Personal IT Experiences

Turn on or off your wireless LAN card from a command line or batch file

Scott — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:53:24 +0000

My trusty Dell C640 laptop with Windows XP doesn’t have a built-in function key sequence for disabling the wireless LAN card.

On a Intel support forum, I ran across this thread and I followed the suggestions for installing the Microsoft DevCon utility and launching an on or off batch file. I’m now using an on and off batch file in conjunction with the free version of the Keybreeze utility

Establish Configuration Logging in Presentation Server 4.5

Scott — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 14:46:33 +0000

Record and report all Presentation Server configuration changes. Track changes made to the Presentation Server farm, by whom and at what time to simplify and accelerate troubleshooting. Configuration Logging is invaluable for auditing and ensuring accountability when multiple administrators are maintaining Presentation Server.

A very nice how-to article provided at alsolorzano.com

Microsoft Group Policy Diagnostic Best Practice Analyzer (GPDBPA)

Scott — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 02:33:02 +0000

The GPDBPA tool is a stand-alone program that an administrator can run
from a Windows Server 2003-based system or from a Windows XP-based
system. You can use the tool to do the following:

•	Perform a proactive health check on the Group Policy environment to detect common configuration errors that frequently generate support incidents.
•	Collect diagnostic information and initial data from an environment, and then automate some analysis of that data.
•	Obtain a snapshot of the Group Policy configuration for archiving. This data may be a useful reference if a future problem occurs.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940122

To Add or Remove Citrix Presentation Server 4.5 Components

Scott — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:04:35 +0000

From the Start button, select -> Settings -> Control Panel

Select the -> Add or Remove Programs applet

Fromthe list of Currently install programs: click once on Citrix Presentation Server For Windows and click the -> Change button.

Make the changes you need.

FireFox + ScribeFire Add-on = Killer Off-line Blog Editing

Scott — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 02:22:45 +0000

For simple off-line blog editing, from either a Mac or Windows platform, I really like the simplicity and efficiency of the ScribeFire add-on for the FireFox browser. I’ve tried Microsoft’s Live Writer beta on Windows and Ecto on the Macintosh.

Completed Blog Move To A Small Orange Hosting

Scott — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 02:13:41 +0000

A very clean export from Wordpress.com and import to wordpress 2.2.2 blog hosted on A Small Orange.

What Microsoft Uses For Vista Anti-Virus

ptsnorth — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:02:59 +0000

Meaningless technical tidbit, but if Computer Associates (CA) is good enough for Microsoft’s coders, why not the rest of us? Mark Russinovich in a recent blog posting.

iTunes Authorization FAQ

ptsnorth — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 17:44:51 +0000

Songs purchased on the iTunes Store can be copied to an unlimited number of computers. However, only five computers at a time can play your iTunes DRM-protected music*.

You can enable a computer to play your purchased music by authorizing it. You can remove a computer from the authorization list by deauthorizing it. Deauthorizing your computer does not erase your music files; it simply prevents your purchased music from playing until you authorize that computer again.

Apple - Support - iTunes Store - Authorization FAQ

Citrix PS 4.5 Enterprise — Error 10001

ptsnorth — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 22:03:55 +0000

It turns out my encounter with this error was due to a “bad” install of .NET 2.0. I could not perform a security update of .NET 2.0. I ignored the security update error and proceeded to perform the Citrix PS 4.5 install. Near the end of the Citrix server component installation, the installer began uninstalling all of the PS 4.5 server software components. The Citrix error returned after the uninstall was 10001.

In my earlier blog post I described how I uninstalled and reinstalled .NET 2.0 (a requirement for PS 4.5). After I reinstalled and patched .NET 2.0 I was able to perform a satisfactory PS 4.5 server installation.

