The Mole #34: Technical Answers from Inside Microsoft - Username, NT Partitions, DOS Apps, DHCPCMD Utility, SQL Service Pack

May 8, 2000

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:

• Username is MIA

• Please Sir, I want MORE!!

• MS-DOS Application Not Cooperating? Say It Ain't So

• What's in a Name

• The Great SQL Server™ SP Version Search

On This Page

Username is MIA

Please Sir, I want MORE!!

MS-DOS Application Not Cooperating? Say It Ain't So

What's in a Name

The Great SQL Server SP Version Search

Credits

Username is MIA

Dear Mr. Mole,

I am puzzled by a problem that has only been happening lately. When I create a new user in User Manager for Domains, the new user cannot login for a few days after I create them. The Message "The username cannot be found" comes up very quickly on the screen, almost as if it is not really checking. I am running Windows NT 4.0 with SP5. SP5 was just installed on December 10th 1999 and I didn't have that problem before the SP5 installation. My client machines are Windows 95 and 98, same result on both of them.

Can you tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Mike Nielson, Founders Title Company

Well, Mike

Mole concurs—this situation is a little weird. But while Mole scratches his head over this puzzlement, he would like to first engage in a bit of mild knuckle-rapping. In other words, Mike, Mole needs information to tackle problems such as these. Like—How many BDCs do you have—and—What kind of connections do they have with the PDC? There, Mole feels better. Now to your problem.

Initially, one would think that there might be a problem with the replication of the added accounts from the PDC to the BDC(s), but given the fact that the message "The username cannot be found" is almost immediately displayed upon attempted login, Mole doesn't think that faulty account replication is the culprit. Not only that, if the BDCs have not received the account updates from the PDC, then when a logon request comes in that it doesn't know about, the BDC just passes that on through to the PDC anyway.

No...something odd is definitely going on here. But when humans intersect with machinery, the problem tends to land in one of two camps: human error and machine error. So Mole will direct his suggestions in those two directions.

Let's start with the human error checklist.

1. Make sure that the client that you just created an account for is entering the correct Username in the Domain logon dialog box. Entering a non-existent user account name in the logon dialog box is the only scenario by which the message "The username cannot be found" should be displayed.

2. Make sure that you are providing the correct logon name to the client—make sure that you aren't telling them to logon with the Display Name that is optionally created when creating the user's account in User Manager for Domains.

3. If 1 and 2 don't produce results, try the whole scenario yourself, acting as the administrator and the new user. Get your own test machine or laptop with Win9x installed. Create a new user test account. Plug the test machine into the network. Log on. Note what happens and act accordingly.

Still not working? (Heavy sigh.) Ok, Mole will move on to possible machine errors. Here's the flight check:

1. Look in the NT Event Viewer, System Log for any related errors logged there. If you find one, use that Event ID and start hitting the Knowledge Base. Look for Event ID 529. More Info on event ID 529:

   Reason: Unknown user name or bad password

   Explanation:

   This event record indicates an attempt to log on using an unknown user account or using a valid user account but with an invalid password. An unexpected increase in the number of these audits could represent an attempt by someone to find user accounts and passwords (such as a "dictionary" attack, in which a list of words is used by a program to attempt entry).

   The scenario you describe could be linked to other domain controllers in the domain running out of resources. At this point, you will need to check all of the servers in the domain that validate user accounts for the following types of problems:

   • Servers that are running out of disk space.

   • Servers that have stopped responding (you may actually have to visit the server).

   • Servers that report Event IDs stating they have not been able to synchronize with the PDC. The server will report that insufficient system resources exist to complete the requested service.

If you find the domain controller with insufficient system resources, either take the server offline, so that it is not involved in the validation process, or fix the resource problem and re-synchronize the domain controller with its PDC. If the problem persists, you may need to take a trace of the Microsoft Windows® 95 computer while it is trying to log on to the domain to help further identify problem areas.

Finally, Mike, if all else fails, follow this handy link to Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 6a (SP6a). While Mole recognizes what a drag it can be to take the time to update, SP 6a is a most superior product. Try it, you'll like it.

