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Welcome to WinMonitor20 by EasyWinTools.com

 

WinMonitor20 is a Monitoring and Alerting tool for up to 20 Windows hosts. 

It reads its configuration from a single file WinMonitor20.ini each time it runs.

It is designed to be run every 5 minutes using Task Scheduler. 

It will Automatically monitor all Logical Volumes and all Auto-Start services.

Additional services can be included or excluded.

Disk Space thresholds breaches and Stopped services will generate email alerts to recipients of your choice. 

Duplicate alerts areautomatically suppressed until the alert condition is repaired.

All activity is logged.

All configuration is very clear and easy using a single file.

 

 

This product is designed to be Easy-to-use and Reliable, so just follow the steps below.

 

 

The general Process of using WinMonitor20 is:

 

 

The procedural steps to implemented this process are detailed below:

 

 

Download WinMonitor20.zip
   

Simply Unzip WinMonitor20.zip into any directory you choose on a Windows Host. There are two resulting files: WinMonitor20.exe and WinMonitor20.ini

The .exe file does the work, and the .ini file contains the configuration that you will input in the next step. The .exe and the .ini files need to be in the same directory as each other.

 

WinMonitor20.exe checks its configuration each time it runs by reading the WinMonitor20.ini file.

Open the WinMonitor20.ini file using Notepad.exe, or any suitable text editor.

The format of the file requires the syntax of:

property = value

i.e:

Server1 = NYFileSrv01

EmailAlertingEnabled = true

etc

The information in WinMonitor20.ini is not case sensitive. 

i.e ServeR1 = NyFilE01 is the same as server1 = nyfile01

Spaces around the '=' sign are optional.

i.e server1 = nyfile01 is the same as server1=nyfile01

 

The use of quotes around values is not required.

i.e server1 = nyfile01,+Indexing Service is the same as server1 = nyfile01,+"Indexing Service"

 

 

 

Add up to 20 computers to monitor. These can be any of fully qualified names, Netbios names, or IP addresses, as long as the entry is resolveable from the host where you have  installed WinMonitor20. You can test this by pinging the host from the commandline.

 

 

WinMonitor by default monitors all AUTO-START services, and will alert when they are not running.

If you want to also monitor MANUAL-START services, just list them after the hostname, preceeded by a + symbol. Separate multiple entries by commas.

i.e server1 = nyfile01,+Indexing Service

server2 = wgfile01,+HTTP SSL,+NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing

 

If you want to EXCLUDE some services from generating alerts, just add the service name after hostname, preceeded by the - symbol. Separate multiple entries by commas.

i.e server1 = nyfile01,-World Wide Web Publishing

server2 = wgfile02,-Smart Card,-System Restore Service

 

You can add both types of entry to the same line if you like, as long as the hostname, and each servicename is separated by a comma, and each service has either a + symbol to include it, or a  - symbol to exclude it.

i.e server2 = wgfile01,+HTTP SSL,+NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing,-Smart Card,-System Restore Service

 

 

 

4.a By Default ALL Logical Volumes each monitored host are checked for their percentage full value.

 

The default PercentFull setting for disk space alerting is 90%. You can set this to any value you wish by editing the DiskSpacePercentFullThreshold setting.

i.e DiskSpacePercentFullThreshold = 70

 

It is possible to disable all disk space alerts by setting DiskSpacePercentFullThreshold value to any number greater than 100.

i.e DiskSpacePercentFullThreshold = 101

 

5.a By Default, emailing alerting is ENABLED as defined by this setting:

EmailAlertingEnabled = true

5.b To disable Email alerts, set the value to false

i.e EmailAlertingEnabled = false

Note. If you set EmailAlertingEnabled = false, an entry will be written to the log file each time it runs, to remind you of this setting. 

 

It is possible for WinMonitor to generate email alerts when an alert condition is detected as being repaired. To do this set EmailAlertWhenRepaired = true

Note: The default setting is EmailAlertWhenRepaired = false. 

 

Email alerting is via CDO, and requires a smtp relay host. This could be an exchange server, ISP mail server, Unix mail server, or any other mail relay host that you have permission to use. Once you have identified an appropriate host, specify the name of it in the EmailServer field.

i.e EmailServer = smtp.abcwidgets.com

 

You must define an email address that the mail server will treat as the Sender address. This could be a valid email address within your organization, or an arbitrary one designed to identify the server entity as being a Monitoring product. 

i.e EmailSenderAddress = winmonitor20@abcwidgets.com

 

The email recipient(s) defines where all email alerts from WinMonitor will be sent. It can be a single or multiple email address(s), as long as the list is comma separated, and all addresses are valid, and the account used to run WinMonitor has permission to relay to the recipient domains.

example 1: EmailRecipientList = sysadmin@abcwidgets.com

example 2: EmailRecipientList = sysadmin@abcwidgets.com,sysadminBob@abcwidgets.com

example 3: EmailRecipientList = sysadmin@abcwidgets.com,helpdesk@abcwidgets.com,director@abdwidgets.com

 

 

 

All activity is logged to one or both of ThisScan-WinMonitor20.log and AllScans-WinMonitor20.log. The file ThisScan-WinMonitor20.log includes only the results from the current execution of WinMonitor20.exe, which is overwritten at the next scan. The file AllScans-WinMonitor20.log includes all scan results, and new scan data is appended. Whether either log file is updated each time WinMonitor20 runs depends upon these settings in the WinMonitor20.ini file:

CurrentScanLogEnabled = true

ArchiveScanLogEnabled = true

 

By Default, both logs are enabled. To disable either log, set the value to be false.

