Tips-Tools on Anything About IT

ToolTip: IEDigest

Mon, 04 Jul 2016 19:49:26 +0000

IEDigest is collecting all relevant Internet Explorer settings and generates a well formated HTML report. In addition to this there is an XML output as well which can be taken for comparing reports coming from different environments. This is helpfull for troubleshooting purposes when having working and non-working machines.

IEDigest can also be executd in commandline mode.

IEDigest can be downloaded from the Microsoft download center here. Although not fully up to date, documentation can be downloaded from here

ToolTip: System Sherlock Lite

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 19:46:48 +0000

Came across a nice FREE standalone utility called System Sherlock developed.by zetConsultants System Sherlock allows you to take snapshot of the file system and registry and compare the changes. You can run the GUI or command line version. The command line version can come in handy when you want to integrate a before/after snapshot into a script.

The tools is easy to use. First define what you want to include into the snapshot and define the location of the dump file. Then click on the Create button to create the first snapshot.

ToolTip: DirCreator

Mon, 12 Nov 2012 21:29:04 +0000

Are you an Administrator tired of manually creating folder structures for new projects? Then DirCreator is just what you need. DirCreator is an enterprise-proven tool to automatically generate structured, template-based directory structures, along with groups, members and ACLs.

You can either create a template from scratch or create a template based on an existing folder structure. For this demonstration I first create a template folder structure on my home lab data share.

Detect SSD and Advanced Format Disk on HP Notebooks

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 20:59:50 +0000

In case you’re looking for a command-line tool that detects the presence of an SSD (Solid State Drive) or whether the hard disk uses advanced disk format then here’s a nice utility from HP called the HP Advance Format Check tool.

Note that the tool only works on HP notebooks. A list of supported models can be found here

The software can be downloaded from the HP Software and Drivers website and includes a 32 and 64 Bit version of the AF-CHECK utility as well as a vbscript and detailed documentation.

ToolTip: FindUninstallString

Mon, 06 Aug 2012 19:48:26 +0000

‘FindUninstallString’ is a utility program that searches through the Registry and displays a list of programs that have an uninstall command. It’s FREE and does not require installation.

More details and download from here

ToolTip: .NET Version Detector

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 17:25:18 +0000

Curious about what .NET versions you have installed? Here’s a nice small FREE standalone utility that tells you what .NET versions are included by default within what Windows operating system version and what versions you have actually installed on your client / server.

.NET Version Detector can be downloaded from here

ToolTip Diagnostic Tool for the WSUS Agent

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 17:56:05 +0000

If you’re looking for a more advanced version of the WSUS Client Diagnostic Tool then have a look at the Diagnostic Tool for the WSUS Agent provided by Solarwinds. As for most of the Tools I mention on this blog, it’s FREE.

Here are the highlights:

The Diagnostic Tool runs on x64 and x86 systems
Additional validation tests on key configuration options, such as syntax checking on the WSUS URL, and validating the installed version of the Windows Update Agent against the installed version of Windows

ToolTip: Microsoft Download Manager

Wed, 23 May 2012 17:07:40 +0000

If you’re looking for a simple to use Download Manager, have a look at the Microsoft Download Manager. It does not have that many specialized features as many other download managers out there, but it’s a nice FREE and simple to use tool. You must install the software, but it only uses about 1.3 MB.

The Microsoft Download Manager can be downloaded from here

ToolTip: Port Listener

Mon, 07 May 2012 17:14:30 +0000

Today I want to share with you a nice FREE tool I’ve just used recently while troubleshooting some networking issues on one of our customers network. The problem I had was that I couldn’t get my backend infrastructure talk to the client and vise versa. To keep this post generic I won’t use any products name, but both the backend and client that has an agent require that some ports are open in either one or both ways.

Script for finding Executables that are command-line programs

Wed, 02 May 2012 22:11:57 +0000

I recently came across a FREE utility called IsCommandLineApp from Helge Klein, a little command-line tool that can be used to determine whether a specific executable is a command-line program. To run this against multiple executables manually is a kind of a pain, so I decided to write a PowerShell script that runs IsCommandLineapp against a defined Folder and all it’s subfolders.

To run the script, first download the IsCommandLineApp from here) and then edit the variable $IsCommandLineApp so that it points to the location where you have stored the tool. If you want to search through another folder than C:\Windows change the variable $StartPath

ToolTip: Known Folders Browser

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 09:39:34 +0000

Are you finding all the “special folders” in Windows Vista/7/8 a bit overwhelming? Which are real folders and which are virtualized? Which are profile-specific and which are common to all users? Which are rooted and which are relative? The Known Folders Browser can help.

The Known Folders Browser written by Kenny Kerr can be downloaded from here

How to remove the system reserved partition

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 19:33:27 +0000

Today I worked on something where I needed a Windows 8 client that does not have a system reserved partition. To avoid a fresh installation of Windows I decided to re-use one of my Virtual Machine templates and apply the process described below.

I’m sure I’m not the first one that blogs about this but I’ve seen so many lengthy and over-complicating descriptions (including instructions of loading the registry, use of 3rd party tools and rescue discs) that I decided to write this down anyway, even if it’s just for YOU who just stumbled over this blog post.

ToolTip: LightScreen (Screen Capture Utility)

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 16:04:27 +0000

Here’s yet another FREE screen capture utility I’ve come across. LightScreen allows you to capture the entire screen, just a Window or an area of the screen.

LightScreen can be downloaded from here

How to Reboot or Shutdown WinPE

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 20:03:11 +0000

Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8 include the shutdown.exe command-line tool that can be used for shutting down or rebooting a system within a script or just from the command prompt. WinPE however is only a minimal operating system primarily designed to act as a preinstallation or recovery environment.

To keep the footprint of WinPE as small as possible many services or tools usually found within a full Windows installation are not available within WinPE. The same applies for the shutdown.exe command.

ToolTip: .NET Framework Setup Verification Tool

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 11:32:30 +0000

This .NET Framework setup verification tool is designed to automatically perform a set of steps to verify the installation state of one or more versions of the .NET Framework on a computer. It will verify the presence of files, directories, registry keys and values for the .NET Framework. It will also verify that simple applications that use the .NET Framework can be run correctly.

More details and download links can be found on Aaron Stebner’s blog here

How to get the SQLCMD standalone for Microsoft SQL Server Management

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 10:50:39 +0000

In the days that I was an Oracle database admin (long long time ago) the two most important applications I used to manage a database were SQLNet and SQL Plus. SQL-Net for providing database connectivity and SQL Plus as the command line interface. For Microsoft SQL Server the kind of equivalent to Oracle’s SQL Plus is SQLCMD. But for a long time this utility was only available with a full SQL Server installation or as part of the SQL Server Admin Studio install.

