RE: NTDSUTIL...
It's always been the way it is if that's what you're asking... You have to know where what you want is, which is a challenge, but, once you do, IMO the menu structure is reasonably easy to work with. Thanks, Brian Desmond br...@briandesmond.com w - 312.625.1438 | c - 312.731.3132 From: David Lum [mailto:david@nwea.org] Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2012 8:58 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: NTDSUTIL... I'm guessing this utility by design is clunky? I do get that it's powerful, but man it reminds me of EDLIN. OTOH I'm getting the hang of it, but not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing. David Lum Systems Engineer // NWEATM Office 503.548.5229 // Cell (voice/text) 503.267.9764 ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.commailto:listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
Re: NTDSUTIL...
I'm thinking you haven't embrced powershell, yet, either... On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 10:58 AM, David Lum david@nwea.org wrote: I’m guessing this utility by design is clunky? I do get that it’s powerful, but man it reminds me of EDLIN. OTOH I’m getting the hang of it, but not sure if that’s a good thing or bad thing. *David Lum* Systems Engineer // NWEATM Office 503.548.5229 //* *Cell (voice/text) 503.267.9764 ** ** ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
RE: NTDSUTIL...
Just like netsh, if you know exactly what you are doing, you can shortcut it. Just like netsh (even much more so, actually), if you do the wrong thing, you can screw things up badly. Regards, Michael B. Smith Consultant and Exchange MVP http://TheEssentialExchange.com From: David Lum [mailto:david@nwea.org] Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2012 10:58 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: NTDSUTIL... I'm guessing this utility by design is clunky? I do get that it's powerful, but man it reminds me of EDLIN. OTOH I'm getting the hang of it, but not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing. David Lum Systems Engineer // NWEATM Office 503.548.5229 // Cell (voice/text) 503.267.9764 ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.commailto:listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
Re: NTDSUTIL...
On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 10:58 AM, David Lum david@nwea.org wrote: I’m guessing this utility by design is clunky? I do get that it’s powerful, but man it reminds me of EDLIN. OTOH I’m getting the hang of it, but not sure if that’s a good thing or bad thing. NTDSUTIL is a low-level, raw access, powerful sort of tool. Generally you shouldn't be using it unless things are moderately badly broken already. In that kind of situation, you want as little helpfulness between you and the data as possible. You wouldn't be using it if things weren't outside the expectations of the higher level tools, so by definition you're in a situation where you're claiming to be smarter than the higher level tools. The following excerpt from Neal Stephenson's essay, In the Beginning... Was the Command Line, explains the sort of tool that NTDSUTIL is. NTDSUTIL is like the Hole Hawg. = The Hole Hawg = The Hole Hawg is a drill made by the Milwaukee Tool Company. If you look in a typical hardware store you may find smaller Milwaukee drills but not the Hole Hawg, which is too powerful and too expensive for homeowners. The Hole Hawg does not have the pistol-like design of a cheap homeowner's drill. It is a cube of solid metal with a handle sticking out of one face and a chuck mounted in another. The cube contains a disconcertingly potent electric motor. You can hold the handle and operate the trigger with your index finger, but unless you are exceptionally strong you cannot control the weight of the Hole Hawg with one hand; it is a two-hander all the way. In order to fight off the counter-torque of the Hole Hawg you use a separate handle (provided), which you screw into one side of the iron cube or the other depending on whether you are using your left or right hand to operate the trigger. This handle is not a sleek, ergonomically designed item as it would be in a homeowner's drill. It is simply a foot-long chunk of regular galvanized pipe, threaded on one end, with a black rubber handle on the other. If you lose it, you just go to the local plumbing supply store and buy another chunk of pipe. During the Eighties I did some construction work. One day, another worker leaned a ladder against the outside of the building that we were putting up, climbed up to the second-story level, and used the Hole Hawg to drill a hole through the exterior wall. At some point, the drill bit caught in the wall. The Hole Hawg, following its one and only imperative, kept going. It spun the worker's body around like a rag doll, causing him to knock his own ladder down. Fortunately he kept his grip on the Hole Hawg, which remained