Windows NT 4.0 system, the service pack destroyed all the information on one of my Zip disks. SP4 stored the information in a subdirectory that it created (found.000). I had to reinstall NT to get my system to work again, but I can't recover the lost information. I'm wondering whether a recovery tool exists to restore *.chk files. Until I find one, I plan to wait until SP4 is available on the TechNet CD-ROM before I install it again.
—Jack Dunn
jdunn@epi-eug.com