Removing .NET Framework With 3rd Party Utility

ptsnorth — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 21:56:46 +0000

Windows 2003 Enterprise R2 SP2. When patching the server’s .NET 2.0 for security update – encountered an error message. Rebooted and attempted to patch once again – same error. Tried to uninstall .NET 2.0 from the Add/remove control panel applet. Could not uninstall – another error message.

Found this link (read Daniel’s reply) and then downloaded the utility from this link. The utility performed the “cleanup” after I selected .Net 2.0 from the pull down list. Other .NET versions listed in the utility were 1.1, 2.0. 3.0 and 3.5.

After the cleanup, reboot the server, launch Windowsupdate.microsoft.com and download and reinstall the .NET 2.0 framework. After the install, reboot. Don’t forget to obtain the .NET 2.0 security update after the reboot and then reboot once again for good measure.

Obtaining Previous Versions Of Acrobat Reader

ptsnorth — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 12:36:09 +0000

Looking for older versions of the free Acrobat Reader (7.x and 8.0)? Begin here and walk the directory tree to find the version you want:

ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/win/8.x/8.0/enu

Evaluating A New Phone Service Provider

ptsnorth — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 13:32:32 +0000

AT&T completed their assimilation of Bellsouth, my home phone service provider for these past 20 years.

My subscriber fees are now increasing. $1.00 a month. Not a big deal but telephone service these days is a commodity and AT&T is still pricing local phone service like they priced their long distance services back in the 1970’s.

I have the AT&T Complete Choice plan and pay additional fees for not listing in the phone directory and privacy director.

With the Complete Choice plan, optional services, Government Mandated charges (taxes) and Surcharges, my subscription phone service is $55 - $56 month. Long distance calls are billed in addition.

I could opt for the $16 month basic service from AT&T, but that includes no caller ID and I have a feeling AT&T would sell my name and number to every tele-marketer that beat a path to their corporate door. Not to mention having to continue paying AT&T surcharges like the $6.50 “FCC Authorized Charge for Network Access”.

With the latest AT&T increase, I decided to look around for other options. Comcast is my business-class ISP provider and it offer similar phone services for $30 per month for 6 months and then increases the fee to $40 thereafter. Vonage is not likely to survive in the long run, Sunrocket has gone belly up, Skype struggled for 2+ days before they solved their “algorithm outage” and Packet8 doesn’t have a great customer service reputation.

The WhichVOIP web site has accumulated user opinions for some of the various VOIP providers. I’ve decided to try out the VoicePulse Local Unlimited +200 service. $15 month (not sure what the Government Mandated charges will be) brings a lot of features (like filters for scraping off tele-marketers and voicemail services) compared to the $56 equivalent features from AT&T. Yes I know that when the power goes out, I won’t get service. So what? Nearly everyone has a cell phone these days. I carry a BlackBerry wherever I go and family members carry Sprint cell phones.

We’ll see how long it takes for delivery of the ATA device and getting the service setup. With a 30 day money back guarantee this is worth a try.

Mac OS X - Encrypt Private Files and Folders

ptsnorth — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 16:22:17 +0000

Windows and Linux users have a third party solution for creating and mounting virtual encrypted disks with the utility TrueCrypt. While the developers of TrueCrypt indicate a planned Mac OSX version, it doesn’t appear they’re testing one right now.

As the owner of a spanking new 24″ iMac, I wondered what other encryption utilities were available for the Mac. Guess what? You don’t need a third party utility - you have the ability right now to create encrypted disk images using the OS’s built in utility Disk Utility. Matt at Mac OS X Tips has an excellent step-by-step process.

Encrypt and Hide your Private Files | Finder | Mac OS X Tips

Recovering Missing Volumes After Restoring A Ghost Disk Image

ptsnorth — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 03:42:14 +0000

Experienced this problem with HP DL360 servers w/ 2-72GB disks, RAID 1.

After restoring a Windows 2003 DISK image (GHOST image) to the server, able to boot and work with drive C:. Unable to see and access drives E: and F: also thought to have been restored in the DISK image.

