Essential tools to manage a Windows 2003/2008 domain?

[reggiep]

As the title really! I'm investigating what I would need to buy or get for free to help me admin a domain without the aid of CC3.
I'm thinking along the lines of tools to help creating user accounts and then generally looking after those accounts.
Creating and distributing software packages.
Monitoring software eg. Lanview

Anything else?

Thanks

[jsnetman]

You don't really need any tools to manage native 2003 as they are already built in. Bulk creation of users can be done using addusers.exe, managing users can be done from Active Directory Users and Computers, apart from Lanview or any of the list of remote monitoring solutions.

[reggiep]

What about software distribution?
I have a ghosting server (fog) in place so alright for that.
There must be peeps out there using vanilla but rely on extra tools to help them with the job?

Thanks

[jsnetman]

You can distribute software using the same AD users and computers snapin. All you need is a valid MSI.

[reggiep]

All sounds good to me.
How about editing msi's so that the shortcut goes into the correct folder or can that be done in a different way?

[jsnetman]

I use winstallle to create MSI's from exe's. And to edit them I use Orca. But to be honest the days of creating are nearly over as software people are now creating their own MSI's.

[FN-GM]

Also you can use silent installs for programs that are .exe format only.

[reggiep]

Also you can use silent installs for programs that are .exe format only.

Could you expand on that a bit please FN?

[Jiser]

Heres some of what we do.

Use clonezilla now instead of ghost. The server is a bit difficult to setup but there is a live version of both.

We also have an intranet from which logins of all machines/laps are logged + print budgets + job logs/fault reporting etc system - all developed in house.

Scripts e.g. Bat files run a hell alot of things.

WSUS server for windows updates

Monitoring we do in spot checks via VNC. Smoothwall and swgfl block everything bad.