I wanted to add the ability to send messages to users on my domain for a few reasons. One of the main reasons is to let them know when the server might be going down etc.
The built in tool that does this is called NET SEND. To use it open a command prompt and type in: net send %computername% %message%. There are many things you can do with this but I’m not going to get into that just yet.
I was successful at it by manually turning on the Messenger service on my workstation. Again command prompt: services.msc. Locate the messenger service and enable it. But I have about 30 users and didn’t want to go to each workstation. So I was on the hunt how to do this using Group Policy from the server. After many blunderings I think I found it, because it does work…
First you want to create a Group policy object and link it to an OU that you will be using the policy for. Give it a friendly name like NET SEND or something. Then here’s the edits to make it go…
***CAUTION***I am a novice at these things so please be careful!
Computer configuration->Administrative Templates->Windows Components->Windows Messenger set the 2 items to ‘disabled’
Then force the group policy to update: (gpupdate /force).
Odly enough someone in IRC tipped me off that sometimes the workstations need to be restarted twice. I’m not sure why that is but it did work.
Now I’m not sure what adverse or unsafe situation this may present. I always make notes of what changes I’ve made, and when. If anyone reading this has any insight to any negative impact this may have by enabling this service please speak up! (I do know messenger in itself could be troublesome if not protected well).
Technorati Tags: Exchange, net send, windows services
May 21st, 2008 at 10:07 am
If I am not mistaken the netsend or turning on the messaging service can cause spaming issues. Some time ago MS had this service turned on by default. Spammers caught a hold of this and used it to send advertisments to whole networks. By blocking this port at your firewall should keep messages origanating outside your network. Now your only two problems will be adware, spyware and trojans using the service. There might be a way to only allow certain users to use this service. But that is at least what I know about it.
May 21st, 2008 at 10:29 am
Hi Jim. I’ve read that about the spam. Thats why it was so difficult to figure how how to turn on the service, being new to AD. I primarily use it to only send messages from the server. Things like ‘Server shutting down in 5 minutes. Please save your work.
So far it hasn’t given me any problems. If it does, I’ll definitely post how it went down, and steps I took to remedy the situation.
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