Solved by using DiskPart this way:

At a command prompt, type Diskpart
Type List Volumes
Missing volumes are seen, but they don’t show labels or drive letter assignment
Type Select Volume 2
Type Assign
You’ll see an affirmative message.
Type List Volumes
Does the drive letter appear along with a volume label? Good.
Type Select Volume 3
Type Assign
You’ll see an affirmative message.
Type List Volumes
All drive letters appear with their volume labels?
Type exit and close the command prompt.
Reboot the server to verify drive letters appear normally.

List Of Windows Variables For Scripting With

ptsnorth — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 17:54:19 +0000

%HOMESHARE%
%ERRORLEVEL%
%APPDATA%
%ALLUSERSPROFILE%

You can use the command shell to create and edit batch files (also called scripts) to automate routine tasks. For example, you can use scripts to automate the management of user accounts or nightly backups. You can also use the Windows Script Host, CScript.exe, to run more sophisticated scripts in the command shell. You can perform operations more efficiently by using batch files than you can by using the user interface. Batch files accept all commands that are available at the command line. For more information about batch files and scripting, see Using batch files

Microsoft Command Shell Overview

Extract Individual Files From An .MSI Installer File

ptsnorth — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 17:29:23 +0000

Works from a command prompt. It extracts files and maintains their target directory structure just like a new install.

Less MSIerables Utility

Active Directory Group Policy (GPO) Backup, Restore, Copy and Import

ptsnorth — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 16:37:03 +0000

Backing up a GPO copies the data in the GPO to the file system. The backup function also serves as the export capability for GPOs. A GPO backup can be used to restore the GPO to the backed-up state, or to import the settings in the backup to another GPO.

Using the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) in a Windows Server 2003 Active Directory Environment

Obtain Microsoft Supported Hotfixes Without A Phone Call

ptsnorth — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 13:38:55 +0000

Need a “supported hotfix is available…” fix that isn’t generally available on the technet web site? Are you dreading having to call and navigate the Microsoft call prompter (or HP enterprise support) to obtain a supported hotfix? Submit a simple web form to Microsoft and receive a link to the download.

Spat’s WebLog (Steve Patrick) : Get a hotfix — without having to call MS…

Prevent .DS_Store file creation on network volumes

ptsnorth — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 18:43:22 +0000

Article explains how to prevent OS X from creating new .DS_Store files when opening folders on remote volumes mounted using SMB/CIFS, AFP, NFS, and WebDAV. The creation of .DS_Store files (and more so, ._AppleDouble files which are not covered in this hint) is frequently the source of complaints against Mac users, who often leave a trail of these files scattered throughout the file system when “visiting” a Windows computer. Even with this hint in place, the .DS_Store files will continue to be created on local Mac volumes (which is a good thing).

To prevent the creation of these files, open the Terminal and type:

defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true

It may be necessary to log out and back in, or even to restart the computer (which is what the article states), for the change to take effect.

macosxhints.com - Prevent .DS_Store file creation on network volumes

A New AD Domain Unjoin Utility

ptsnorth — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 14:20:29 +0000

It will unjoin a machine from a Windows domain and not even start to ask the domain for permission or even tell it it did so, zip, out of the domain, have a nice day. You will find that this will likely be faster than NETDOM for any unjoin ops. It allows you to specify connection creds and will also allow you to specify a reboot.

New Utility - Unjoin V1.1.0

Microsoft Solution Accelerators

ptsnorth — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 21:36:58 +0000

Prescriptive guidance and automation for cross-product integration
Proven tools and content so you can plan, build, deploy, and operate with confidence

Solution Accelerators

Shopping For New Vista PC Hardware?

ptsnorth — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 14:49:36 +0000

Solid “core” recommendations when shopping for new desktop PC hardware.

What I look for in a Vista PC | Ed Bott’s Windows Expertise |

The Windows Vista Master Driver List

ptsnorth — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 14:42:50 +0000

Drivers for common hardware types in a single location.

