Windows XP UpTime
For a quick way to see uptime in windows xp you can use the following string
systeminfo | Find “Up Time”
it’s basic but if you need to know up time it’s there to be used!
Platform(s) Affected: Windows XP
Recreate Windows Shares Quickly
Generally this list shouldnt be too big as you should be using ntfs for your permissions (at least i do) for more flexibility and security.
This is however handy to know that net share can do this for you.
http://nerhood.wordpress.com/2007/04/04/quickly-recreate-shares-on-windows-servers/
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Give Windows XP Network Level Authentication Support
I ran into a hitch with all these new fancy Windows 2008 servers where the new group policy is for NLA (Network Level Authentication) but I’m stubborn and I am still on XP and havent gone to Vista.
Thanks to an article at Vidmar i found a solution through one of the people that commented on a similar article written pre SP3 days.
To enable NLA in XP machines; first install XP SP3, then edit the registry settings on the XP client machine to allow NLA
• Configure Network Level Authentication
1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then press ENTER.
2. In the navigation pane, locate and then click the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa
3. In the details pane, right-click Security Packages, and then click Modify.
4. In the Value data box, type tspkg. Leave any data that is specific to other SSPs, and then click OK.
5. In the navigation pane, locate and then click the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders
6. In the details pane, right-click SecurityProviders, and then click Modify.
7. In the Value data box, type credssp.dll. Leave any data that is specific to other SSPs, and then click OK.
8. Exit Registry Editor.
9. Restart the computer.
Now when you run remote desktop you will notice that Network Level Authentication is supported. To check this, right-click the top left hand corner of a remote desktop session and choose, Help > About
Another poster linked to the microsoft post which is much more long whinded.
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Windows 2003 doesnt align partitions on SAN’s automatically
An interesting fact i found out the hard way, windows 2003 wont align partitions on a SAN correctly all the time so to be safe i use diskpart.
Using DiskPart on Windows 2003 to create partitions:
DISKPART
> SEL DISK {x}
> CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY ALIGN=1024
Windows 2008 does this automatically.
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Active Desktop Script Error
This issue is easily solved with the following registry key.
Active Desktop crashes and when you try to restore active desktop you get a script error.
Open Regedit and navigate to the following key.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Desktop\SafeMode\Components
Change the value of DeskHtmlVersion to zero instead of decimal 272
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Windows 2000 Australian Timezone Not Updating
Windows 2000 is no longer supported and as such will not get windows updates that fix things such as timezones.
This means its up to us trusty admins to do this stuff by hand on the one legacy box that for some reason or another still runs the ancient operating system of almost a decade ago.
The registry key below will fix both the timezone issue and as per microsoft instruction, will maintain parity with older timezone areas so its best to run the whole reg change.
Its best to reboot the box afterwards to make sure everything updates correctly.
create a .reg file with the following info(copy and paste below into it) : -
————————————————————————————
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Time Zones\AUS Eastern Standard Time]
“Display”=”(GMT+10:00) Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney”
“Dlt”=“AUS Eastern Daylight Time”
“Std”=“AUS Eastern Standard Time”
“MapID”=“20,21”
“Index”=dword:000000ff
“TZI”=hex:a8,fd,ff,ff,00,00,00,00, c4,ff,ff,ff,00,00,04,00,00,00,01,00,03,00,00,\
00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,0a,00,00,00,01,00, 02,00,00,00,00,00,00,00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Time Zones\AUS Eastern Standard Time\Dynamic DST]
“FirstEntry”=dword:00000x7d7
“LastEntry”=dword:00000x7d8
“2007”=hex:a8,fd,ff,ff,00,00,00,00,c4,ff,ff,ff,00,00,03,00,00,00,05,00,03,00,00,\ 00,00,00,00,00,00,00,0a,00,00,00,05,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,00,00
“2008”=hex:a8,fd,ff,ff,00,00,00,00,c4,ff,ff,ff,00,00,04,00,00,00,01,00,03,00,00,\ 00,00,00,00,00,00,00,0a,00,00,00,01,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,00,00
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windows cannot find 1[7].exe mapped network drive
This was an issue where a virus tried to inject itself on the file server and after removing all traces of the virus itself it managed to inject an autorun.inf into the root of a network share on the file server.
obivously the .exe is a self generated file but what you need to do is dig into the root of the windows share eg. on the server f:/driveshare/ and check for a hidden autorun.inf file.
mine contained the following info.
[AutoRun]
open=7[1].exe
shellexecute=7[1].exe
shell\Auto\command=7[1].exe
as soon as this is removed the issue dissapears, some machine were stubborn however, in one case it took a process of (on the pc itself) removing the mapped drive, mapping to an alternate letter the same path then breaking that share and letting the logon script remap it back. I can only assume a caching issue was holding it there.
