Reduce Your Downtime While Reading Uptime Reports

Using UptimeReport.bat
With the scripts and tools in place, you’re now ready to adapt UptimeReport.bat for use in your environment. All the variables needing configuration are grouped together at top of the script. To configure the variables, open the script in Notepad or another script editor and follow these steps:

1. Set the path to the target OU if you want to use Dsquery to obtain the list of servers. You must enclose the path in quotes. If you’re using an input file instead of Dsquery, don’t include a path.
2. Set the path to the exclusions file, if applicable. Quotes aren’t needed, even if the path includes spaces. If you don’t have any exclusions or you’re using an input file instead of Dsquery, don’t include a path.
3. Set the path to the list of target servers if you’re using an input list instead of Dsquery. Quotes aren’t needed, even if the path includes spaces. If you’re using Dsquery, don’t include a path. Note that if you specify a target list and an OU target, the script will use the target list and not the OU target or exclusions list.
4. Set the type of report you want. Specify CSV to obtain a CSV report or HTM to obtain an HMTL report. These options are case insensitive.
5. Set the path to PsInfo. Quotes aren’t needed. However, PsInfo is sensitive to spaces in the path, so the path can’t contain any spaces.
6. Set the path to Dsquery. The default location is C:\WINDOWS\sys tem32\dsquery.exe on Windows 2003 machines. Quotes aren’t needed. However, Dsquery is sensitive to spaces in the path, so the path can’t contain any spaces.
7. Set the path to FSort. Quotes aren’t needed, even if the path includes spaces
8. Set the path to Csv2Html. Quotes aren’t needed, even if the path includes spaces.
9. Set the path to Blat. Quotes aren’t needed, even if the path includes spaces.
10. Specify the recipients who should receive the email message containing the report. Use commas to separate addresses, with no spaces preceding or following the commas.
11. Specify the email address that should appear in the email message’s From field.
12. Specify your company’s SMTP mail server.

After you’ve made these configurations, you’re ready to test UptimeReport.bat. To run UptimeReport.bat, you simply need to run the command

UptimeReport.bat 

in the command-shell window. If the results are satisfactory, you’re ready to use the script in your production environment.

An Easy Way to Get a Handle on Uptime Anomalies
With UptimeReport.bat, you can easily get a handle on potential uptime anomalies in your environment. This information, in turn, can help you improve your servers’ performance, discover whether any inappropriate reboots have taken place, and verify whether important hotfixes have been correctly applied.