Mole

Please Sir, I want MORE!!

Hi Mole.

Great page! Does the Mole have any knowledge of ways and means that would allow increasing, avoiding, or bypassing the 4-partition limit enforced by the NT disk administrator when using a raid5 config?

Mike Stapley, Senior Database guy, Huron Valley Steel Corporation

Gee, Mike

Compliments like yours make Mole feel all warm and fuzzy. So, Mole would really like to make you happy and say yes. Unfortunately, Mole regrets he must say, "No. Nada. Nyet."

There are just some physical limitations in this world that we all must accept, Mike. Take hard drives, for example. The first sector of any hard drive contains a partition table. This partition table only has room to describe four partitions. Those four partitions are called primary partitions. And there is no more room for any more.

But Mole would not have you give up due to mere physical limitations. Mole is no quitter. You know those folks that create all of that really cool disk management software—like Partition Magic from PowerQuest (https://www.powerquest.com/partitionmagic/index.html) and Partition Commander from V-Communications (https://www.v-com.com/product/pc_ind.html). Those guys sure know a lot about disks! You might want to scurry on over to their websites and dig through the technical papers. You might turn up a new revelation that you'd like to share with all of us.

By the way, Mike. Mole is curious. You didn't mention why you want to get around the four-partition-limit hurdle. Mole hopes whatever progress you make, you will apply it to the greater good of IT pros everywhere. Godspeed.

Mole

MS-DOS Application Not Cooperating? Say It Ain't So

I have a tough question on Win98. We ship a DOS application that runs multiple windows on the same Windows 95/98 machine. The background runs a DOS communication task and foreground runs a DOS user app - they are not communicating with each other in any way.

Everything runs great in Windows 95, but in Windows 98, when I create an MS-DOS shortcut and un-check "background suspend" it does not stick! When I run the application from the icon and send it to the background, it stops. Not only does it stop, but when you look at the properties on the box, "background suspend" is checked! (where'd that come from?) Uncheck the box, and the app takes off like it should.

I checked the registry, and could not find anything that looked suspicious...any clue to this strange behavior? We are re-writing in Windows, but it will be quite a while before that is complete.

Allen Wilson

Dear Allen,

MS-DOS applications ... oh yeah, Mole remembers those! They are sooo last century. What's more, they are particularly nasty to troubleshoot because DOS applications can basically do whatever they want to with the hardware. And do. (Or so Mole has heard.)

However, Mole is undeterred, even by DOS. When you run a program in MS-DOS mode, it forces Windows 98 to shut down and load the program in an MS-DOS environment. You do not have access to devices that require protected-mode drivers. If you find that an MS-DOS-based program slows down or stops when it is in the background:

1. Right-click MS-DOS Prompt on the taskbar, and then click Properties.

2. Click the Misc tab.

3. Drag the Idle sensitivity slider toward Low.

4. Under Background, make sure the Always Suspend check box is cleared.

One other thing—Mole knows this sounds weird—but if you've got a Logitech mouse, make sure that you've got the latest mouse drivers installed. Mole has heard rumors a pre-version 8.0 Logitech mouse can cause behavior such as you describe. To paraphrase another of Mole's favorite writers: "All mice are equal but some mice are more equal than others."

Good luck,

Mole

What's in a Name

Dear Mole,

I must say that I think it is a good thing that you answer these questions with the known-but-hard-to-find answer. Just straightforward and no b******* around it.

As I read your answer concerning the dhcpcmd utility, I was just wondering whether or not you know that there are different versions of the dhcpcmd utility, together with different versions of the DHCP service under NT?

I found out at a customer that, because he was using an older version of NT, the DHCP service didn't support SuperScopes. First of all, I tried using the newest ServicePack (3) at that time, which only gave me the benefit of SuperScopes. I must say however, that before I had to do the upgrade, I had to stop the DHCP service. Otherwise, it didn't upgrade the DHCP service. So from now on, whenever I update the DHCP service or the WINS service, I first stop the DHCP and WINS service through either the control panel or the command prompt (NET STOP, etc.) I think you should recommend it to all users, as this part is really tricky! If you don't stop the service, it won't update the service!

