Administering Your Network - Managing a Remote Computer

• For each shared folder on any remote computer, find out the users that are connected to the folder, how long they’ve been connected, and the files they have open.

• Disconnect users from a shared folder or close files that have been opened on a shared folder.

• Change the properties of a remote shared folder, including its share name and the access rights to the folder. You can even stop sharing a remote folder.

• Set up a new shared folder on any remote machine.

• Add, modify, and delete user accounts and security groups on a remote computer.

• View (but not modify) a remote computer’s Device Manager.

• Start, stop, and configure services.

These are powerful, not-to-be-wielded-lightly techniques. I won’t describe them all here. Instead, I’ll focus on three techniques that are most useful for network administration: viewing connected users, working with remote shared folders, and working with remote open files.

Connecting to a Remote Computer

To get started, you need to open a remote computer in the Computer Management snap-in. Here are the steps to follow:

1.	Open the Computer Management snap-in by selecting Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management. (Alternatively, select Start, Run, type compmgmt.msc, and click OK.)
2.	Select Action, Connect to Another Computer. The Select Computer dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 1. Figure 1. Use the Select Computer dialog box to specify the name or IP address of the remote computer you want to manage.
3.	Activate the Another Computer option.
4.	Use the text box to type the computer name or IP address of the remote computer you want to manage.
5.	Click OK. Computer Management connects to the other computer and displays the computer name or IP address in the console root, as shown in Figure 2. Figure 2. Computer Management connected to a remote computer.

Viewing the Current Connections

To see a list of the users connected to any shared folder on the remote computer, select System Tools, Shared Folders, Sessions. Figure 3 shows an example. For each user, you get the following data:

Figure 2. The Sessions folder shows the users currently connected to shared folders on the remote computer.

Although in the interest of network harmony you’ll want to let users connect and disconnect as they please, at times you might need to boot someone off a machine. For example, you might see that someone has obtained unauthorized access to a share. To disconnect that user, right-click his name in the list and then click Close Session. When Windows XP asks for confirmation, click Yes.

Working with Shared Folders

Computer Management also makes it possible for you to view the connections to a server by its shared folders. To get this display, select System Tools, Shared Folders, Shares. As you can see in Figure 4, this view provides the following information:

Figure 4. Computer Management can display a server’s connections by its shared folders.

Here are the techniques you can use to work with the shared folders:

Working with Open Files

Computer Management can also display the files that are open on the remote computer’s shares. To switch to this view, select System Tools, Shared Folders, Open Files. Figure 5 shows the result. Here’s a summary of the columns in this view:

Figure 5. Computer Management can also display a remote computer’s open files in its shared resources.

Again, you’ll usually want to let users open and close files themselves so that they don’t lose information. If you need to close a file, however, you can do so by right-clicking it and then clicking Close Open File. When Windows XP asks for confirmation, click Yes.