!!! WARNING:  IT Systems Administrator blasphemy ahead !!!  Actually, here it is right here:  I know that NetDiag is a staple tool for systems administrators but I’ve never been a big consumer of the tool and that’s mostly because I just don’t care for it.  There is some great functionality in the tool but a lot of it can be found in other tools without all of the excess effort and output.  The other thing is that there are some limitations and known issues which often misdirects administrator’s focus in troubleshooting.  For escalation support data collection (like Microsoft’s CSS), it can be very helpful, but for day-to-day administration, I personally think it’s just too much.

Still, there’s a feature of NetDiag that I learned about not long ago that I can’t deny is pretty cool.  Ever had a DC that just wasn’t registering it’s records like you know it should?  Maybe you’ve even cycled the NETLOGON service and the record still just isn’t registering.  When you open the NETLOGON.DNS file on the DC, you see that it should be registering all of the correct records but still, for whatever reason, it isn’t; and you need it to now!

So, here’s where NetDiag comes in.  If the NETLOGON.DNS file is complete with all of the expected records (which it should be unless you’re waiting on replication or process completion), running NetDiag /fix will actually register all missing records on your behalf.

I know it’s a simple functionality but as any system administrator knows, a simple problem like name (or service) resolution can be the source of major outages and dissatisfaction.  So that’s pretty awesome, huh?  Well, for someone who doesn’t care much for NetDiag, I thought it was pretty cool when I was told about it.