NT4.0 Tips and Tricks - Please Contribute!

Date:    Fri, 21 Feb 1997 00:12:24 -0000
From:    leonel Morales <[email protected]>
Subject: Tips for Win NT

1. (I think this is old and well known) The best way to avoid fragmented pagefiles is to create a partition for the pagefile wich must be at least the amount of MB you have in RAM plus 11 MB (thats the minimun size NT usually sets to the page file and the usual optimal one). If you are planning to increase RAM in the future you must allocate a greater amount. This partition must be NTFS formatted. To allow the pagefile increase as needed the partition must be at least three times the minimal amount. The point here is that once you create the partition at setup time, and place the pagefile there from the beginning, you will have an unfragmented pagefile forever. Pagefiles are the most difficult to get defragmented, because they are always opened exclusively by NT, and, because they are the most accessed ones, they need to be defragmented.

2. If you are planning to have, for instance, n MB of hard disk space, it is better to have two disks of n/2 MB each. This arrange will allow NT to access both drives at almost the same time increasing throughoutput.

3. NT command line commands provide a way to easily creating user's accounts, home directories and sharing them with the precise access rights. Following is a suggested batch file wich uses this capabilities:

Having in %1 the name of the user (let's say we named the batch nuser.cmd and called like nuser JohnM)

REM Create the new folder MD \userspath\%1 REM Share the new folder net share %1=\userspath\%1 REM Add new user with the new folder as homedir REM and the user's name as the password net user %1 %1 /add /homedir:\userspath\%1 REM Change permissions on the user's folder cacls \userspath\%1 /t /g %1:f /p everyone:n

This batch file can be highly ampliated, It is possible even to create a GUI to make a friendly/centralized way to add users. The batch also suggest a way to bulk create users. To get full functionality on every command used, go to NT Help.

4. When using screen savers, the less complex the saver is the better. Complex screen savers can consume mucho of the CPU time, wich could be use for some other tasks. OpenGL screen savers are not recommended if the CPU will be bussy. Beziers or Mystify are better choices. On a disciplinated office? turn off screen when not in use and set no screen saver.

Mike McDonald:- One thing you may not expect to effect your network performance is your = server's screen saver. I found out the hard way.20 We installed a small network using NT4 server & Win95 Clients. They reported the network was running slower on NT server than it did Peer-to-peer with Win95. They also said it was only slow at certain times of the day. After checking every thing else, I realized, the server was running an Open-GL screen saver(Flower Box). I cleared the screen saver by moving the mouse, the LAN's speed increased. when the screen saver came back on, the LAN slowed down again.20 I wasn't suprised that it effected the performance. I was suprised at how greatly if effected the performance. This server was a Pentium 166 with 64MB RAM in a very small, very basic network. It's lightning fast under normal conditions but, when ever the screen saver came on, it = slowed down so much that it felt like we where running over a 14,4 modem instead of a 10Mb/sec LAN. I wonder why Microsoft would even make these Open-GL screensavers available on NT server if it so greatly effects the network performance.

5. It is possible to drag a filename or program name to the run dialog box to get NT write the full path and filename for the file, it is also possible to run a programm with a filename as parameter (or many files as parameters). Just open Windows NT Explorer, go to the desired file/program, select start/run, delete whatever is there and drag from Explorer.

6. Set the pagefile on a (physical) other harddisk, so system and pagefile are seperated. If you have even more harddrives, split the pagefile over more drives.

7. Watch your preffered protocol order! Set the 'mostly used protocol' at the top.

8. Speed up NT 4.0 Server If you are using Windows NT Server 4.0 as your desktop operating system, you can change a setting that will significantly speed up the system, making it almost as responsive for desktop use as NT 4.0 Workstation. Go to Control Panel, double-click the Network icon, and select the Services tab. Highlight "Server" and click on the Properties button. NT Server defaults the Optimization setting to "Maximize throughput for file sharing." Instead, select "Minimize Memory Used." This will reallocate memory to make desktop use much more responsive. This will alco however cripple the i/o of the server should you do this to an actual server.

9. To make a Windows NT4.0 machine automatically log in Windows NT 4.0 download the Microsoft TWEAKUI powertoy! (Rev1.1) It has a tab labled "NETWORK" that allows you to specify a user id and password you want NT 4.0 to automatically use for logging on during the boot process. Needless to say this would make the machine insecure and the password itself is stored unencrypted in the registry - so you password could concievably be 'stolen'

10. If you installed Windows NT on a single-processor system, and add more processors at a later time, Windows NT may not recognize the additional CPU's and will subsequently not use them. If that happens, there is a utility in the Resource Kit called uptomp.exe that can be used to get NT to recognize the additional processors.

11. Microsoft Keyboard Shortcuts Windows NT 4.0 has built-in support for the Microsoft Natural Keyboard:

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