ToolTip: Overlay Message Box

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 20:42:43 +0000

Overlay Message Box is a tiny utility that shows a message box or task dialog on a dimmed desktop. This ensures the attention of the user and makes it a great app for any script that needs to inform a user. All options (Title, Text, Icons etc.) can be set using command line parameters.

Overlay Message Box can be downloaded from here

ToolTip: Simple IP/IP Range Ping

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:52:20 +0000

I guess the name says it all, Simple IP/IP Range Ping is a small FREE standalone utility to scan an IP range.

Simple IP/IP Range ping can be downloaded from here

ToolTip: Adding your AD stored picture to your profile picture with ADUserTile

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 11:25:54 +0000

Back in august 2011 I wrote about a utility called AD Photo Edit which allows you to upload your personal picture into Active Directory. Today I want to share with you another utility I came across called ADUserTile.

ADUserTile checks if you have a picture stored within the Active Directory thumbnailPhoto attribute and sets that picture as your profile picture within Windows 7 so it becomes visible at the logon screen and the Windows Desktop.

ToolTip – HTTPCopy

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:15:45 +0000

HTTPCopy is a FREE standalone executable that allows you to directly copy a web file or web page locally. Rather than going to a website and download content manually, you can automate this using the HTTPCopy utility. Below you see an example I am personally using to download the Maxmind GeoLiteCity database I use for one of my blog plugins.

HTTPCOPY.EXE http://geolite.maxmind.com/download/geoip/database/GeoLiteCity.dat.gz GeoLiteCity.dat.gz

You can download HTTPCopy from here

ToolTip: Move Mouse

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:15:22 +0000

Here’s a tool that has came in handy for me during the past 3 days, so let me share this one with you. Move Mouse is a simple application that generates mouse activity. You can either move the mouse pointer, click the left mouse button, send a keystroke, or any combination of the three.

For more details and download go to the Codeplex project page here.

ToolTip: Mouse Without Borders

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 11:52:50 +0000

If you’re using more than one computer on your desk I strongly recommend you look at the Mouse without borders utility that came out of a Microsoft Garage project this year. With Mouse without borders you can just use one mouse and keyboard to control up to 4 Windows clients. Furthermore you can drag and drop files from one screen to the other, take screen captures or just copy and paste text.

How to automate the creation of Windows Eventlog Custom Views

Sat, 17 Dec 2011 16:32:31 +0000

In the past couple of days I have been working on measuring system boot performance and you are probably going to see some posts from me on that subject soon. Today I want to share with you how you can automate the creation of a Windows Eventlog custom view.

While running these boot performance tests I reinstalled Windows several times on different systems and each time I wanted to collect the boot performance data from these clients I had to create a custom view within the Windows Event log to filter out the boot events. Well after doing that a few times manually I thought I would be better of to get that thing automated.

WatchTip: Triumph of the Nerds

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 16:36:29 +0000

Those who follow my blog since a while may have noticed that I have always been interested and fascinated about he history of how everything started around computers. Today I’ve come across this 3 part documentary called “Triumph of the Nerds”. A very interesting documentary how things started around the Personal Computer. Enjoy !

Triumph of the Nerds: Impressing Their Friends 1/3 Triumph of the Nerds: Impressing Their Friends 2/3

 Triumph of the Nerds: Impressing Their Friends 3/3

ToolTip: Attribute Changer

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 15:03:48 +0000

While writing a script that checks the number of days between now and when a particular folder is created I found this Windows Explorer extension called Attribute Changer. Very handy utility when you need to change the creation date of a file or folder to simulate an earlier or later date.

Attribute Changer can be downloaded from here

ToolTip: CBS Package Inspector

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 12:31:08 +0000

CBS Package Inspector (Package Inspector) is a GUI tool that allows you to open up a Component Based Servicing (CBS) package and view and examine its manifests. In simple words, with this utility you can open and view the content of Microsoft Security Update and QFE packages provided as MUS or a CAB file.

This tool becomes handy when you need to take a closer look what files or registry settings an update applies.

ToolTip: Remote Desktop remote configurator (RDRemote)

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 19:06:47 +0000

I’ve found another useful utility called RDRemote. The RDRemote Utility allows to enable the Remote Desktop connections from a remote computer using WMI.

RDRemote can be downloaded from here

ToolTip: Boxcutter – A Command line screenshot utility

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 22:57:10 +0000

Boxcutter is a simple command line-driven screenshot program for Microsoft Windows. Below you find a short script I wrote that will take a screenshot of the full screen every 20 seconds until 100 screenshots are saved.

One usage scenario (I plan to use) is where you are running an OS installation within a Virtual Machine and want to take screenshots of the various stages of the installation without having to manually take a screenshot. You would just let the script run, it will probably produce more screenshots as needed, but these then can be deleted manually afterwards.

Collecting Internet Explorer Add-on information

Sun, 30 Oct 2011 13:12:51 +0000

The Windows 8 developer preview build installation media contains an executable called wicainventory.exe. Wicainventory tool collects application and device information. There is also a wica.ini file that contains 2 URLs. I assume that the Tool is used by Microsoft to collect telemetry data.

While there are plenty of other methods to collect software and hardware inventory data, wicainventory provides a nice way to collect Internet Explorer add-on information. For running wicainventory standalone the following files must be copied from the Windows 8 installation sources.

ToolTip: Updated version of lessmsi (View extract MSI content)

Sat, 29 Oct 2011 15:15:20 +0000

There is an updated version of the less misérables utility a utility with a graphical user interface and a command line interface that can be used to view and extract the contents of an MSI file.

The updated version now has explorer integration, that can be easily enabled / disabled via the preference menu setting.

Download lessmsi from [here](http://code.google.com/p/lessmsi/).

Changing the Windows 7 Scheduled Defrag Task

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 19:32:20 +0000

As you probably know Windows 7 has a build-in scheduled task to run Defrag every Wednesday every week. One of my clients asked me to have the day changed from Wednesday to Thursday. Well, hat I thought would be done in a few minutes ended up in a little journey, but finally I got it to work. As you can see from the below screenshot, by default Defrag is started every Wednesday every week.

ToolTip: Webcam Diagnostics

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 16:02:26 +0000

Webcam Diagnostics is a simple assistant which gathers many system and webcam-related information in a single place. It makes it easy to identify driver installation problems or USB issues: red circles will signal serious issues and yellow triangles will signal minor issues. Right-click a reported issue to access the context menu and click the Fix menu (if available) so that the program attempts to fix the issue or shows you a possible way to fix it.

