If you ever experience an issue where clients don’t get correct IP addresses or your PXE Service might not work or respond, then before knocking on the Network guy’s door, you might want to run the RogueChecker utility. The RogueChecker utility is a nice little FREE tool that can help detecting rogue (misconfigured or unauthorized) DHCP servers in your network.

To get the tool reporting a rogue server I enabled both the Microsoft DHCP server and the integrated DHCP Service on our Wireless Access point. 

The tool provides the following features:

• The tool can be run one time or can be scheduled to run at specified interval.
• Can be run on a specified interface by selecting one of the discovered interfaces.
• Retrieves all the authorized DHCP servers in the forest and displays them.
• Ability to validate (not Authorize in AD) a DHCP server which is not rogue and persist this information
• Minimize the tool, which makes it invisible. A tray icon will be present which would display the status.

The tool can be downloaded from the Microsoft Windows DHCP Team Blog.

Just found a nice Visio Stencil for App-V on Kirx.org. Well done ! Get the stencil from kirx.org

I got a bit confused by all the different SQL Server 2008 Express downloads that exist, so spend a little time in getting some insight. If you want to download SQL Server 2008 Express you have the following options:

Then I recommend reading the following blog posts. What’s up with SQL Server 2008 Express editions provides an overview of the supported feature of each distribution. The SQL Express 2008 family is getting bigger gives a good insight what the different installation packages do contain.

Just found another nice FREE Utility. As the name says SoftPerfect Network Scanner allows you to scan your network and allows you to find any IP, NetBIOS or SNMP enabled devices. The tool also supports Remote WMI, Registry and Service access that can be customized to your own needs.

The Tool does not require installation. Download SoftPerfect Network Scanner from here

I had thought that by now this is something everybody knows, but unfortunately that is not the case, so that is why I post this one today.

By default, Windows Internet Explorer 7 and earlier versions limit the number of files that you can download at one time to two. Windows Internet Explorer 8 limits the number of files that you can download at one time to six. More details here

This week Jeremy Moskowitz wrote about a Vista/Win7 GPO bug in his weekly newsletter you should know about if you are transitioning to Windows 7.

If you are a systems administrator dealing with Group Policies I strongly recommend to sign-up to Jeremy’s Newsletter.

If you use Vista as your GP management station, and are transitioning to Windows 7 policy definitions, be careful of this bug !

During an Application Compatibility webcast I attended recently the presenter mentioned the Fiddler Tool. There are many network traffic monitoring Tools out there, but if you are just after capturing HTTP traffic, this one should get your attention.

Fiddler is a Web Debugging Proxy which logs all HTTP(S) traffic between your computer and the Internet. Fiddler allows you to inspect all HTTP(S) traffic, set breakpoints, and "fiddle" with incoming or outgoing data

Fiddler is FREE and can be downloaded from here and some demonstration videos here

When installing Applications or operating system hotfixes the installation process sometimes requires replacing or deleting files that are in use, if that is the case these files can only be replaced or deleted during the next system reboot.

When you plan to install multiple applications in a row you can run into the situation where an application cannot be installed due to a pending FileRename operation from a previous application installation. So if you plan to install several applications in a row without a reboot, it’s highly recommended to check if a given application does actually require a reboot or not. If you launch the installation process manually you will most likely get a “Reboot required” prompt at the end of the installation. But if you run your installation packages in silent mode with the REBOOT=ReallySuppress option you will not notice if a reboot is required or not.

The information for Pending FileRename Operations is stored within the Windows Registry under:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\ under the key PendingFileRenameOperations if this key does not exist there are no Pending FileRename Operations, if the key does exist the key value data contains the files that need to be replaced or deleted.

Mark Russinovich provides two useful utilities that deal with Pending FileRename Operations PendMoves.exe and MoveFile.exe. PendMoves.exe allows you to list any pending filemoves and FileMove.exe allows you to configure the system to replace or delete a file during the next system reboot. The tools can be downloaded from here and for more information you might also want to read this article. For those that are looking for a script based solution have a look at the WMI script from Tom Mills which does the same as PendMoves.exe.

Other interesting resources describing Pending FileRename Operations are:
Microsoft TechNet: A Restart from a Previous Installation is Pending
Description of the new features in the package installer for Windows software updates

Yesterday evening I was reading Justin Rodino’s blog post “Dear Adobe, I Don’t Want Your Stupid Desktop Icon (nor your software anymore)” where he mentions the Foxit Reader which is an alternative PDF Reader.

Since the Adobe Reader has become the de facto standard for reading PDF files, most people don’t spend any thoughts on replacing it by another software product.  Personally I don’t have much of an issue with the desktop shortcut it creates (Justin does..), but I have always been wondering why the Adobe Reader has such a large footprint. A fresh install of the Adobe Reader 9.03 takes approx. 213 MB, when removing the Setup Files which are left in the application installation folder, the Reader still consumes 99 MB. To install Adobe Reader you must first download the Adobe Reader installer which is 27 MB.

To Install the Foxit Reader you must download the Setup package which is only 5.3 MB and once installed the Foxit Reader only uses 9.6 MB. In all fairness I did not look at the functionality differences of the two tools, well possible that the Adobe Reader does provide more functionality and therefore requires a larger footprint. However most of us use the Adobe Reader just to read PDF files and that is what the Foxit Reader allows you to do as well, with just a much smaller application footprint.

