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This howto covers the basic usage of the fastpush command script.
A configured copy of the script
Your host system is Windows NT, 2000 or XP
Some experience of Windows NT shares & the registry
Basic NT shell knowledge
Firstly, you'll need to have looked at the Setup Fastpush Howto. Fastpush won't work straight out of the box, so you'll need to change one or two settings. If you've not done that yet, look here.
Oh, one more thing - if you're running Windows 95, 98 or ME you need to stop right now. Because fastpush uses some NET USE functions that are not available in your OS. You'll need to try a different approach.
If you're using Linux I doubt that Fastpush will work for you either. The NT resource kit tools perform some odd functions and I don't know that WINE can cope with them just yet. If you are using WINE with fastpush then please drop me a line in the forum.
Right, drop into the command shell (cmd.exe). If you set fastpush to use a path statement, you can run it straight away. If you didn't you'll need to CD into the fastpush folder.
In case you were wondering, why did I call the script Fastpush and then call the actual file VNC? The answer is that I don't like typing fastpush repeatedly, but there's no reason why you couldn't rename it.
Anyway...... In my example, I've unzipped the script into d:\fastpush.
Type: fpXX [enter] where XX is the version number of the script. In this example, it's fp72f (fastpush 7.2f beta).
This gives you a brief boilerplate help screen. You can get this any time by typing fpXX or fpXX /help. There's also a /examples switch which gives - not surprisingly - a few basic examples of use. Let's move on to step 3.
For the test you'll need a target PC running NT, 2000 or XP and you will need administrator access to the system. This can be via a local or domain account, the script will cope with both. I'll deal with each in turn, so you're logged in as:
- domain administrator
OR
an ordinary user, but you know the domain admin password
OR
an ordinary user, but you know the local admin equivalent passwordvnc targetpc /user mydomain\admin mypassword- admin equivalent local account with matching account on remote system
vnc targetpc
In the example above I've used the machine name as the target. This will work just fine if you have DNS or WINS set up and running. In some situations you may want to use the machine's IP address - don't worry, fastpush will cope with this.
What it won't cope with is a machine name comprised totally of numbers - this throws the PING command out. Use the IP address or the fully qualified domain name instead (eg: 6601345.myinternetdomain.co.uk).
Whichever option you go for, you'll get an output screen similar to the one below. In this example I've used the domain account adminuser - but you don't need a domain to get this to work. If you type the admin account or password in incorrectly, the script isn't going to work.....as it can't log on. That's why it echos out the user details at the start.
------------------------------------------------------------ You want to install : vnc Log on as : testdomain\adminuser Use this password : mypassword Install Vncviewer program : yes ------------------------------------------------------------
Bad username or password?
Check these manually with a net use /user:iamadmin mypasswordis command
Can't ping the target PC?
Try this yourself with PING <machinename> or PING <ip address>. Make sure the PC is on, the target's IP stack is okay and that you have a route to it.
If the WAN routers have ICMP turned off use the /noping option to disable the
PING check. Of course, if the remote PC isn't awake.....
Can't read the registry / access shares
Try this yourself with a regdir and a net use. Also, check the level of access your user has - maybe you're not an admin equivalent on the target machine.
(NB: XP Professional has a security policy to only allow access as a guest
- you'll need to alter this if you want admin access!).
Service takes a while to activate
On older PCs like 166s et al, you'll probably need to wait a good 30 seconds for the service to come up.
The service couldn't start
This is frequently an issue with non-English installations of Windows. It seems that the REG command that fastpush relies on cannot cope with fancy characters (like umlauts). Check your paths very carefully and then check if REG is reading the variables correctly.
I get a strange REG error
Check that you're using the version of REG I bundled with the install. MS have release at least three versions and each one operates in a completely different manner. <shrug>
I entered a password in machine.ini and Fastpush didn't install it!
You cannot enter a clear text password in that file. You need to encode it first. You can do that by reading an existing VNC install. Check the howto index for more infomation.
Run vncviewer and enter the target machine's IP address, DNS or WINS name. Supply the password that you configured earlier (under machine.ini from the setting up howto).