ToolTip: AmiProject–online MS Project Viewer

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 16:51:25 +0000

Today I received a project plan with the request to review it. Since I haven’t installed MS project yet on my new notebook that I just got last week, I replied that I would look at it as soon as I have installed MS Project. I thought I had a good excuse…… well it just took a few minutes until another colleague pointed me to AmiProject, an online viewer for MS Project files.

ToolTip: FTPStats for FileZilla

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 10:23:21 +0000

FTPstats is a log analyzer and stats compiler for FileZilla FTP Server. It generates usage statistics from log files and presents them in a user-friendly fashion.

FTPStats can be downloaded from here

ToolTip: AD Photo Edit

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 15:10:18 +0000

Last night I came across this FREE utility called AD Photo Edit developed by Chris Wright which allows you to upload your picture into Active Directory. The result of doing that is that people who use Outlook 2010 can see your profile picture in the mail you send them.

Using AD Photo Edit is simple, just download and install the utility and launch it. Then enter your name and click the Search button. If AD Photo Edit finds your user object in Active Directory it will show your current Picture which is probably empty unless a picture was already uploaded.

ToolTip: Microsoft Screenrecorder

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 19:59:25 +0000

If you’re looking for a FREE and easy to use Screen Recorder then I suggest you head over to this TechNet Magazine March 2009 Utility Spotlight article. There you will find a description and download link for this little nice tool. If you’re using Windows 7, which I assume most of you do by now, read the note that the end of the article.

ToolTip: Copy Handler

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 18:26:27 +0000

You probably know that problem, you’ve started copying a bunch of files or folders from A to B and BANG at some stage you get an error or maybe you just have to move to another place and don’t have network connectivity for a short while. Copy Handler can help here.

Although Copy Handler also supports “moving” data, I do personally actually never move data, but rather first copy and then delete. Well possible that I am a bit conservative here, but I rather know something got copied properly before deleting something, if a move operation fails you might find yourself in an unpleasant situation.

Tip: Quickest way to find out the installed Java version

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 16:44:16 +0000

To find out the Java version you have installed, simply open a command prompt and type

java –version

ToolTip: Path Copy Copy

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 19:05:13 +0000

During my bi-weekly CodePlex browsing session, I came across this nice little utility called Path Copy Copy which is an Explorer add-in for copying file or folder paths.

Download Path Copy Copy from here

ToolTip: Citrix Port Check (CtxPrtChk.exe)

Mon, 16 May 2011 15:22:37 +0000

Here’s a nice small and FREE utility from Citrix that allows you to test connectivity to a remote host on a specified port. In the example below I test if port 5900 (used for VNC) is open and listening.

Download CtxPrtChk from here

ReadTip: XenDesktop 5 MCS or PVS

Mon, 16 May 2011 06:51:02 +0000

If you’re planning to implement a XenDesktop 5 solution, you will have to think about using MCS (Machine Creation Services) or PVS (Provisioning Services). The XenDesktop Planning Guide for Image Delivery provides some guidance on this subject. The paper can be found here

ToolTip: Bits Monitor

Sat, 14 May 2011 09:40:48 +0000

Bits Monitor is a small FREE utility that displays BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service) activity.

Bits Monitor can be downloaded from here

PSExec launch script

Wed, 11 May 2011 15:10:32 +0000

Tired of typing the psexec command with all the command line options? Here’s a short PsExec launch script I wrote today. Using this allows you to just type the remote computer’s computer name or IP address and then launches the command prompt.

@echo off
Echo

SET user= *ADD USERNAME HERE
*SET pwd= ADD PASSWORD HERE

:START
SET /P Node=Computername or IP Address:
IF “%node%"==”" GOTO :START

Echo.
Echo Starting PSEXEC on %node%
Echo.
psexec -u %user% -p %pwd% \%node% cmd

ToolTip: CrystalDMI

Tue, 10 May 2011 15:09:14 +0000

The CrystalDMI utility allows you to read DMI (Desktop Management Interface) data. CrystalDMI is FREE and does not require installation. Download is available here

More information about DMI can be found here

ToolTip: Microsoft Safety Scanner

Sun, 08 May 2011 18:05:58 +0000

If you’re looking for a FREE Virus and Malware scanning tool that does not require installation, have a look at the Microsoft Safety Scanner tool. The software runs on Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and Windows XP. I wonder why Server 2008 and 2008-R2 are not listed, but the fact that it does support Server 2003 makes it a perfect utility for my Windows Home Server.

Note that the Microsoft Safety Scanner does not provide Real Time protection, so consider this tool for scan and remove purposes when other software fails to remove a threat. Also note that the executable is about 70 MB and is only valid for 10 days, after that you must download the software again, witch contains the latest signature files.

Running a Custom Scan with Microsoft Security Essentials using a Batch Script

Sat, 07 May 2011 11:51:47 +0000

Here’s a small script I just wrote to perform an antivirus scan against a specified file.

@Echo off

FOR /F “Tokens=4” %%a IN (’“C:\Program Files\Microsoft Security Client\AntiMalWare\mpcmdrun.exe” -Scan -ScanType 3 -File C:\TEMP\test1.wim -DisableRemediation’) DO SET THREAT=%%a
Echo.
if “%THREAT%"==“no” (
    color 2F
    Echo No Threats Found - All clean
    ) ELSE (
    color 4F
    Echo WARNING! Virus Found
)
Echo.
pause

If all is OK you get the following result

Extract Path with spaces from Registry value

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 20:38:05 +0000

I’ve been browsing through the Microsoft TechNet Forums to see whether I can learn something new or maybe give someone a helping hand. Now before I am going to show the solution I gave someone, let me first tell you this.

It was just before having diner that I read the question and already thought of a possible solution, but then it was time for diner, moving away from my laptop I thought it looks like the knowledge on the good old DOS scripting language is slowly disappearing. When I came back from diner I submitted the response (after creating a little test script first). Once I had submitted my response, I noticed that the question was already marked as answered so unfortunately someone was faster in responding than me. Now comes the funny part of the story, it was the person himself who had provided the answer by writing some** C#** Code to do the job. Now this makes me feel really old

ToolTip: Virtual CloneDrive

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 14:43:02 +0000

Here’s another FREE virtual CD/DVD clone drive utility. Virtual CloneDrive can mount and unmount most common image formats such as ISO, BIN and CCD.

 ![2011-04-25 16h43_50](images/2011-04-25-16h43_50_thumb.png) [

](images/2011-04-25-16h26_381.png)

Virtual CloneDrive can be downloaded from here

ToolTip: Dummy File Creator

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 13:01:34 +0000

A while back I wrote about how to create empty files using FSUTIL a windows build-in command line tool for managing FAT and NTFS file systems. Today I found a nice little free utility called Dummy File Creator created by Nikko Cheng.

