Server Configuration and Setup 2

[kimble]

I feel as if I've gotten a little in over my head with the purchase of Microsoft's Small Business 2000. I'm trying to figure out the best way to configure our new server and am developing a huge headache. Can someone please help me with answering the following questions.

1. Is this possible:
Am I, as systems administrator, able to create logon scripts that will force any user logging into my system from any terminal to have their applications and files available?

Does this require that all terminals have a licenced copy of all applications? (I hope not)

Is it ok that some terminals are running win98, winME, and Win200? (I hope so)

Where can I learn how do I do this?
What steps are necessary in implementing these scripts or settings and how do i go about doing it?

As you can see I'm looking for someone who wouldn't mind spending some time to answer my questions. If you can't answer any of these can you atleast point me in a direction of a different forum or web site? Or does anyone know of a chat forum?

Thank you for your help in advance.

 

[BobSchleicher]

Windows 2000 Active directory Users and Computers MMC has an install software option. The software should use an .msi extention to easily configure the install.

Let's just use OfficeXP as an example of a software package that may need a lot of configuration. OfficeXP has a utility that will create a custom file for the software installation option to use. This utility will walk you through install options such as license key(you will need a corporate license so you don't have to activate each desktop), what module you would like installed(word, excel, access, etc), options for each module, install path and anything that goes with a normal install. And yes you are supposed to purchase a license for each user that uses any software installed.

When you go to the software installation option it will give you install options and one of the options is going to ask if you have a file like the one OfficeXP made. As of now most programs don't offer advanced install options yet, most don't need it either.

Your DNS needs to work 100% in order for this to work correctly.

To learn more about installing your software purchase the Windows 2000 server Resource Kit it takes a little time to read but it is pretty easy to understand and implement.

Good Luck. If you need more help just ask.

BobSchleicher

 

[BobSchleicher]

Sorry about this correction. When I was referencing Users and Computers mmc I meant Group Policy MMC. You will find software installtion option in the Group Policy MMC. Once again sorry for the confusion.

BobSchleicher

 

[cmptrnerd]

Are you talking about having a logon script create drive mappings ???

mark
mark@acsconsult.com

 

[BobSchleicher]

No. What I am talking about will actually install your software program with little or no user intervention.

BobSchleicher

 

[Tels]

If you want to use logon scripts to automate startup options and define network drives (some older programs need this) I usually find it easiest to create batch programs in the 'sysvol' share folder on the server.

(Ithink by default you have a 'sysvol' share, if you can't find this go to
C:\winnt\sysvol\sysvol\your.domain\)

You can use notepad to create the batch file but the saved filename will default to whatever.txt in notepad, this needs to be changed to whatever.bat before you can use it)

In the whatever.bat file you want to type these things:

net use x: \\servername\shareddrive

where shareddrive is a folder you have already shared (look at the properties of any folder on the server)
servername is the name of your server and x: is the drive letter you want the clients to use for that folder.

You want to use drive letters F upwards to prevent conflicts with other machines drives..

other useful commands:
To set up dos-compatible network printers,

net use lpt2 \\servername\printername

(where lpt2 is the printer-port, you can use lpt1 but this may cause conflicts with local printers, and printername is a printer you have already installed on the SERVER)
This allows older dos based programs to use a network printer..

and

net time \\servername /set /yes

which is also very useful, as it keeps the clients clock aligned with the server. (Win2k uses KERBEROS authentication which will not let systems log on if the time gap between them and the server is more than 5 minutes)

There are many, more powerful scripts and script languages you can use, but .bat files are the easiest.

To use the .bat file you have created, go into the user's properties in Active Directory Users and Computers and under one of the tabs you can specify a startup script.
Type in the .bat filename, i.e. 'whatever.bat' and when the user logs on elsewhere their script will be loaded from the server and run on their machine.

Let me know if you want me to post a quick sample script for you, hope this helps.

Tels

 

[kimble]

thanks everyone for your posts! I'm still a bit behind right now and after much reading and poking around I am still stuck at what i feel is my first step. Can anyone tell me what i am doing wrong?

My first step is to configure the ISA Console correctly as a firewall and proxy server. This is what i've done.
I have three NIC and I have them set as follows
Internal card - 10.0.0.1
Exturnal card - 192.168.0.3
Third card is disabled

My DSL Router's IP is 192.168.0.1

Then I used the Internet Connection wizard from the "To do list" to set up the ISA settings. Using the Router option.

Now the problem I have is that my one and only client at the moment is able to browse the Internet, but my server is not! My server is able to ping the client, its NIC's, the router, and even yahoo.com. So why can't my server browse the internet??

The only question I have on the setup is should the DNS # for the exturnal connection be set to the Router's IP or the DNS # from the ISP that they use on their dial-up connections??

And one other thing to consider is my network situation at the moment. Right now since I am running two systems in parallel, I have the router, the new server, and the old proxy server all plugged into a hub. Then I have ALL the clients plugged into thier own hub. Proxy set of clients are on 90.0.0.xx IP's and the new server's clients are 10.0.0.xx. Do you think the 10.0.0.xx clients can access out through the old proxy server??

 

[kimble]

OK, I can guarantee that client on the new server is not accessing out through the proxy server. So why is my server unable to veiw web pages?

 

[kimble]

One other thing. When I use the monitor sessions snap in under ISA Management it tells me that I have two connections when I feel I have one. They are an anonymous one, and the one client i have.


Why do i have too? and why does the session on show up while it is active? Is that just how it is?