I have a few posts on some of the Sysinternals tools that are created by Mark Russinovich. One of the things that I don’t think allot of people realize is that you can actually download all of the tools in one zip file. I would list off all of the tools but there are way to many to mention. The zip file is 8 MB in size and was last updated on August 8, 2008.
I thought I would write a quick tip on how to tell when your server actually goes down and comes back up. When you reboot a server through terminal services it is hard to tell when you can log back into the server. One of the easiest things you can do is run the ping -t “hostname” to determine when the server is up and responding on the network. The best time to start the command is right before you reboot the server. This way you can see when the server actaully stops responding and starts responding again to pings. The one thing to remember is when you are first receiving a ping you might not be able to log into the server yet. It all depends on how many services need to start up and what order they are in. But at least you will have a better idea when you can get logged back into the server.
One of the things I continue to run across is how to easily backup folders from a workstation to an external source. One of the easiest and cheapest solutions is a power toy from Microsoft called SyncToy. When I say cheap, I mean cheap. It is a free download offered by Microsoft from the list of their power toys. It is also now compatible with Vista.
SyncToy creates pairs called folder pairs. You set up a folder pair for each backup that you want to create. The left folder is your source and the right folder is your backup location. Once you have those parameters defined you then set up how you want to synchronize your folders. You can choose from the below options.
Once you have this option set up you will need to name your folder pair. You will now manually be able to backup up your date by going into SyncToy. If you want to take it one step further I would recommend setting up a scheduled task to run daily on your PC to insure the backup stays current.
I will try to get some screen shots taken of the setup process so everybody can help visualize the steps. On a side note version 2.0 is out in Beta but I have not had a chance to use it yet. Hopefully I will find time to review the new SyncTool version in the near future.
Current Version - v1.4
Microsoft Download Link
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=E0FC1154-C975-4814-9649-CCE41AF06EB7&displaylang=en