lodged in the wall, and he simply dangled from it and shouted for help until someone came along and reinstated the ladder. I myself used a Hole Hawg to drill many holes through studs, which it did as a blender chops cabbage. I also used it to cut a few six-inch-diameter holes through an old lath-and-plaster ceiling. I chucked in a new hole saw, went up to the second story, reached down between the newly installed floor joists, and began to cut through the first-floor ceiling below. Where my homeowner's drill had labored and whined to spin the huge bit around, and had stalled at the slightest obstruction, the Hole Hawg rotated with the stupid consistency of a spinning planet. When the hole saw seized up, the Hole Hawg spun itself and me around, and crushed one of my hands between the steel pipe handle and a joist, producing a few lacerations, each surrounded by a wide corona of deeply bruised flesh. It also bent the hole saw itself, though not so badly that I couldn't use it. After a few such run-ins, when I got ready to use the Hole Hawg my heart actually began to pound with atavistic terror. But I never blamed the Hole Hawg; I blamed myself. The Hole Hawg is dangerous because it does exactly what you tell it to. It is not bound by the physical limitations that are inherent in a cheap drill, and neither is it limited by safety interlocks that might be built into a homeowner's product by a liability-conscious manufacturer. The danger lies not in the machine itself but in the user's failure to envision the full consequences of the instructions he gives to it. A smaller tool is dangerous too, but for a completely different reason: it tries to do what you tell it to, and fails in some way that is unpredictable and almost always undesirable. But the Hole Hawg is like the genie of the ancient fairy tales, who carries out his master's instructions literally and precisely and with unlimited power, often with disastrous, unforeseen consequences. = END EXCERPT = (Original essay In the Beginning... Was the Command Line copyright 1999 by Neal Stephenson; available online freely at http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html. Above text copied from The Command Line in 2004, copyright 2004 by Garrett Birkel; available online freely at http://garote.bdmonkeys.net/commandline/index.html. Reproduction with
Re: NTDSUTIL...
Well, there are few other ways to migrate, say, the Schema Master role... * * *ASB* *http://XeeMe.com/AndrewBaker* *Harnessing the Advantages of Technology for the SMB market… * On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 11:54 AM, Ben Scott mailvor...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 10:58 AM, David Lum david@nwea.org wrote: I’m guessing this utility by design is clunky? I do get that it’s powerful, but man it reminds me of EDLIN. OTOH I’m getting the hang of it, but not sure if that’s a good thing or bad thing. NTDSUTIL is a low-level, raw access, powerful sort of tool. Generally you shouldn't be using it unless things are moderately badly broken already. In that kind of situation, you want as little helpfulness between you and the data as possible. You wouldn't be using it if things weren't outside the expectations of the higher level tools, so by definition you're in a situation where you're claiming to be smarter than the higher level tools. The following excerpt from Neal Stephenson's essay, In the Beginning... Was the Command Line, explains the sort of tool that NTDSUTIL is. NTDSUTIL is like the Hole Hawg. = The Hole Hawg = The Hole Hawg is a drill made by the Milwaukee Tool Company. If you look in a typical hardware store you may find smaller Milwaukee drills but not the Hole Hawg, which is too powerful and too expensive for homeowners. The Hole Hawg does not have the pistol-like design of a cheap homeowner's drill. It is a cube of solid metal with a handle sticking out of one face and a chuck mounted in another. The cube contains a disconcertingly potent electric motor. You can hold the handle and operate the trigger with your index finger, but unless you are exceptionally strong you cannot control the weight of the Hole Hawg with one hand; it is a two-hander all the way. In order to fight off the counter-torque of the Hole Hawg you use a separate handle (provided), which you screw into one side of the iron cube or the other depending on whether you are using your left or right hand to operate the trigger. This handle is not a sleek, ergonomically designed item as it would be in a homeowner's drill. It is simply a foot-long chunk of regular galvanized pipe, threaded on one end, with a black rubber handle on the other. If you lose it, you just go to the local plumbing supply store and buy another chunk of pipe. During the Eighties I did some construction work. One day, another worker leaned a ladder against the outside of the building that we were putting up, climbed up to the second-story level, and