 

WinMonitor20.exe is designed to be scheduled via any windows scheduling tool. Security configuration should allow the operation of WinMonitor as detailed below.

 

The account used to run WinMonitor20.exe should have administrative permission on all hosts you intend to monitor, as this is the quickest and easiest method of configuration. The permission required can be reduced, as long as the account has WMI read permission for the root\cimv2 namespace. 

Also required would be permission to relay email alerts via the server specified for the EmailServer value in the .ini file. The use of a dedicated domain account is recommended. Password expiry settings should be aligned with your organization standards.

 

If the account you use for scheduling WinMonitor is a domain account with appropriate permissions as defined above, then WinMonitor will be able to monitor

all specified hosts that are part of the same or trusted domains, as the domain account. 

You may have hosts that require monitoring, but that do not share the same domain membership as your chosen WinMonitor Scheduling account. In this case, if you create a local account on these 'non-trusted' hosts, which has the same name and password as your Domain WinMonitor scheduling account, then pass-through authentication will allow monitoring of all your trusted, and non-trusted hosts. Any permission errors are logged.

 

As WinMonitor20 performs WMI queries, it uses RPC ports. As such, many firewall administrators would not be comfortable opening these ports to a DMZ through a firewall. If you are the firewall administrator, you may use your own skill and judgement to implement a firewall rule solution specific to WinMonitor. If this is not possible, an option to monitor DMZ hosts would be use use another instance of WinMonitor20, WinMonitor10, or WinMonitor5 and run this within the DMZ environment.

In this way only one port from the DMZ to the mail server would be required to allow alerts outbound on TCP port 25.  The pricing of WinMonitor products has been specifically kept very low in order to make this a viable solution. Please check http://www.easywintools.com for pricing information.

 

 

WinMonitor is designed to be scheduled on a Windows Host using Task Scheduler. It could however be scheduled via any windows scheduling tool. The Executable file is the one you need to specify in the schedule. The .exe file then looks to it's local directory for the .ini file, therefore, ensure that the working directory is specified as the directory that contains the .exe and .ini files.

Example Configuration for Task Scheduler is shown below, using the example directory of D:\tools\WinMonitor20\

 

Run D:\tools\WinMonitor20\WinMonitor20.exe

Start In D:\tools\WinMonitor20

Run as ABCWIDGETS\svcWINMON

Schedule Task Daily

Start Time 12:00 am

Every 1 day

Repeat Task Every 5 Minutes

Until 12:59pm

 

Note: To avoid a new instance of WinMonitor being started before the previous one has completed scanning all hosts listed in the .ini file, a feature has been implemented to prevent this scenario. Each time WinMonitor20.exe runs, a flag file is created, which indicates that the executable is currently running. The name of this WinMonitor20.running, and it is automatically deleted each time WinMonitor finishes its scan. If this file still exists when the next scheduled run is initiated WinMonitor will detect this situation, and exit. Once the current scan is complete, the .running file is deleted, and the next scan will run as scheduled. In this way

WinMonitor will automatically 'back-off' from a resouce contention situation that might be brought about by a too-frequent scheduling situation.

 

Once you have installed, configured and tested, you will have hopefully found the meets your monitoring requirements and wish to unlock the full feature, namely the full detail in the email alerts. By Visting http://www.easywintools.com you can add the product to your cart, purchase, then you will receive your individual registration code to activate your already installed product. If you run WinMonitor20.exe from the commandline using the /Register switch, two dialog boxes will appear asking for your CustomerName and Registration Code. Type each exactly as they appear in your purchased confirmation email, and the registration process will complete, and full alert details will now be included in your email alerts.

i.e 

CMD [ENTER]

D:\tools\WinMonitor20\WinMonitor20.exe /Register [Enter]

ABC Widgets Ltd [Enter]

6D271 [Enter]

 

 

If you experience problems in the configuration or execution of WinMonitor20.exe, follow these steps:

1. Re-read each step in this Readme.txt file, checking your implementation matches.

2. Run WinMonitor.exe manually checking the results in either Log file.

3. Ensure the account you are testing with has the appropriate permission on the hosts you are monitoring.

4. If you need further assistance, please contact EasyWinTools support by email as listed below.

 

EasyWinTools are happy to assist, and we want our products to make your job easier. If you need support for WinMonitor20 please contact us by visiting http://www.easywintools.com