Python Programming On Win32

Chapter 16. Windows NT Administration

Administering Windows NT networks is an onerous task, requiring a combination of technical expertise to set up and maintain the machines, and also extreme patience when performing the laborious manual task of dealing with accounts, user groups, and other details. Scripting languages such as Python can help automate this process, leaving the administrator to focus on the important tasks.

This chapter shows how Python can access the Windows NT functionality often sought by an NT administrator. We show how to deal with user accounts, user groups, and information about the servers on the network, and demonstrate how a Windows NT machine can be rebooted programmatically from a remote machine. In addition to the topics discussed in this chapter, you should see Chapter 18, for a description of how to use the Windows NT Event Log and Performance Monitor from Python programs. Finally, if you have an existing command-line tool that provides administration functionality Python doesn’t, remember that you can still execute command-line tools from within Python to help complement the tools it does have. See Chapter 17, for more details on executing external programs.

All examples in this chapter assume you are running on a Windows NT machine. Many of these examples also will require some degree of administrator access; for example, creating a new user or initiating a server restart all require differing levels of access. If you are in doubt, please see your ...