Nov 30 2009 4:03PM GMT

Check your IT environment health using this FREE Microsoft tool

Troy Tate Profile: Troy Tate

Microsoft has an excellent free tool for checking the health of your IT environment in small to medium size networks (up to 20 servers and 500 clients). This tool will scan the environment and report on health items such as:

Network connectivity between servers
Active Directory health – sites, subnets, replication
File replication – sysvol issues
DNS health
Network adapter configuration
Domain controller health
Network Time Protocol (NTP)
Exchange server configuration
Event log entries

The tool can be found on the Microsoft Downloads website. It is a very simple tool to install and run. The process goes something like this.

Download and install the Microsoft IT Environment Health Scanner. The .NET Framework v2.0 is required for installation and operation. Once the installation is completed, click on the icon created on the desktop or in the Start Menu.

Icon for Microsoft IT Environment Health Scanner

The application will begin collecting user provided network information prior to beginning the scan. The application welcome screen appears.

Welcome screen

The application then will want to apply any necessary and recent updates.

Update processing

The next step in the wizard asks for the local firewall IP address information.

Firewall IP address information

The application then asks for the subnet that you want scanned. In this case, it found the local subnet on my computer and automatically entered the appropriate information.

Subnet to scan

Start the scan and let it run.

Begin the scan

Domain administrator credentials will need to be entered to gain access to secured areas of the domain.

Enter Domain Administrator credentials

The scan will go through several areas to check the health of the environment.

Running the scan

I am unable to show you a completed scan. I do not have access to the forest root of my domain and was unable to run the tool in the child domain. However, if you have a small environment and can run this tool, it looks like an excellent resource to gain some insight into the environment and spot potential problem issues. Let me and and other ITKE readers know if you use this application. What results did you get? Did anything surprise you? What steps did you take based on the scan results? What did the follow-up scan show?

Thanks for reading & let’s continue to be good network citizens!