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Windows NT Workstation Configuration & Maintenance introduces a strategy for automating certain aspects of Windows NT Workstation 4 administration. The authors' ideas center on the use of Perl scripts--some of them on the client side, some of them on a network server--to handle various dull, repetitive tasks. If you're proficient with Perl and would rather leverage that knowledge than develop proficiency with Microsoft's proprietary tools for automated administration, this book contains information you'll want. The authors cover scheduled execution of scripts with at, winat, and various aftermarket schedulers; describe how to run scripts at logon; and deserve special praise for their attention to running scripts as system services. They explain how srvany and instsrv (both in the Resource Kit) work, and show how to run Perl programs with them. They also present interesting ideas on writing client-resident Perl scripts that update themselves as needed by consulting a master version of themselves on a server. Readers will also find coverage on scripting file cleanup, reporting, log analysis, network identity manipulation, and security issues, revealing much about the Registry along the way. The book also saves Perl programmers a lot of trouble in its explanation of how to encapsulate multiple administration functions in a module. --David Wall |