As I found out that there were in fact new versions, I started upgrading one server with the NT Enterprise version of the DHCP service, and the other server with the BackOffice 4.5 DHCP service.

After using the dhcpcmd utility in the NT4 resource kit, I just had some strange errors stating that de dhcpcmd utility didn't understand the dhcp version I was using on the server with the BackOffice version of the DHCP service. However, it did work on the server with the Enterprise edition of the DHCP service.

I then started to look at the following 9 DHCP service files:

• DHCPADMN.CNT

• DHCPADMN.EXE

• dhcpadmn.FTS

• DHCPADMN.HLP

• DHCPCSVC.DLL

• DHCPMIB.DLL

• DHCPSAPI.DLL

• DHCPSSVC.DLL

As I noticed, there were some files like the DHCPSVC.DLL which were much bigger in the BackOffice version compared to the Enterprise edition. I asked some Microsoft consultant over here, but he stated that there was absolutely no difference between the DHCP versions. As the difference between the two versions was about 56k, I didn't believe him. After all, you can put a lot of code in 56k. So something had definitely changed.

When I was behind this issue, I just stopped the DHCP service (NET STOP DHCPSERVER), copied all the dhcp files form the BackOffice version over the Enterprise Edition version, and restarted the DHCP service. It functioned 100%.

The result of this 'upgrade' was that I could use the dhcpcmd utility from the BackOffice resource kit, which has a lot more options than the dhcpcmd utility from the normal resource kit.

So now, my question is, what is the latest version of the DHCP service, and what is the big difference between the BackOffice DHCP service and the Enterprise DHCP version except the ones I already mentioned above?

I hope you and all the other readers can benefit from this information.

Regards and have a nice weekend,

Rene Wijninga, Solution Specialist

Wow, Rene

That description of your problem and findings is most elucidatory. Mole doffs his fedora to you for a job well done.

Yes, there are differences in the DHCP service between NT 4.0 and BackOffice DHCP. For instance, the DHCP service was modified in version 4.0 of Small Business Server so that it would not become a rogue DHCP server. This means that BackOffice Small Business Server will disable its own DHCP server service upon startup if it detects another DHCP server on the network.

Other than that, there can be fixes included in Service Packs to Windows NT's DHCP, but as a general rule, enhancements are not put in Service Packs.

There's a Knowledge Base article that pretty much hits the nail on the head—that is if the nail is **151614:**Differences in Dhcpcmd.exe in WinNT 3.5, 3.51, and 4.0.

The latest version? Mole is not being glib, really, but he would go with the one with the latest file dates.

The Great SQL Server SP Version Search

Mole,

I've got SQL Server installed and I don't know what Service Pack is applied and can't seem to find it in any "Help, about" listing. I am getting ready to apply an NT Service Pack and need to know what SQL Server service pack is required (if any). I then plan to update to SQL 7—any helpful hints?

Liz, Big Anti-Virus Company

Dear Liz,

Let's see, helpful hints. How about trying the following SQL query:

SELECT version from ServicePackTable

Liz, Liz, Liz ... Mole was just fooling around. After all, if it were that easy, Mole would be out of an advice column. Finding the SP applied to SQL Server has always been a "challenge." Fortunately, Mole has some helpful tricks of the trade. Here's how to tell the Service Pack that is installed on SQL Server.

First execute this SQL command from a Query Analyzer window:

SELECT @@VERSION

The result will be a build number, hopefully one of the builds listed in the second column, below. The corresponding SQL Server and Service Pack version are on the left.

As for providing helpful hints on upgrading to SQL Server 7.0, here's Mole's best tip is dig, dig, dig! Start by visiting the SQL Server Technology page on the TechNet website. Also, a visit over to https://www.microsoft.com/sql/ is also worth your while.

Happy upgrading!

Mole

Credits

Thanks again to Mr. Collins

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