The WinKit revived?

About 6 years ago, I spent several months developing a suite of network administration tools called the WinKit. Here's a brief description of each tool.

AdminPW:

This is a very powerful program that will allow a single technician to change the local administrator password on hundreds of computers at once with the click of the mouse. Complete with an input file to read computer names and an export file for any unreachable computers as well as Active Directory integration, AdminPW won’t miss a beat. The export file can even be used again as input to make sure all the computers are completed in the list.

It has always been a time-consuming process to go around to each computer on the network and change passwords when a technician or other member of IT leaves the organization. This often results in passwords not being changed at all creating a large security risk in your network. It is common knowledge that most security breaches occur from within by current or former employees. With AdminPW, it will only take you a minute to secure your network by changing the admin passwords on ALL your workstations! AdminPW alone makes the WinKit a “must-have” for any network.

 
CheckUser:

Wouldn’t it be nice for helpdesk to be able to pop a username into a program and have it tell you all the computers on the network where that user is logged on? CheckUser can do just that. After you enter the username, CheckUser will tell you the computer names where that user is currently logged in or was the last person to logon to that computer. It can also work backwards. You can enter a computer name and in less than a second find out who is currently logged onto that computer. If no one is logged on, you can find out who was the last person to log on! This is great for security when you need to quickly find out who is logged on a specific computer or where a specific username is active. As with the other applications in the WinKit, they can be as useful as you make them for many different situations.

FileCheck:

FileCheck is a useful tool that can check a group of computers on a network for a specific file on their local harddrives. The usefulness of this application is limited only to your imagination. For example, to build a list of all the computers on your network where a certain application is installed such as Microsoft Access, simply enter a filename that application uses (“msaccess.exe”) and click search. Another use is to quickly scan for viruses on the network that create specific files during outbreaks. FileCheck is by no means similar to searching for a file with Windows search which can take minutes to find a file. FileCheck runs very quickly. Since you specify the exact path of the file you are searching for, it can connect and check several computers per second.

FileCopy:

Another tool, like FileCheck, that can actually copy files from a source on the network to destination computers. You can copy a single file or multiple files and folders / subfolders.

For example, you need to update an Oracle tnsnames.ora file on computers so you plan to overwrite it on all computers on the network immediately. Simply enter the source path for tnsnames.ora and then click Start! Depending on the size of the source files, FileCopy can update hundreds of computers with the new files within minutes. No need to wait for logon scripts and you don't have to worry about those people that never reboot. FileCopy's changes happen in real time.



NTFS Auditor:

Here’s a hypothetical situation. The CEO just told you that he is concerned that an individual has been accessing the shared group folders on the file server. He wants to know exactly what folders and files that person has access to right now. How can you audit a specific user without manually checking permissions on each folder on the server? I’m sure there have been several times when you’ve needed to know exactly which folders and files on your file server a certain user has access to. With NTFS Auditor, simply map a drive to the file server you want to audit and enter a domain/username or domain/group that you are checking permissions for and click “Execute”. The program will build a text file for you containing each folder and file that user/group has access to on the server. You can also simply browse a computer or mapped drive to instantly see the NTFS permissions on that folder. Simple results are easy to understand. **Microsoft has caught up and this functionality now exists in Server 2008!!

The original code for the WinKit was written in VB6.0 and I haven't had the time to learn and convert it to .NET. The app does run on Windows 7 although there are a few bugs and it has been tested with a 2008 R2 domain at R2 functional level. If anyone has an interest in updating the toolkit for market, please get in touch with me. PaulAckerman1000 'at' hotmail