In "Windows Server 2003 Directory Service Tools," October 2004, InstantDoc ID 43753, I showed you how to manipulate Active Directory (AD) objects from the command line. However, manipulating AD objects is only one aspect of Windows management. Windows 2003 and Windows XP Professional Edition include command-line tools that can save you time and effort in performing repetitive tasks such as creating and managing event logs, configuring the page file and Boot.ini file, managing processes, and determining free disk space. Using command-line tools falls between scripting and the UI and can save you hours writing a script to perform the same tasks. Although you might need a few minutes to determine the exact syntax that each tool needs to use, the time will be well spent. Let's put a few of these tools to work.
Create and Manage Event Logs
Windows 2003 and XP offer three tools to create and manage event logs from the command line: Eventcreate.exe, Eventquery.vbs, and Eventtriggers.exe. Eventcreate allows the creation of events in the Windows NT event log. For example, to create an error event log entry in the application event log, use the following command:
Eventcreate /S vm75459312b.LissWare.Net
/L application
/SO "Eventcreate TEST"
/T Error
/ID 999
/D "Event log creation with Eventcreate.exe"
The /S switch specifies the server name. The /L switch specifies the event log to use. The /SO switch specifies the event source name. The /T switch specifies the type of event to create (e.g., success, error, warning, information). The /ID switch specifies the ID number of the event log entry. The /D switch specifies the description of the event log entry. You can also use the /U switch to specify credentials for the Domain\Username and the /P switch to specify the password if a remote system requires credentials other than the current user security context. For more information about available switches and options, use the /? switch. . . .
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