The Mole #21: Technical Answers from Inside Microsoft - TimeSrv Utility, Dates, MDM, Backtalk

Article
12/22/2008

November 8, 1999

Editors Note The questions and answers below are from the Inside Microsoft column that appears regularly on the TechNet Web site at the following location: https://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/columns/insider/default.mspx. To find out how to submit questions of your own, see the end of this article or go to https://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/columns/insider/default.mspx.

The TechNet Mole provides expert answers from deep within Microsoft to questions from IT professionals. This installment focuses on these issues:

Make sure your TimeSrv utility is Y2K cool
Of dates and digits
The high cost of running MDM
Backtalk!

The mystery of the disappearing separator line

Mole bites IT Pro

Pardon me, Do you have the time?

The Network Time Protocol (NTP, what else?), a tool developed by the Network Time Synchronization Project at the University of Delaware, with lots of support from the US Defense Department and the National Science Foundation, can synchronize LAN time to within fractions of a millisecond. Performance on a global WAN is only slightly less accurate.

It works like this: You specify one server on your network to obtain the correct time from any one of a variety of public or private sources. You install the Time Service software on that server, which then becomes the Time God for your network, the one machine all other servers and workstations turn to with that age old question, Does anybody know what time it is? Then, on the other servers and workstations, you run a batch file or execute a command like the following (from a logon script) to set the time on the other machines:

NET TIME \\TheTimeServer /SET /YES

Many of you may still be running the TimeSrv program that came with the Windows NT® Server Resource Kit, Supplement 2. You need to be aware that while this program didn't exactly flunk its Year 2000 compliance test, it wasn't able to pass unequivocally, either, since there's no way Microsoft can test every date-related issue for every Time Service Provider (USNO, NIST, ACTS, to name only a few), or every modem you might be using. Mole's best practices, therefore, suggest the following:

Test TimeSrv in your own environment
Contact your chosen Time Service Provider to find out about known year 2000 compliance issues
Obtain the new W32Time (Year 2000 Compliant Time Synchronization Service) program from the Microsoft FTP Server or from the following TechNet article: W32Time Network Time Service For Windows NT 4.0 located on this CD.
Uninstall your old TimeSrv utility and replace it with W32Time. (See the article referenced above for instructions.)

If securing your network against electronic attack is a high priority, be aware that version four of the Network Time Protocol (NTP4), now under development, uses public key cryptography algorithms to maintain security and chronological accuracy. Check it out at the Network Time Synchronization Web site (https://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/ntp.html).

Okay, so it's one more thing to worry about. But if time is of the essence, why mess around?

Yeah, but who gets to set the watch?

Now, some of Mole's readers from as far away as Belgium, and even Wisconsin, have raised a very good point. On the workstation, as you know, Change the System Time permission is granted by default to Administrators and Power Users only. So how about the regular old user who wants to set his or her workstation clock but doesn't have the Windows NT muscle?

In the Resource Kit [available via the TechNet subscription on the CD titled, Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit Utilities], you will find the utility NTRights.exe. With this handy little critter, you can grant and revoke any Windows NT right to or from a user or group of users at your whim. Using NTRights and the "SeSystemtimePrivilege" right within a logon script, you can grant the right to change the system time, set it using NET TIME, and then revoke the right. Because Mole suspects an error in the attendant Resource Kit documentation, he herewith provides you the following syntax, so you can do it yourself.

-u	Signify the user/group to allocate. The user or group must be entered in quotes unless it is a built-in special group (like Interactive)
-m	Specify the workstation (optional)
-r	Remove the right
+r	Add the right

Example: NTRIGHTS -r <ntright> -u ''<user/group>'' - m <workstation_name>

Finally, a Knowledge Base article worth mentioning:

120944: Using NET TIME for all Workstations and Servers

Anybody Know What the Date is?

Mole,

My colleagues at work and I are having a debate regarding Regional Settings and Y2K compliance in Windows NT 4.0. Some argue that the date setting format in Windows NT must be changed from its default of 2 digit years to reflect 4 digit years. They believe this will keep applications that use this date information from having any Y2K issues.

I, however, believe that because the default range of years NT 4.0 allows when the short date field is set to 2 digit years is between 1930 and 2029, leaving short dates set to 2 digit years is perfectly safe.

Please let use know and perhaps elaborate upon the issues involved.