You can use the GUI version (dummy.exe) or if you want to include generating dummy files within a script you can use the command-line based version (DummyCMD.exe).

Using SUBST instead of a physical DVD or ISO mount utility

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 23:21:01 +0000

While running the BETA version of the Microsoft DaRT Recovery Image Wizard (part of the MDOP Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset) I get prompted to select the DVD Drive that holds the Windows 7 installation sources. Well unfortunately I have the ISO file available but not burned on DVD and since it’s already late I’m not really willing to find an empty DVD and burn one. Now one option is to use an ISO mounting tool like PowerISO, but while considering installing an ISO mounting utility another idea came to my mind. SUBST.

ToolTip: Test Poor Network Connectivity (TMNetsim)

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 20:56:41 +0000

A few days ago I found another utility for testing poor network connectivity. TMNetsim is a FREE utility provided by TMUrgent Technologies. TMnetsim is used to simulate a wide-area network for a single protocol. TMnetsim is primarily used to simulate network delay, however, in some (rare) cases it may be used to simulate packet loss or out-of-order delivery, as well as packet capture. (For more details read the provided tmnetsim.html file).

ToolTip: CaptureScreen

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 19:33:47 +0000

Here’s another FREE Screen capture utility. Just download and run, no installation needed. Download and documentation can be found here

Wakeup Your Computer And Do Something

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 23:40:01 +0000

Assume you need to start a file transfer, a download or just execute a batch file once or on a regular basis in the middle of the night. What would you do? Most people will probably use some scheduling software and leave the system on until the task is scheduled to start in addition change the power settings so that the system doesn’t go into sleep or standby as this will prevent the scheduled task from running then.

ToolTip: DriverStore Explorer

Tue, 28 Dec 2010 16:12:59 +0000

In my previous blog post Inside the Windows 7 Driver Store I explained how to retrieve information about the Windows in-box drivers. Beside the in-box drivers the driver store also hosts the drivers installed via Windows Update or the native OEM provided driver installation package.

The Driver Store Explorer utility provides a GUI interface for the Windows Driver Store. So instead of using pnputil (read Vijay’s post for details) or dism, the Driver Store Explorer allows you to list 3rd party drivers that are already installed within the driver store. Furthermore the tool also allows you to prestage, install or delete drivers from the driver store. The below screen shot is taken from a fresh Windows 7 installation running within a Citrix XenDesktop 5 environment.

ToolTip: Network Emulator for Windows Toolkit

Sun, 21 Nov 2010 23:01:11 +0000

While watching the Deep Dive on Designing a BranchCache Infrastructure presentation I noticed the Network Emulator for Windows Toolkit (NEWT) that Tyler Barton was using to simulate a slow network link during his BranchCache demo.

After a quick search I’ve found a compiled version for 32 and 64 bit here provided by Marco Pol. NEWT is a Very useful easy to use tool if you want to simulate a slow network connection for testing BranchCache, Group Policies, Software Distribution or just for demonstration purposes.

ToolTip: Windows Service Pack Blocker Tool Kit

Sat, 20 Nov 2010 17:13:40 +0000

As seen for previous service packs, Microsoft released an update of the Service Pack Blocker Tool Kit for those that would like to temporarily prevent installation of Service Pack updates through Windows Update. Download and details here

ToolTip: RAMMon–Retrieve Memory Module Information

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 21:44:52 +0000

Plan to add more RAM to your PC? What memory module do you need? Here’s a nice FREE (for personal use) tool called RAMMon.

RAMMon is an easy to use Windows based application that allows users to quickly retrieve the Serial Presence Detect (SPD) data from their RAM modules. It will allow users to identify a multitude of attributes, of which, includes the manufacturer, the clockspeed and other data of their DDR2, DDR3, XMP and EPP memory devices and even some older memory types.

ToolTip: SMB BranchCache deployment Diagnosis script

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 17:59:16 +0000

Just found this SMB BranchCache deployment diagnosis script on MSDN Code Gallery.

The Test-SMBBranchCache script is used to find common SMB BranchCache misconfiguration issues. It allows a user to verify the SMB BranchCache server or client configuration. When run on a server, it can test the state of a BranchCache-enabled network share. When run on a client, it can do an end-to-end validation of the SMB BranchCache functionality.

Download documentation and diagnosis script from [here](Diagnosing a BranchCache deployment for the SMB protocol)

Preparing the Bitlocker Partition

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 19:10:19 +0000

For the use of Bitlocker two partitions are required, this because pre-startup authentication and system integrity verification must occur on a separate partition from the encrypted operating system drive. Now let’s assume you started deploying Windows 7 with just a single partition, but a few months later your company decides to use Bitlocker Disk Encryption. Now you need that second partition!

Not t0o many years ago, when speaking about repartitioning disks most of us would immediately think of some smart 3rd party tools like Partition Magic, but nowadays that’s not necessary anymore Windows 7 provides that functionality natively. For more details on how to Shrink an existing partition read my other post Shrinking your System Drive.

ToolTip: Cool PDF Reader (only 650KB)

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 18:52:29 +0000

As written in my previous post, I have just finished installing a Server 2008 R2 to conduct a proof of concept. I have also some PDF documents that I will use for reference. So I was just about to install some PDF reader software, but then I thought, hey why “install” software, there must be something small out there that allows me reading a PDF file without having to install anything on my fresh installed server.

ReadTip: Best Practice: Active Directory Structure Guidelines

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 20:04:54 +0000

Alan Burchill author of the Group Policy Center blog has posted 2 great articles on Best Practices for Active Directory Structures.

Best Practice:Active Directory Structure Guidelines – Part 1

Best Practice: Group Policy Design Guidelines – Part 2

ToolTip: Network Delay Simulator

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 18:03:00 +0000

How long does it take to copy 1 GB over a slow network connection? How fast does my virtual application start? Today I came across a nice FREE utility called Network Delay Simulator.

Network Simulator tool allows you to perform network bandwidth and delay simulation (simulate slow/congested links between nodes) on any connection from your computer to any remote node (on the local LAN or remote over Internet).

More information and download links can be found here

ToolTip: Screenpresso

Sun, 06 Jun 2010 17:39:24 +0000

I have seen many FREE Screen Capture tools, but this one beats them all. Screenpresso is a small FREE Screen Capture utility that comes with a lot of nice features and doesn’t require an install.

Screenpresso can capture windows, regions, context menus and objects within dialog boxes. Furthermore the tool includes an integrated image editor that allows you to apply various effects such as adding Text, draw a rectangle, blur a selected region and add reflection.