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Server 2008 View All running tasks with task sheduler
One of the best things to do is to understand all tasks running and make sure there are no un-necessary ones.
This techrepublic article shows you how to do that easily and efficiently.
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/datacenter/?p=399&tag=nl.e071
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WDS doesnt see dell system partition
We had an issue where by habit we delete the dell system partition because well, we don’t need it.
This creates a problem, the dell partition isn’t detected by WDS during an image deployment (because its formatted FAT) but it still takes the initial partition so the boot.ini that is created will use a 1 however that is taken up by the dell system partition.
Our plan is to not use that partition at all and we haven’t for quite some time, during our new image revision deployment one or two popped up and this solution was a godsend as its easy enough to walk someone through over the phone (since we have a centralised IT support staff and geographically separated offices.
Error Message:
Windows don’t boot because the file
\system32\hal.dll is missing
Please re-install a copy file.
Solution
Boot into WDS as if deploying an image
once logged on hit Shift+F10 to get a Command prompt
DISKPART
SELECT DISK 0
CLEAN
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
EXIT
EXIT
once the Command Prompt closes you can continue the image.
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Exchange SendAs Mailbox Permissions Explained
a good article on how to sort out exchange send as permissions thanks to Microsoft and this link http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998291(EXCHG.80).aspx
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XP or Vista 2008 Antivirus
a great site link with info on how to remove a very annoying piece of av software from XP or Vista.
http://www.xp-vista.com/spyware-removal/xp-antivirus-2008-removal-instructions-xp-antivirus-2008
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Disable Internet Connection Wizard Group Policy
For those that may be looking to disable their IE browsers from running the silly connection wizard on startup i’ve got the Group Policy link, as well as the technet article should you need to know more.
Group Policy setting: Disable Internet Connection Wizard
This Group Policy setting is in User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Internet Explorer. It affects administrators as well as users.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb490614(TechNet.10).aspx
Group Policy Background Refresh Time
When going through your policies you may want to re-evaluate the rate of group policy refreshes.
I find it useful to have them refreshing in the background but at the same time you don’t want them doing it to often, especially if you have WAN links with a number of users pulling across that link or anything like that.
The Technet Article is linked below, the useful links i required for my policies were as follows:
Computer Refresh Interval
Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\Group Policy
User Refresh Interval
User Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\Group Policy
Customize The System Properties Information
Here is some handy info I lashed off pietschsoft to get our company info into system properties for the new SOE we are building.
Show Computer Manufacturer and Support Information (All Windows)
This tip lets you customize the System Properties page in Control Panel. This is especially useful if you run a computer store and want your customers to be reminded where they bought their PC and where to get technical support.
To add the manufacturer and support information you need to create two new files in the Windows system directly, normally “C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM” for Windows 95, 98 and Me and “C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32” for Windows NT and 2000.
The first file is a text file called “OEMINFO.INI”. To create the file open notepad and copy the template below, make any changes and save the file in the System directory.
OEMINFO.INI Template
[General]
Manufacturer=Your Company, Inc.
Model=Your Computer Model
SupportURL=http://your.support.site/
LocalFile=c:\your\local\support\file.htm
[Support Information]
Line1=first line
Line2=second line
Line3=third line
Line4=fourth line
...
LineN=nth line
; Create as many lines as you need by incrementing the Line number
The other file you need to create is a logo file. This is a standard Windows bitmap file (172 x 172 pixels), saved as “OEMLOGO.BMP” in the Windows System directory.
Once you have created both these files open System Properties from Control Panel and your company information and logo will be displayed. The details you entered in the [Support Information] section will show up when you click on the Support Information button.
Microsoft Desktop Search AddOns
So Microsoft Downloads gave me some interesting links this morning, addons to desktop search that actually look half useful(makes me wonder why they aren’t just part of the search to begin with).
Desktop Search Add-ins
Outlook Saved Mail
This one looks good, a brief quote from the download page.
“This iFilter allows you to perform a search on all elements of your MSG (.MSG) files including Message Body; Subject; From; From Name; From Address; To Name; To Address; CC Name; CC Address; Doc Title Prefix; Sent Date; Received Date; Primary Date; Conversation ID; Attachment Names and will indicate if an attachment is present within the .MSG. Additionally, content within attachments are indexed and searched.”
MS Networks Search
However great this sounds I’m wary of the bandwidth and load on fileservers by having this installed, with no central management you could accidentally DOS your own file servers. Not to mention gig to the edge, wan based file servers and vpn users will all suffer if this just treats servers as local resources.
IE History Search
I personally don’t use IE for my primary browsing so this addon doesn’t appeal to me, it may be up your alley though so here’s the link.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=EA7F95D9-69AE-4639-9D76-A44F51109053&displaylang=en