used the Hole Hawg to drill a hole through the exterior wall. At some point, the drill bit caught in the wall. The Hole Hawg, following its one and only imperative, kept going. It spun the worker's body around like a rag doll, causing him to knock his own ladder down. Fortunately he kept his grip on the Hole Hawg, which remained lodged in the wall, and he simply dangled from it and shouted for help until someone came along and reinstated the ladder. I myself used a Hole Hawg to drill many holes through studs, which it did as a blender chops cabbage. I also used it to cut a few six-inch-diameter holes through an old lath-and-plaster ceiling. I chucked in a new hole saw, went up to the second story, reached down between the newly installed floor joists, and began to cut through the first-floor ceiling below. Where my homeowner's drill had labored and whined to spin the huge bit around, and had stalled at the slightest obstruction, the Hole Hawg rotated with the stupid consistency of a spinning planet. When the hole saw seized up, the Hole Hawg spun itself and me around, and crushed one of my hands between the steel pipe handle and a joist, producing a few lacerations, each surrounded by a wide corona of deeply bruised flesh. It also bent the hole saw itself, though not so badly that I couldn't use it. After a few such run-ins, when I got ready to use the Hole Hawg my heart actually began to pound with atavistic terror. But I never blamed the Hole Hawg; I blamed myself. The Hole Hawg is dangerous because it does exactly what you tell it to. It is not bound by the physical limitations that are inherent in a cheap drill, and neither is it limited by safety interlocks that might be built into a homeowner's product by a liability-conscious manufacturer. The danger lies not in the machine itself but in the user's failure to envision the full consequences of the instructions he gives to it. A smaller tool is dangerous too, but for a completely different reason: it tries to do what you tell it to, and fails in some way that is unpredictable and almost always undesirable. But the Hole Hawg is like the genie of the ancient fairy tales, who carries out his master's instructions literally and precisely and with unlimited power, often with disastrous, unforeseen consequences. = END EXCERPT = (Original essay In
Re: NTDSUTIL...
I can fully and painfully witness that the Hole Hawg is in fact exactly as described. Steven Peck http://www.blkmtn.org On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 8:54 AM, Ben Scott mailvor...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 10:58 AM, David Lum david@nwea.org wrote: I’m guessing this utility by design is clunky? I do get that it’s powerful, but man it reminds me of EDLIN. OTOH I’m getting the hang of it, but not sure if that’s a good thing or bad thing. NTDSUTIL is a low-level, raw access, powerful sort of tool. Generally you shouldn't be using it unless things are moderately badly broken already. In that kind of situation, you want as little helpfulness between you and the data as possible. You wouldn't be using it if things weren't outside the expectations of the higher level tools, so by definition you're in a situation where you're claiming to be smarter than the higher level tools. The following excerpt from Neal Stephenson's essay, In the Beginning... Was the Command Line, explains the sort of tool that NTDSUTIL is. NTDSUTIL is like the Hole Hawg. = The Hole Hawg = The Hole Hawg is a drill made by the Milwaukee Tool Company. If you look in a typical hardware store you may find smaller Milwaukee drills but not the Hole Hawg, which is too powerful and too expensive for homeowners. The Hole Hawg does not have the pistol-like design of a cheap homeowner's drill. It is a cube of solid metal with a handle sticking out of one face and a chuck mounted in another. The cube contains a disconcertingly potent electric motor. You can hold the handle and operate the trigger with your index finger, but unless you are exceptionally strong you cannot control the weight of the Hole Hawg with one hand; it is a two-hander all the way. In order to fight off the counter-torque of the Hole Hawg you use a separate handle (provided), which you screw into one side of the iron cube or the other depending on whether you are using your left or right hand to operate the trigger. This handle is not a sleek, ergonomically designed item as it would be in a homeowner's drill. It is simply a foot-long chunk of regular galvanized pipe, threaded on one end, with a black rubber handle on the other. If you lose it, you just go to the local plumbing supply store and buy another chunk of pipe. During the Eighties I did some construction work. One day, another worker leaned a ladder against the outside of the building that we were putting up, climbed up to the second-story level, and used the Hole Hawg to drill a hole through the exterior wall. At some