The Vista Master Driver List | Ed Bott’s Windows Expertise |

Join Two Text Files Together From A Command Prompt

ptsnorth — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 21:00:50 +0000

No third party utilities required.

Merge two file names ( may.csv and may1.csv ) into a new file called may2.csv, use the following from a command window:

copy/b may.csv +may1.csv may2.csv

How do I merge or join files from the command line?

Hardware Requirements for SQL Server 2005 Express

ptsnorth — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 14:34:00 +0000

Processor — A minimum of a 600-MHz processor is required and a 1-GHz processor is recommended.
RAM — A minimum of 256 MB of RAM is required and 512 MB of RAM is recommended.
Disk Space — A minimum of 170 MB of free disk space is required, with the Microsoft .NET Framework V2.0 as a prerequisite.

Upgrading MSDE 2000 to SQL Server 2005 Express

Active Directory Explorer

ptsnorth — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 16:02:36 +0000

Active Directory Explorer AD Explorer is an advanced Active Directory AD viewer and editor. You can use AD Explorer to easily navigate an AD database, define favorite locations, view object properties and attributes without having to open dialog boxes, edit permissions, view an objects schema, and execute sophisticated searches that you can save and re-execute.

AD Explorer also includes the ability to save snapshots of an AD database for off-line viewing and comparisons. When you load a saved snapshot, you can navigate and explorer it as you would a live database. If you have two snapshots of an AD database you can use AD Explorers comparison functionality to see what objects, attributes and security permissions changed between them.

AD Explorer works on Windows 2000 and higher.

Active Directory Explorer v1.0

Mount A Stored DVD Image From Your Hard Drive

ptsnorth — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 11:59:32 +0000

Alcohol 52 is emulation software allowing users to play CDs DVDs without the need for the physical disc. Notebook users and PC Game players would benefit the most from Alcohol 52%. It supports 25 plus languages and can handle up to 6 virtual CD DVD-ROM drives, all at once. The reading speed of a virtual CD-ROM is 200X.

Example use: Trying to install the Windows Vista Automated Installation Kit to access the Windows PE utilities. This WAIK download saved to a hard disk is stored as vista_6000.16386.061101-2205-LRMAIK_EN.img (note the .img file extension). Mount the WAIK image via the Alcohol 52 interface.

Alcohol 52% Free Edition

Windows XP - Fat32 Windows Partition Size

ptsnorth — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 03:38:21 +0000

Have a 40GB external USB drive you’re trying to use with Ghost? If you format the external drive with the XP formatting tool, the maximum size XP will format it to is 32 GB. To format the drive to a full 40 GB, use Windows 98 or ME formatting tools — yes that means booting into one of those operating systems.

From a XP command prompt type:

format X:/fs:fat32

Retaining NTFS Permission When Moving User Folders To New Drive Share

ptsnorth — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 20:58:39 +0000

Moving a large group of terminal server user home folders from one clustered hard drive share to another on a SAN. If you try to manually copy or “move” the home folders, the NTFS permissions on the new home folders are not retained and users are not able to access their directories on the new hard drive share properly.

Solved by:
Creating a backup of the original home directories using ntbackup.exe and then restoring them on the new hard drive share. The original NTFS permissions are retained for all files and folders.

After restoring the home folders to the new location, return to the old home drive share and delete the previous home folders.

If you have difficulty deleting folders and files from the old home drive share because of errors like this “Cannot delete file: Access is denied”, then use a utility like Unlocker. It’s a free delete utility and works quite well.

Don’t forget to update the terminal server home folder location in each user’s profile. Use ADModify.net for bulk account changes like this.

Making Bulk Changes To Active Directory Users With ADModify.NET

ptsnorth — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 16:16:37 +0000

This article provides a step-by-step guide to making bulk changes to users in Active Directory using the ADModify.NET tool.

Making bulk changes to Active Directory users with ADModify.NET