| Miscellaneous
Tools for Windows NT |
| Copyright
© 1997 Mark Russinovich
|
Last
Updated October 6, 1997
|
| Introduction |
Occasionally
we write our own support utilities that are pop-corn in size and don't
merit their own page, but that other people may be interested in. This
list is likely to grow over time. |
| VolumeID
|
While
NT's built-in Label utility lets you change the labels of disk
volumes, NT does not provide any means for changing volume ids. This
utiltity, Volumeid, allows you to change the ids of FAT and NTFS
disks (floppies or hard drives).
Usage:
volumeid <driveletter:> xxxx-xxxx
Note
that changes on NTFS volumes won't be visible until the next reboot.
In addition, you should shut down any applications you have running
before changing a volume id. NT may become confused and think that the
media (disk) has changed after a FAT volume id has changed and pop up
messages indicating that you should reinsert the original disk (!). It
may then fail the disk requests of applications using those drives.
Download
VolumeID (15KB) |
| Sync
|
UNIX
provides a standard utility called sync, which can be used to
direct the operating system to flush all file system data to disk in
order to insure that it is stable and won't be lost in case of a system
failure. Otherwise, any modified data present in the cache would be
lost. Here is a an NT equivalent that I wrote, called Sync. Use
it whenever you want to know that modified file data is safely stored on
your hard drives. Unfortunately, Sync requires administrative
privileges to run. This version, 1.2, lets you flush removable drives
such as ZIP drives.
Usage:
ntsync [-r]
-r Flush
removable drives.
Download
Sync (18KB) |
| Autologon
|
NT 3.51
and 4.0 provides Registry settings that can be set so that a user is
automatically logged in the next time the system would otherwise put up
the logon dialog box. However, the Registry values are hidden very deep,
and are a pain to configure. This program, Autologon, will do the
Registry configuration for you, and allow you to enable and disable
auto-logon when you want.
Autologon
easy enough to use. Just run autolog.exe, fill in the dialog, and
hit Enable. To turn off auto-logon, hit Disable. If
the DefaultPassword is NULL, autologon will only occur once and then
be disabled. Also, if the shift key is held down before the system
performs an autologon, the autologon will be disabled for that logon.
Download
Autologon (8KB)
Download
Autologon Source (21KB) |
|
|
Hostname
is a very simply utility that takes either an IP address (e.g.
123.456.7.8), or a host name (e.g. ftp.ntinternals.com), and performs a
translation into its inverse form. For example, if you pass hostname
an IP address, you'll get back a host name, and if you pass it a
host name it will give you the corresponding IP address. It runs under
Windows 95 or Windows NT.
Usage:
hostname [IP address, hostname]
Download
hostname (11KB) |
|
|
If
you're like us and you migrated from a UNIX environment, then you're
used to having ctrl be where the caps-lock key is on the standard PC
keyboard. Unfortunately there is no xmodmap (anX-Windows UNIX utility
that lets you swap key mappings around) for NT. However, we've made a
version of the U.S. keyboard mapping DLL that makes the caps-lock to
control change. To install it, go to your <systemroot>\system32
directory and rename the existing KBDUS.DLL to KBDUS.BAK. Then copy the
new KBDUS.DLL to that directory and reboot.
Download
KBDUS.DLL (4KB) |
|
|
Working
on NT means that executables and object files will many times have
embedded UNICODE strings that you cannot easily see with a standard
ASCII strings or grep programs. So we decided to roll our own. Strings
just scans the file you pass it for UNICODE (or ASCII) strings of a
default length of 3 or more UNICODE (or ASCII) characters. Note that it
works under Windows 95 as well.
Usage:
strings [-a] [-nX]
Strings
takes two optional parameters, as defined below:
| -a |
Scan
for ASCII instead of UNICODE |
| -nX
|
Strings
must be a minimum of X characters in length. |
Download
strings (14KB) |
|
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