WatchTip: History of Citrix

Mon, 24 May 2010 19:54:21 +0000

Those who are following my blog on a regular basis know that I am also interested in the history of IT. Since in these days Citrix (especially XenDesktop) has a high ranking on my personal list of interests, I spend some time today to find some information about the History of Citrix. So here we go:

A Deep Dive Into the 20 Year History and Technical Developments of Citrix Systems, a video from BriForum 2009 (Highly recommend this one, very interesting !).

ToolTip: Microsoft Product Support Reports and Microsoft Product Support Reports Viewer

Tue, 18 May 2010 23:16:18 +0000

If you get tasked to do some system troubleshooting and you just want to get as many information possible from a client, then have a look at the Microsoft Product Support Report Tool and the Product Support Reports Viewer.

The Microsoft Product Support Reports Viewer 2.0 can be downloaded from here and the Microsoft Product Support Reports from here

First launch the Microsoft Product Support Tool, which is a self-extracting executable (no installation needed). Once launched you can select the diagnostics you want to execute, then select Next to get the Diagnostic (Data Collection) started. Note that depending on the diagnostics selected, this process can take a while (up to 25 minutes).

Extending User Information in AD – 64 Bit support

Thu, 06 May 2010 19:31:30 +0000

Back in 2008 I wrote about Extending User Information in AD. Today I came across a blog post mentioning that there is now an unsupported 64 bit version available. More details and download here

ToolTip: SuperFlow

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 19:36:31 +0000

Just learned about these SuperFlows, although some of them were already released a while ago, for some reason I missed that one, well you can’t keep up with everything. Just installed 3 of them, really cool stuff. If you’re dealing with SCCM or App-V, give it a try.

The SuperFlow interactive content model provides a structured and interactive interface for viewing documentation. Read more (SCCM) here and (App-V) here

**Available SuperFlows
**System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Software Updates Synchronization SuperFlow
Software Updates Synchronization SuperFlow
Software Update Deployment SuperFlow
SuperFlow for Operating System Deployment via PXE
Application Virtualization Sequencing SuperFlow

ToolTip: XP-More

Sat, 24 Apr 2010 13:19:51 +0000

XP-More is a tool that helps manage Windows 7 Virtual Machines (XP Mode and any other). Specifically, it makes duplication of VMs a no brainer - no more raw XML editing and manually duplicating files.

More Information and download details can be found on the CodePlex XP-More project page

ToolTip: Group Policy Search

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 11:44:37 +0000

Reading my e-mails near the end of my vacation I received a link to this great web based GPO Search Tool. The tool is quite self explaining, so if you’re dealing with Group Policies have a look here

MED-V demo videos

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 13:01:17 +0000

If you’re planning to do some hands-on with MED-V I recommend that you have a look at these MED-V videos.

RDP Copy Paste Ramblings

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 22:05:36 +0000

Today I had a problem with copy pasting some content from a RDP session to my local client. I was quite surprised that this didn’t work since I have been using this quite often recently. But as so often, the answer to my problem was quickly found in Google. It appears that I have become so used to work with Windows Server 2008 and 2008-R2 that I had simply forgotten that if you want to use the copy paste functionality to copy files between a Server 2003 RDP session and a local client, you must configure a local drive redirection.

ToolTip: Hardlink Scanner

Sun, 11 Apr 2010 14:31:55 +0000

Here’s another nice utility I found today called Hard Link Scanner. Hard Link scanner is a command line tool that scans directories for hard linked files.

Download Hard Link Scanner from here

ToolTip: Link Shell Extension

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 16:53:49 +0000

Earlier this week I wrote about using Hard Links. By doing my research on this subject I came across the Link Shell Extension utility. As the name says the utility extends the shell with additional options to create hard and symbolic links. So if you don’t want to type commands at the command prompt to create a hard link, this utility is just right for you.

Additional very detailed documentation and utility download links can be found here. Also look at the History of the utility, the first version was released in 1999 but the most recent version dates from February 2010.

ToolTip: SoftPerfect Connection Emulator

Sun, 04 Apr 2010 17:29:58 +0000

Today’s ToolTip is about SoftPerfect Connection Emulator SCE. As the name says the software allows you to emulate different connection types. Unfortunately the tool is not for free, but I found the software nice enough to give it a try and eventually buy it especially since I haven’t been able to find a free alternative yet.

SCE allows you to simulate different network speeds such as modem, ISDN or DSL. You can either choose one of the predefined speed settings or configure your own. Furthermore you can configure the Latency and Packet loss rates. I tested SCE by configuring various network speeds and then used Speedtest.net to check the results and they were very accurate.

Group Policy Script Processing Behavior

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 19:18:11 +0000

If you are preparing for a Windows 7 deployment and use GPO based startup and logon scripts you should be aware of the default processing behavior in Windows 7. Read the details here

Source: Ask the Directory Services Team blog

ToolTip: Service Trigger Editor

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 20:56:13 +0000

if you found the previous post Windows 7 Service Triggers interesting, then you will like this utility too. The Service Trigger Editor provided by Core Technologies Consulting LLC is a FREE utility providing a UI to list and edit Service Triggers.

The Tool can be downloaded from here and is ready to run (no installation required)

BlogTip: Group Policy Center

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 23:49:20 +0000

Being generally interested in Group Policy Management I was more than happy to stumble upon this blog today called the Group Policy Center – A very nice blog with News, Tutorials, Tips and Tricks about Microsoft Windows Group Policy.

Redirect Computers Container in Active Directory

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 23:10:09 +0000

When joining a Computer to an Active Directory domain using the Domain Join UI in Windows or a command line tool such as NETDOM.EXE, by default the computer object is stored in the Computers container which is defined as the default Container in Active Directory for new created Computer objects.

The disadvantage of this is that you cannot link any Group Policies to the Computers container which prevents you from applying any Computer security or configuration settings to these clients.

ToolTip: WSUS Workgroup ClientSettingManager

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 10:52:43 +0000

I just found another nice FREE Utility that any Systems Engineer should have who deals with WSUS. The Tool allows you to configure a client’s WSUS settings without having to manually apply any registry settings or you can use the Tool for Troubleshooting purposes. If your clients receive WSUS configuration through Group Policy Settings, you can use the tool to see if all settings are applied correctly.

The Tool also provides some additional useful functions such as:

WatchTip: Creating a Firewall Rule to Allow ICMPv4 Echo Requests

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 19:01:28 +0000

Windows 7 with the Firewall enabled by default does not allow ping requests, hence when you ping a remote Windows 7 client it will not respond.

In this WebCast John Baker explains how to configure the Firewall to respond to ICMPv4 Echo Requests.