point, the drill bit caught in the wall. The Hole Hawg, following its one and only imperative, kept going. It spun the worker's body around like a rag doll, causing him to knock his own ladder down. Fortunately he kept his grip on the Hole Hawg, which remained lodged in the wall, and he simply dangled from it and shouted for help until someone came along and reinstated the ladder. I myself used a Hole Hawg to drill many holes through studs, which it did as a blender chops cabbage. I also used it to cut a few six-inch-diameter holes through an old lath-and-plaster ceiling. I chucked in a new hole saw, went up to the second story, reached down between the newly installed floor joists, and began to cut through the first-floor ceiling below. Where my homeowner's drill had labored and whined to spin the huge bit around, and had stalled at the slightest obstruction, the Hole Hawg rotated with the stupid consistency of a spinning planet. When the hole saw seized up, the Hole Hawg spun itself and me around, and crushed one of my hands between the steel pipe handle and a joist, producing a few lacerations, each surrounded by a wide corona of deeply bruised flesh. It also bent the hole saw itself, though not so badly that I couldn't use it. After a few such run-ins, when I got ready to use the Hole Hawg my heart actually began to pound with atavistic terror. But I never blamed the Hole Hawg; I blamed myself. The Hole Hawg is dangerous because it does exactly what you tell it to. It is not bound by the physical limitations that are inherent in a cheap drill, and neither is it limited by safety interlocks that might be built into a homeowner's product by a liability-conscious manufacturer. The danger lies not in the machine itself but in the user's failure to envision the full consequences of the instructions he gives to it. A smaller tool is dangerous too, but for a completely different reason: it tries to do what you tell it to, and fails in some way that is unpredictable and almost always undesirable. But the Hole Hawg is like the genie of the ancient fairy tales, who carries out his master's instructions literally and precisely and with unlimited power, often with disastrous, unforeseen consequences. = END EXCERPT = (Original essay In the Beginning... Was the Command Line copyright 1999 by Neal
RE: NTDSUTIL...
I figure it's always been that way, was just commenting on it really. On the PowerShell - correct, for better or worse I can still accomplish 95% of what I need with cmd.exe and batch files. Create AD accounts, shares, set home directories and permissions on them, run Systernals tools like psexec and push stuff with SMS is what I typically do in batch. At least the NTDSUTIL process makes sense once you do use it a few times. I know just enough PowerShell to look at a PS file and largely know what it's doing and can modify existing to fit. My mad scripting skills ended when I stopped using KiXtart five years ago (corresponded with me getting %currentdayjob%) - I was able to so pretty neat stuff with it back in the day - it was how I did SMS-y stuff without actually having SMS. Need the IE version of all systems and push out some software and uninstall others, no sweat. I am of the belief that scripting skills is one thing that separates good admins from great ones. I don't know admins that are both great and don't know scripting of some kind or another. Ben S - good point, and kind of what I was thinking. With an SBS swing you're in both ADSIEdit and NTDSUTIL. And since I am practicing the swing in my lab several times so I have it mostly by heart I'm in both of those tools a lot recently. From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2012 8:14 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: NTDSUTIL... I'm thinking you haven't embrced powershell, yet, either... On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 10:58 AM, David Lum david@nwea.orgmailto:david@nwea.org wrote: I'm guessing this utility by design is clunky? I do get that it's powerful, but man it reminds me of EDLIN. OTOH I'm getting the hang of it, but not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing. David Lum Systems Engineer // NWEATM Office 503.548.5229tel:503.548.5229 // Cell (voice/text) 503.267.9764tel:503.267.9764 ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.commailto:listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.commailto:listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
Re: NTDSUTIL...
On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 12:25 PM, Andrew S. Baker asbz...@gmail.com wrote: NTDSUTIL is a low-level, raw access, powerful sort of tool. Generally you shouldn't be using it unless things are moderately badly broken already. Well, there are few other ways to migrate, say, the Schema Master role... Don't ruin a good analogy with minor details. ;-) -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
RE: NTDSUTIL...
