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Best Practices in Workgroup Maintenance?

Posted by Cliff on from the efforts-in-tedium-reduction dept.

option8 asks: "As the sysadmin for a smallish workgroup (15 or so users) I'm constantly wrestling to balance a regular maintenance regime with the users' continued productivity. As it is, I strive to keep my regular maintenance to a minimum -- optimizing drives, checking for directory and file corruption, permissions repairs, clearing logs, software updates -- after hours, on weekends, or whenever someone goes on vacation. I have a lot of stuff scripted - backups and whatnot go off every night - but there's a lot that requires at least a minimum of my 'monkey clicks the Okay button now' attention. Is this the best way, or do the other BOFHs out there have a better solution to regularly scheduled maintenance for the workgroups/labs/studios they oversee?"

3 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. UltraVNC. AutoIt. OpenVPN. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 3, Informative


    I've found that UltraVNC is the best VNC. Version 1.0.0 was released on 24 Jun 2005, but it is a quite advanced package. Be sure to install UltraVNC with the video driver, which is not included on Sourceforge.

    AutoIt is by far the best open source software for automating Windows installs and other tasks in which the program pretends to be a user. There's an IDE with an Intellisense-like interface and a compiler.

    I've heard that OpenVPN is the best software-based VPN, but I have not used it. There are hardware firewalls with VPNs; I suggest you stay away from Netgear's, which I have found to be quirky.

    --
    Bush lied, 100,000 died. J.C. said not to return violence with more violence.

  2. Scripting to the rescue!! by chota · · Score: 4, Informative

    Seriously, you can do everything you've hinted to with VBScript.

    I recommend:

    The Microsoft ScriptCenter has just launched a new monthly column regarding beginning scripting in Windows; it's called Sesame Script. (The scripting guys are a little geeky.)

    Also, point your favorite nntp client at msnews.microsoft.com and do a search for wsh, script, etc, and subscribe and ask! The newsgroups are full of helpful folks!

    Remember the motto: If it has to be done more than once, script it!

    PS, to get a script to emulate a monkey pressing ok, have it loop, watching for a dialog box of whatever name it will be, then activate that dialog (WScript.AppActivate) and then send an "Enter" keystroke (WScript.SendKeys). Good example is here:

  3. If You're Using Windows.... by Doc+Squidly · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...then 10 systems is about the max for workgroups.

    If you plan to grow any larger I'd recommend moving to a Domain instead of a Workgroup. This would give you centralized administration, give you the ability to remotely publish software updates to you systems and the ability to control all your systems via Group Policies.

    This will be a hard sell to you boss but, try to provide a detailed cost/benifit analyse looking at the manpower that currently is wasted by having maintain each system seperately and scaleability issues.

    If that doesn't work you can still create local policies on each computer to prevent problems.

    Good Luck

    --
    I think I think, therefore I think I am.