To fully automate your Microsoft Exchange Load Simulator (LoadSim) 2000 testing environment, enable autologon on your clients. Map a drive (e.g., the Z drive) to the server-based location of the .sim file that you created during LoadSim configuration. In the same location, place a batch file that automatically runs LoadSim through a command such as

loadsim –r –f z:\simfile.sim

In the \programs\startup folder on each client computer, place a shortcut to the batch file. Web Figure A shows the LoadSim command-line options; as you can see, you can even run the topology-creation and initialization steps from the command line.

Place the shutdown.exe utility (from the Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Resource Kit) in the same folder as a kickoff.bat batch file that lists all the clients’ names. (You can use the Net View command to dump the names to a text file.) Your batch file will resemble the following:

SHUTDOWN /R /C \\CLIENT1
SHUTDOWN /R /C \\CLIENT2
SHUTDOWN /R /C \\CLIENT3

To kick off the test, execute the kickoff.bat batch file, which will reboot the clients; at reboot, the clients will automatically run LoadSim. Before running additional tests, however, follow the instructions in the Web-exclusive sidebar "Testing Options and Additional Tests".