Administering NT Domains from Win95

Why would you want to administer a Windows NT domain from Windows 95? Obviously, NT is the best choice for administering an NT domain. However, NT may not be available on every client machine from which you access administrative functions. For example, you may not have NT on your home PC or on your laptop.

If you're running Win95 on the desktop, Microsoft's Windows NT Server Tools for Windows 95 lets you perform many NT administrative functions. However, you'll find a few things you can't do--and a few things you can do, but shouldn't.

Installing the Tools
To install these tools, find Windows NT Server Tools for Windows 95 (a complete implementation of the 32-bit NT Administrative Tools you're used to) on the NT 4.0 CD in the directory \clients\srvtools\win95. If you don't have a copy of 4.0 handy, you can download the tools from Microsoft's Web site at www.microsoft.com/windows/download/nexus.exe and expand the files to a directory on your system. Double-click Add/Remove Programs from the Control Panel to install the tools. Click the Windows Setup tab, and choose Have Disk at the bottom of the screen. Specify the directory containing the file srvtools.inf, and you'll see an entry for Windows NT Server Tools, as shown in Screen 1. Check the box next to the entry, and click Install to finish the install routine.

The setup routine places the Server Tools programs in the srvtools directory on your system's boot drive. You then need to manually place a reference to this directory in the PATH= statement of your autoexec.bat file; you must add this entry to make the tools fully functional. Why Microsoft didn't program the installation routine to automatically add this entry remains a mystery, but I know from experience that if you forget this parameter, you can't edit security on NT files and print queues.

You're now ready to reboot to activate the tools on your PC. When you click your Start menu and go to Programs, you will see an entry for Windows NT Server Tools and the familiar User Manager, Server Manager, and Event Viewer programs. These programs function exactly as their NT-based counterparts do: You can add, delete, and modify users; manage servers; start and stop service processes, as shown in Screen 2; view event logs; and so on.

In addition, you can modify the NT security permissions for files and print queues, thanks to extensions installed in Windows Explorer during the setup process. To modify permissions for a file, folder, or print queue, simply right-click the item and choose Properties. Click the tab for Security to access options for setting permissions, auditing, and taking ownership of the selected item, as shown in Screen 3.

While using NT Server Tools for Windows 95, you may have to log in or enter your password for verification as you move from server to server. This is strictly a requirement of NT Tools for Win95; it doesn't signify a problem within your domain's security model.

Run SMS Tools from Win95?
The idea may sound preposterous, but you can run part of the NT Systems Management Server (SMS) tools from Win95. (Spyros Sakellariadis explains SMS in a three-part series, "SMS: Inventory Your Desktop Systems;" May, June, and July 1996.) The SMS Network Monitor program is separate from the rest of SMS and doesn't require NT (if you look in the right places in Microsoft's documentation and training manuals, you find that Microsoft designed the Network Monitor application to run on NT or Windows for Workgroups stations). If you already have SMS and don't want to buy a portable network monitoring station, putting the Network Monitor program on a laptop is a good solution. (For information about an alternative NT/95 network monitor, see "First Looks: NetXRay," August 1996.)

First you need to set up the Microsoft Network Monitoring agent on your Win95 workstation. This is the same agent that provides network performance counters to the System Monitor applet. Go into Control Panel again, and choose Network. From the dialog, press Add to add a Service (if you don't see an option to add a service, see whether it is disabled through a setting in the system policy editor). Select Have Disk, and then select the \admin\nettoolsnetmon directory from your Win95 CD. You will see a selection for the Microsoft Network Monitor Agent, as shown in Screen 4. Install it, and reboot. (Running the Network Monitor Agent puts your NIC in promiscuous mode, which will add a degree of overhead to your system: Your NIC will look at every frame that comes across the network, instead of only those destined for the workstation.)