Watch the WebCast here

App-V Management Server Setup and SQL Server Configuration

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:01:02 +0000

During the Installation of the App-V Management Server on a Windows Server 2008 with SQL Server 2008 Express installed I ran into an problem specifying the database server and got an error as shown in the picture below.

The installation program could not connect to the configuration data store. Please see the installation log file for more information.

I solved the problem by opening the SQL Server Configuration Manager and enabled TCP/IP in the SQL Server Network Configuration options.

ToolTip: Rogue DHCP Server Checker

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:36:33 +0000

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.

App-V Visio Stencil

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 16:06:55 +0000

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

SQL Server 2008 Express Installation Sources

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 14:31:27 +0000

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:

 **Package** **Download** Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Express Edition Service Pack 1 [Download](http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=01AF61E6-2F63-4291-BCAD-FD500F6027FF&displaylang=en) Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Express with Tools [Download](http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=7522A683-4CB2-454E-B908-E805E9BD4E28&displaylang=en) Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Express with Advanced Services [Download](http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=B5D1B8C3-FDA5-4508-B0D0-1311D670E336&displaylang=en#filelist)

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.

ReadTip: Choosing the right App-V Delivery Model

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 23:58:08 +0000

If you’re planning on deploying App-V, but still busy with thinking of how you will get the virtualized applications to your end users I strongly recommend that you read the whitepaper “Choosing the right App-V Delivery Model” from Ment van der Plas.

The document provides an excellent overview of the different App-V delivery scenarios and their pros and cons.

ToolTip: SoftPerfect Network Scanner

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 17:00:43 +0000

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

Tip: Download more than 2 files at once (Internet Explorer)

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:19:19 +0000

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

ViewTip: Application Virtualization (App-V) Video Series

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:15:12 +0000

Learn how to configure App-V; create, publish, and update virtual applications; and create and manage policies for virtual applicationss. The videos can be downloaded from here

ViewTip: Vista to Win7 transition bug

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 13:28:04 +0000

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 !

Microsoft DirectAccess Connectivity Assistant (DCA)

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 16:12:36 +0000

For those of you that do already use Windows 7 DirectAccess or plan to do so in the near future have a look at the Microsoft DirectAccess Connectivity Assistant (DCA).

The Microsoft DirectAccess Connectivity Assistant (DCA) helps organizations reduce the cost of supporting DirectAccess users and significantly improve their connectivity experience. DCA informs mobile users of their connectivity status at all times; provides tools to help them reconnect on their own if problems arise; and creates diagnostics to help mobile users provide IT staff with key information if necessary—all to help customers operate with more efficiency, and at a lower cost.

Pending FileRename Operations

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:36:28 +0000

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.

ToolTip: Foxit PDF Reader

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 16:26:25 +0000

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.

Extending Wallpaper search locations

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 21:59:12 +0000

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.

Shrinking your System Drive

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 23:10:54 +0000

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.

ToolTip: Bits GUI Admin

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:23:13 +0000

In an earlier post [Using BITS for file downloads](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.

Identifying KMS Servers

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:30:50 +0000

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.

Windows 7 Master Control Panel aka God mode

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:58:35 +0000

Since yesterday there have been a lot of tweets and e-mails about the so-called Windows 7 God Mode, which in fact was available in Vista already. In short the Windows 7 God mode can be considered as an extended Control Panel.

No need to re-write what has been written already, so for more details and how-to’s read the articles listed below.

More articles:
Stupid Geek Tricks: Enable the Secret “How-To Geek” Mode in Windows
Create an All-Inclusive Control Panel Shortcut in Windows 7
That “God mode” Explorer trick does less than you think
Create a Master Control Panel shortcut and explore the all tasks
Tweakfest! Enable God Mode in Windows 7

ToolTip: Windows Services Dependency Viewer

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 21:56:42 +0000

During my periodic visit on CodePlex I came across the Windows Services Dependency Viewer utility. The tool provides access to the following information:

Windows service dependent and antecedent services
Services grouped by process
Service details (from Win32_Service WMI class)
Service process details (from Win32_Process WMI class

This tool might come in handy once you start changing a specific Service’s startup mode.

The Windows Services Dependency Viewer can be downloaded from here Additional documentation can be found here

Getting access to Windows 7 Evaluation installation sources

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 17:13:08 +0000

Most IT pro’s probably don’t have a problem in getting access to the Windows 7 operating system installation sources because they can access them through their corporate volume license agreement and/or MSDN or TechNet subscription. But unfortunately there are still some out there who do not have such easy access to these sources.

For the use of Windows 7 on a primary device (the one that one uses on a daily basis) an official version of Windows 7 that comes either from the Corporate Volume media source or a separately acquired copy or pre-installed with a new computer must be used.

ASCII Stuff

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 00:03:34 +0000

I recently got some scripts that were nicely written, meaning well formatted, documented and structured. What I liked most was the clearly visible separation of the main code and the subroutines. The code blocks were separated by ASCII Code based letters as shown on the picture below.

If you go to http://www.network-science.de/ascii/ you can create your own text using the ASCII Generator.

Now that we speak about ASCII, during my little search on the web for the above, I also came across another fancy tool called ASCII Generator .NET. The tool allows converting pictures into ASCII Code.

Why you should pretend you don’t know anything about computers

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:03:18 +0000

The inspiration for this post came from a tweet which had the link below included which is a nice comic explaining why you should pretend you don’t know anything about computers.

If you are an IT Pro, you probably know that scenario where you are at someone’s place and you are being asked what you do for for a living. Usually I just reply with “I work in the IT sector” where then usually the other person replies with “oh so you repair PCs?”. Because explaining my job (Technology Consultant) to someone who is not working in the IT sector isn’t that easy anyway I try to keep the answer as simple as possible by saying “I support companies to run their IT”. But usually that doesn’t help much, so if possible I try to switch topic or ask them what they do.

ToolTip: HWiNFO32

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 15:40:40 +0000

Today’s ToolTip is about HWiNFO32 which is a hardware information and diagnostic tool. I have seen many tools that can collect hardware information but this one gives me an impression of being a well organized utility and most important it’s FREE.

I recommend that you download the portable ZIP file as that doesn’t require an install.

Beside collecting detailed hardware information, HWiNFO32 also includes a Benchmark feature that compares the current system components against other components. The below screenshot shows the ranking of one of our home notebooks.

ToolTip: Network Lights

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:50:18 +0000

Network Lights developed by Igor Tolmachev is a Windows program, which blinks keyboard LEDs (Light Emitting Diode) indicating outgoing and incoming network packets on network interface.

Network Lights lets you monitor network activity (upload/download) from your keyboard ScrollLock and NumLock indicators. Each LED will flicker when network traffic is detected.