Berwick Lanier

Dear Berwick:

In Windows and Windows NT, the short date format is a display setting only. Windows and Windows NT don't use it to determine the current date. However, some third-party programs may use the short date format to ascertain today's date, which makes it possible they'll interpret dates after (19)99 as being in the 1900s.

Mole recommends that you play it safe and change to 4 digit year format. For more information on changing the format, you can look at Knowledge Base article **241671:**How to Configure the Short Date Format in Windows and Windows NT. Chances are, you already know how to change the date format, but Mole is not one to leave a reference uncited. The article also elaborates potential problems with third-party applications.

Where will you be at 12:01 AM on January 1, 2000? Inquiring Moles want to know.

That's the longest filename I've ever seen!

Hi Mole,

I have two questions for you. The first is about a process called MDM running in my machine(WIN98). What is this? This slows down the performance of my machine drastically. This starts/runs whenever I start IE4 (SP2 is also installed). Any clue on this?

There are 0KB files in my Windows directory. The files are similar, like

fffa65d7_{4B52E4C0-6D3E-11D3-9277-00801E034A11}.tmp

I've set the environment settings TEMP=C:\WINDOWS\TEMP and TMP=C:\WINDOWS\TEMP. Even with these settings files are getting created in Windows directory.

Please highlight me.

Venkat, India

Greetings, Venkat

The answer to both your questions has to do with the program MDM.EXE (Machine Debug Manager), which is installed by Office 2000 and also by the Windows NT Option Pack / Developer Studio. You can safely delete the fff*.tmp files. Please review these two Knowledge Base articles:

221438: Files Whose Name Begins with "fff" Appear in Windows Folder
194396: MDM.EXE - DLL Initialization Failed Error

The Windows NT Option Pack and Microsoft Developer Studio to provide application debugging use MDM.EXE. When Script Debugging is enabled for Internet Explorer 4.0, the debug manager is initialized whenever Internet Explorer 4.0 is started. In a Windows Terminal Server session, however, the debug manager cannot be initialized properly in the Interactive User's context and returns the errors listed above.

To work around this problem, you have three options:

Rename the MDM.exe found in the system root\system32 directory.

-OR-

Remove all registry entries related to "MDM" and Machine Debug Manager.

-OR-

For each client that will use Internet Explorer 4.0, disable Internet Explorer 4.0 Script Debugging by performing the following steps:

Open Control Panel.
Double-click the Internet icon.
Click the Advanced tab.
Click the check box next to "Disable Script Debugging" to enable it.
Click OK.
Close Control Panel.

BackTalk

More on the missing line

Mole received these two letters in his Backtalk bag, both regarding his reply in the September 27th Mole Column column to Phil Sharpe's question about the separator line going missing in his Start/Programs menu.

Mole,

In a recent article on how to create common folders on the Windows NT Start Menu and you didn't answer Phil's question. He wanted to know how to restore the separator line (that IE5 or SP5 made disappear) on the start menu. I, too, was equally bugged by this "feature" and would like to know how to restore the line.

Rhet Turnbull, Air Force Research Lab

Mole,

I encountered this particular problem when I first installed IE 4 (128-bit, SP1a) on my NT Server. After the IE4 installation, the dividing line that displays in the Start Menu between the active user folders and the common folders disappears, and all folders appear as one large list.

Stephen Brodie, Xerox Engineering Systems - DNCS

Rhet and Stephen,

Hey, Mole thought he answered the question of how to restore the separator line, but apparently not everyone found his answer sufficiently meaty. What follows is the high protein version.

After you install Internet Explorer version 4.0 or 4.01 for Windows NT 4.0, the separator line between the personal and common areas on the list of programs on the Start menu may be missing. This behavior can occur if the Windows Desktop Update component is installed. To resolve this issue, remove the Windows Desktop Update component. For information about how to remove the Windows Desktop Update component, see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

165695: How to Add or Remove Windows Desktop Update

Mole's sources continue to insist that this behavior is actually a feature, not a bug.

Mole bites IT Pro

Hi Mole:

Thanks for the reply. No, I wasn't sticking my finger down a mole hole. I was bitten by the mole while trying to extricate it from the jaws of the family dog. The doctor who subsequently gave me a tetanus shot was highly amused!

Sandy

Dear Sandy,

Mole is quite sure his kinsman was acting in self-defense.

Credits

Mole thanks Lon Collins once again.

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