There are some useful things in there that aren't available anywhere else like the group membership evaluator or snapshotting. Thanks, Brian Desmond br...@briandesmond.com w - 312.625.1438 | c - 312.731.3132 -Original Message- From: Ben Scott [mailto:mailvor...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2012 9:54 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: NTDSUTIL... On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 10:58 AM, David Lum david@nwea.org wrote: I'm guessing this utility by design is clunky? I do get that it's powerful, but man it reminds me of EDLIN. OTOH I'm getting the hang of it, but not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing. NTDSUTIL is a low-level, raw access, powerful sort of tool. Generally you shouldn't be using it unless things are moderately badly broken already. In that kind of situation, you want as little helpfulness between you and the data as possible. You wouldn't be using it if things weren't outside the expectations of the higher level tools, so by definition you're in a situation where you're claiming to be smarter than the higher level tools. The following excerpt from Neal Stephenson's essay, In the Beginning... Was the Command Line, explains the sort of tool that NTDSUTIL is. NTDSUTIL is like the Hole Hawg. = The Hole Hawg = The Hole Hawg is a drill made by the Milwaukee Tool Company. If you look in a typical hardware store you may find smaller Milwaukee drills but not the Hole Hawg, which is too powerful and too expensive for homeowners. The Hole Hawg does not have the pistol-like design of a cheap homeowner's drill. It is a cube of solid metal with a handle sticking out of one face and a chuck mounted in another. The cube contains a disconcertingly potent electric motor. You can hold the handle and operate the trigger with your index finger, but unless you are exceptionally strong you cannot control the weight of the Hole Hawg with one hand; it is a two-hander all the way. In order to fight off the counter-torque of the Hole Hawg you use a separate handle (provided), which you screw into one side of the iron cube or the other depending on whether you are using your left or right hand to operate the trigger. This handle is not a sleek, ergonomically designed item as it would be in a homeowner's drill. It is simply a foot-long chunk of regular galvanized pipe, threaded on one end, with a black rubber handle on the other. If you lose it, you just go to the local plumbing supply store and buy another chunk of pipe. During the Eighties I did some construction work. One day, another worker leaned a ladder against the outside of the building that we were putting up, climbed up to the second-story level, and used the Hole Hawg to drill a hole through the exterior wall. At some point, the drill bit caught in the wall. The Hole Hawg, following its one and only imperative, kept going. It spun the worker's body around like a rag doll, causing him to knock his own ladder down. Fortunately he kept his grip on the Hole Hawg, which remained lodged in the wall, and he simply dangled from it and shouted for help until someone came along and reinstated the ladder. I myself used a Hole Hawg to drill many holes through studs, which it did as a blender chops cabbage. I also used it to cut a few six-inch-diameter holes through an old lath-and-plaster ceiling. I chucked in a new hole saw, went up to the second story, reached down between the newly installed floor joists, and began to cut through the first-floor ceiling below. Where my homeowner's drill had labored and whined to spin the huge bit around, and had stalled at the slightest obstruction, the Hole Hawg rotated with the stupid consistency of a spinning planet. When the hole saw seized up, the Hole Hawg spun itself and me around, and crushed one of my hands between the steel pipe handle and a joist, producing a few lacerations, each surrounded by a wide corona of deeply bruised flesh. It also bent the hole saw itself, though not so badly that I couldn't use it. After a few such run-ins, when I got ready to use the Hole Hawg my heart actually began to pound with atavistic terror. But I never blamed the Hole Hawg; I blamed myself. The Hole Hawg is dangerous because it does exactly what you tell it to. It is not bound by the physical limitations that are inherent in a cheap drill, and neither is it limited by safety interlocks that might be built into a homeowner's product by a liability-conscious manufacturer. The danger lies not in the machine itself but in the user's failure to envision the full consequences of the instructions he gives to it. A smaller tool is dangerous too, but for a completely different reason: it tries to do what you tell it to, and fails in some way that is unpredictable and almost always undesirable. But the Hole Hawg is like the genie of the ancient fairy tales, who carries out his master's instructions literally and precisely