Network Lights can be downloaded from here.

ReadTip: BranchCache Design Guide

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 18:18:59 +0000

Source: Microsoft

This design guide provides information about BranchCache in both distributed cache mode and hosted cache mode that assists you in determining the best way to deploy BranchCache on your network.

The Guide can be downloaded from here

ToolTip: Application Paths Editor

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 17:03:07 +0000

The Application Paths Editor allows you to add, edit and remove Application Paths. Setting an application path for your favorite application or script allows you to run the application directly from the “Run” dialog at the Start Menu.

So assume you have a script called “HelloApp.vbs” which is stored under C:\Program Files\HelloApp without having set an Application Path, you would have to navigate to the scripts folder or type the full path to launch the script. But once you have set an Application Path, you can launch it directly form the run dialog at the Start Menu.

Adobe Flash and Shockwave Enterprise Distribution

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:43:52 +0000

Adobe Flash and Shockwave are probably one of those most installed applications on home and enterprise computers. Working within the End User Computing environment for large enterprise customers since quite a while, I can’t remember of just one company that wouldn’t maintain Adobe Flash and Shockwave in their list of enterprise standard applications.

But when it comes to distributing these applications, many companies seem to go down the difficult route instead of taking the easy one. When distributing applications within Enterprise environments, you want them to install automatically, hence you need a software package.

VMWare Workstation 7 – New Pause Feature

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:20:44 +0000

As I wrote in my earlier post this month, VMWare published a Release Candidate for VMWare Workstation 7. One of the most interesting new features (to me) is the Pause feature that is described as following:

The pause feature causes a virtual machine to cease operation temporarily, without powering off or suspending. Use the pause feature when a virtual machine is engaged in an lengthy, processor-intensive activity that prevents you from using your computer to do a more immediate task.

The Machine SID Duplication Myth

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:14:31 +0000

Mark Russinovich explains why he’s retiring “NewSID”. In short, he explains that he heard that people were having some issues with it on Vista, which made him do some research on whether SID changing is still necessary… Turns out he couldn’t find anyone in Microsoft who could tell him why duplicate SIDs could be a problem. Because it’s not a problem. And: It never was. Anyway for people that did OS deployment the correct way, this tool wasn’t needed, as the proper way is to use sysprep.

ToolTip: Microsoft® Hardware-Assisted Virtualization Detection Tool

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:06:44 +0000

Windows Virtual PC requires that your hardware supports hardware-assisted virtualization. There are a number of third party utilities around already, but now Microsoft released one as well. It’s called the Hardware-Assisted Virtualization Detection Tool and can be downloaded from here

If you launch the tool manually it will tell you if your system meets the requirements for running Windows Virtual PC or not, quite similar as the Securable utility I wrote about in the Detect XP Mode Support article.

ToolTip: AppTimer

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:30:20 +0000

Just found this nice little FREE Utility. AppTimer from PassMark Software will run an executable a number of times and time how long it takes for the application to reach a state where user input is being accepted before exiting the application.

AppTimer can be downloaded from here

Splitting and merging image files with ImageX

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:16:40 +0000

ImageX is a command-line tool for capturing, modifying and applying file based disk images. ImageX is included within the Windows Automated Installation Kit.

In this post I want to focus on the functionality provided by ImageX to split and merge image files. So why would you want to split and merge image files? Well think of the following scenarios:

Your image is too big to fit on one DVD and using Dual Layer DVD media is not an option.

ToolTip - Fences

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 13:23:41 +0000

Do you remember the days where your desktop looked like on the picture below ? If you were using Windows in the late 80’s and early 90s you definitely will. The Windows Shell was called Program Manager. In Program Manager the various application shortcuts were organized in groups.

With the introduction of Windows 95 Program Manager was replaced by the Windows Explorer as the shell. In simple words, that’s when Microsoft introduced the “Start Menu”.

BitLocker Deployment Sample Resources

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 18:19:52 +0000

During my weekly “let’s see what’s new” search on some of my favorite websites, I found the “Bitlocker Deployment Sample Resources” on the MSDN Code Gallery. The Resource Page contains a lot of documentation and useful script samples for the deployment and management of Microsoft Bitlocker.

ToolTip: SpeedFan

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 19:22:05 +0000

SpeedFan is a program that monitors voltages, fan speeds and temperatures in computers with hardware monitor chips. Michael Pietroforte author of the 4SysOps blog wrote a review of the SpeedFan utility. Read the entire article here

Leftover files after .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 installation

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 14:43:51 +0000

Some of you might have noticed that after installing the .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1, there can be a leftover folder in the root of the system as shown in the picture below.

We identified this issue right after .NET 3.5 SP1 was installed, and found out soon that we were not the only ones having this issue. Microsoft describes this behavior in KB951847 and confirms the folder can be deleted.

ToolTip: BlueScreenView

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 21:56:21 +0000

Anyone who uses Windows has seen at least once a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death). Even Bill Gates had to deal with it (watch this video). NirSoft has released a utility called BlueScreenView that scans all the minidump files that are being created when a BSOD occurs and displays all information about these crashes.

The utility is FREE and does not need to be installed. A detailed description of BlueScreenView can be found here

ToolTip: AM-Deadlink

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 06:50:05 +0000

Within our daily life in IT we often find interesting sources of information on the internet or on our company intranet. So after a while, most of us typically end up having a large number of Bookmarks. In my case these are 1168 items.

Yesterday I cam across this nice FREE tool called AM-Deadlnk. With AM-Deadlnk you can check your bookmarks and find out if these are still valid. The utility is smart enough to tell you whether the link is completely dead or if the page has been redirected.

ToolTip: Processor Check for 64-Bit Compatibility

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 09:50:06 +0000

In my earlier post “Detect XP Mode support” I wrote about a utility that checks the system for virtualization support. I have just found a similar one from VMWare that helps detecting if your CPU supports running virtual 64 bit guest operating systems.

The VMWare Guest Check utility can be downloaded from here

The following message appears when your system does not support running 64 bit guest operating systems:

The following message appears when your system does support running 64 bit guest operating systems:

ToolTip: HJ-Split

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:14:14 +0000

Having troubles with transferring large files? here’s a small and FREE utility called HJ-Split that helps you splitting and joining large files

Although the GUI looks a bit fancy, the utility works fine. HJ-Split does not require an installation, you can just download and launch it.

Click here to download HJ-Split.

Using Intel AMT Power Management @ Home

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:39:00 +0000

I write most of my blog posts at home in the evenings. Usually when I find a new tool I install these first within a virtual machine, this to not mess our family PC or my laptop I use for work. All Virtual Machines run on a HP dc7800 desktop which has Intel vPro support. This PC is installed down in the cellar. To avoid having to go down there to power on the PC I have created two batch files that allow me to power up and power down the machine remotely using the Intel AMT power management feature.