The Foxit Reader can be downloaded from here and a feature overview can be found here. The Foxit Reader is available for Windows, Linux, and Windows Mobile.

When opening the “Change Desktop Background” Control Panel Windows by default uses the “Windows Desktop Backgrounds” picture location which is the content stored under C:\Windows\Web\Wallpaper

In addition to the Windows Desktop Backgrounds location Windows also let you choose a Wallpaper from other locations such as the Picture Library, Top Rated Photos, Solid Colors or you can simply browse and select a Wallpaper that is stored anywhere on your computer.

But there is another option, that I figured out today and wanted to share with you. To demonstrate this I have created the following folders and copied a wallpaper file in each of the folders.

C:\Users\Alex\Documents\Wallpapers\Snowboard
C:\DATA\Wallpapers\The Netherlands\Amsterdam

Now we have to tell Windows that we want to include these 2 folders into the “Windows Desktop Backgrounds” listing. To do that, we have to modify the Windows Registry. Open the Registry Editor (Regedit.exe) and navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Wallpapers\
KnownFolders\0\Windows Wallpapers\MergeFolders

Now create a new String or Multi String value for each folders that you want to include. Note that if you use variables in the folder name, you must create a Multi String Value (REG_EXPAND_SZ) otherwise a String Value (REG_SZ) is enough.

The Result. When opening the “Change Desktop Background” Control Panel the Wallpapers from all the 3 different Wallpaper folders are being displayed.

I am currently doing some training on App-V and for the sequencing of Applications there is a requirement to have 2 Partitions running on the system on which you sequence the application. Unfortunately I had setup my Windows 7 lab PC with only one partition. A couple of years ago you would have ended up using some 3rd party tools to repartition your system but nowadays (actually since Windows Vista) this is something that takes no more than 10 minutes.

If you are doing this on your primary system (the one you use at home or at work) I recommend that you make a backup of your critical data anyway. When you’re ready to go, open Disk Management and right click on the disk you want to shrink, select the “Shrink Volume ” option. The system will now analyze your local disk, this can take a while.

As a next step you can specify the amount of MB to shrink.

In my case I shrinked the volume by 10 GB. After a while you will see the new available space in Disk Manager. Then select Unallocated data and format it.

That’s it

Having trouble with a client not getting updates from your Windows Update Services Server ? Then have a look at the WSUS Client Diagnostics Tool.  The tool performs various system checks and tests the communication between your client and the WSUS server.

The Tool can be downloaded from the Windows Server Update Services Tools and Utilities site at Microsoft TechNet.

I’m currently busy with integrating the Symantec Endpoint Protection software into a Windows 7 build for one of our customers. I wondered if the Security team had really provided me with the latest and greatest version and ended up searching for that information on the Symantec web site where I came across a post mentioning the Symantec Endpoint Protection Support Tool.

For those that have a SEP 11 version prior RU5 the tool can be downloaded from here and as of RU5 (11.0.5002.333) the tool can also be downloaded from within the Symantec Endpoint Protection client by opening the Client user interface and selecting Help & Support > Download Support Tool.

when completed all results are listed in categories.

and for my case, answering my question whether I am using the latest and greatest version.

The tool provides much more information than just the current version, so if you are a Security Professional (then you probably know this tool already) or an IT Pro this is a must have for SEP troubleshooting or information gathering.

Additional Information: (thanks to Grant Hall)
About the Symantec Endpoint Protection Support Tool
The Symantec Endpoint Protection Support Tool

In an earlier post Using BITS for file downloads I wrote about how to use BITS for file transfers. Today I had a BITS related topic at work, so needed a brief refresher and found some additional interesting things.

First I came across a TechNet Utility Spotlight article Scripting Trouble-Free downloads with BITS. If you are interested in creating your own BITS based download scripts, read this article and download the provided bitsjob.vbs and bitsjob.cmd files. Note that the article is dated back from 2006, so no mention about Windows 7 here, but no worries bitsadmin.exe is included in Vista and Windows 7 already.

But then a few clicks later I came across this awesome nice FREE Tool called Bits GUI Admin. The tool provides a detailed view on all running BITS processes on your machine, so useful for troubleshooting as well. Note that the utility download does include a (old) bitsadmin.exe as well, but if you are running Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Server 2008(R2), I recommend that you overwrite that with the version of the OS. If you are running Windows XP or Server 2003, use the latest version which is available in the Service Pack 2 SP2 support tools.

The tool does not require installation, so just extract the files, update if the bitsadmin.exe if you like  and launch the bitsguiadmin.exe as Administrator. If you don’t see any existing processes running, simply go to Windows Update and select an available optional or security update to be installed or run a bitsadmin.exe command as described in one of my previous posts.

Bits GUI Admin can be downloaded from here

Related Articles
Vista SP1 download using BITSADMIN
Using BITS for file downloads

Assume you are at a client site and plan to deploy a Windows Server (2008 / 2008-R2) or Windows Clients (Windows Vista / Windows 7) and want to check if they do already have KMS Services running on their network.

It’s very simple. Just open a command prompt and type the following command:

nslookup -type=srv _vlmcs._tcp

If KMS Services are present on the network the results will be listed as shown in the picture below.

Related Content
Upgrade your existing KMS Service to support Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2
Volume Activation changes in Windows7
Fundamentals of Volume Activation