Detect XP Mode support

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:33:48 +0000

Does your hardware support the Windows7 XP Mode feature ? Here’s a small and free utility that helps you to find out if your system provides hardware virtualization support.

Download here

Writing e-mails on foreign keyboards

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 23:46:40 +0000

Today we were invited with friends for a BBQ. One of the conversations we had was about writing e-mails on a foreign keyboard.

Anyone who has travelled to a foreign country before and used a local PC has probably had that challenge of finding the right characters on the keyboard. The biggest challenge I heard of from people is about the @ sign and the . (dot) character. These are two important characters when entering an e-mail address.

ToolTip – VLC Media Player

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 16:03:12 +0000

After nearly 13 years of development version 1.0 of VLC media player has been released in July 2009. What started as an academic project became one of the most powerful media players available today.

VLC is available for multiple operating systems such as Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and BeOS. If you want to play your different audio and video files with just one player, VLC is a must have. A complete feature overview can found here

Great website with focus on 64 bit

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:08:46 +0000

Just came across this website where it’s all about 64 bit. If you’re interested in 64 bit related topics or maybe even already running a 64 bit operating system, you definitely want to visit this site.

How to embed YouTube video in PowerPoint 2007

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:35:16 +0000

Here’s a video that explains how to embed a YouTube video into a PowerPoint slide.

ToolTip – Shell extensions for VHD files

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 12:16:23 +0000

If you are running a Hyper-V server, this is something you want to look at. The VHDShellExt.VBS extends the explorer context menu for VHD files with the following functions.

Download the script from MSDN Code Gallery and run cscript.exe VHDShellExt.vbs /action:setup for installation. More documentation can be found on Ravikanth’s site.

ToolTip - Defraggler

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:42:04 +0000

Today I stumbled upon the Defraggler utility from Piriform. The tool provides a nice and lean interface to analyze and defrag drives or individual files. But most important, it’s FREE!

Other tools from Piriform are CCLeaner and Recuva. I wrote about Recuva earlier in this blogpost.

Power to Change

Tue, 26 May 2009 21:19:41 +0000

Small changes can make a world of difference. With Power To Change, you can help make the world a greener place. Install the Power To Change widget and start making a difference!

Check out the Power to Change website for more information and download the Widget.

Server core configuration made easier on 2008-R2

Mon, 25 May 2009 19:03:16 +0000

Watch this video on TechnetEdge explaining simplified server core configuration with Server 2008-R2.

Create empty files using fsutil.exe

Mon, 25 May 2009 18:46:55 +0000

I am currently busy with testing BranchCache in a real world environment. I will share more about these tests in another post. Testing BranchCache does mainly consist of copying files over the WAN and monitor how the client cache is being populated and how other clients, that copy the same content from the remote BranchCache enabled server, utilize the distributed cache located on peer clients that reside within the same LAN segment.

Browse and extract files from a WIM file using 7-Zip

Sun, 17 May 2009 16:17:10 +0000

7-Zip is a free file archiver supporting many of today’s known archive formats such as ZIP, CAB, RAR and many more. Anyone who deals a lot with WIM files (Windows Image files) knows about the mount and un-mount commands and if you use imagex.exe and dism.exe on a regular basis you probably know the commands out of your head.

7-Zip also allows you to open, browse and extract content from a WIM file. This is especially helpful if you don’t have the imagex.exe or dism.exe installed.

Server 2008 R2 survival guide

Sun, 10 May 2009 14:09:58 +0000

Microsoft has published the Sever 2008 R2 survival guide which is a useful collection of resource links related to Windows Server 2008 R2.

You can download the Windows Server 2008 R2 Documentation Survival Guide from here

Finding FSMO Role Owners

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:50:53 +0000

In preparation of doing some Group Policy related things, I decided to extend my Home Lab AD infrastructure running on Windows Server 2003, with Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008R2 domain controllers.

Because at some stage I want to get rid of the Windows 2003 Server I also moved the FSMO roles from the Windows 2003 domain controller to the Windows 2008 domain controller.

I used the steps described in the “Transferring FSMO roles” article. Additional information can also be found in the “How to view and transfer FSMO roles in Windows Server 2003” article.

Left-Handed Mouse pointers

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 17:18:59 +0000

for those that are left-handed, have a look at these mouse pointers on MSDN Code Gallery. These left-handed Windows Vista mouse pointers are designed for left-handed users. They point to the right, instead of the left, which may feel more natural for left-handed users.

Perform Multithreaded File Copies with Robocopy in Windows 7

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 08:16:07 +0000

Read the TechNet article “Perform Multithreaded File Copies with Robocopy in Windows 7”

ToolTip - RichCopy

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:09:33 +0000

This week I read the Utility Spotlight article on TechNet about RichCopy. RichCopy is a great tool for copying, synchronizing and moving file contents around. Consider RichCopy as an enhanced robocopy GUI. One of the great features is that it can use multiple threads for file copying activities. I’ve been using it only for 2 days now, but I’m sure it becomes part of my must have toolset.

Updated Group Policy Online University

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:41:03 +0000

In January 2009 Jeremy Moskovitz launched the Online University for Group Policy Management. I wrote about that earlier in my blog post “Online Group Policy University”.

In the past weeks Jeremy has put an additional great amount of effort in reworking the offerings, so that now you have the possibility of selecting and ordering individual Modules and and options. Additionally there are some very attractive payment options as well that might be interesting for those that don’t get their company paying it for them, but want to invest in their personal knowledge.

VMWare Workstation – Memory configuration

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:37:46 +0000

One of the key hardware related prerequisites when using Virtualization software is RAM. To improve performance of my virtual environment that I have running on my notebook, I had ordered an additional memory module of 2 GB RAM.

After having added the additional 2 GB of RAM i started the VMWare Workstation and booted the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2003 guest systems. Before starting these I had of course raised the assigned amount of memory for each guest system.

Free Microsoft Press E-Book: Windows Vista Resource Kit

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:08:12 +0000

Microsoft Press is celebrating their 25th anniversary and is therefore giving away the “Windows Vista Resource Kit, Second Edition” E-BOOK.

You can download the complete E-Book (44 MB) from here.

VMware Icons and Diagrams

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 23:12:31 +0000

Need to prepare a presentation for a VMWare based Solution ? Then check out the VMWare icons and diagrams collection on the VMWare viops site. Download the Power Point file with all icons and diagrams here. Those that want to go into more detail might find this source useful as well.

And those that work with Visio might be interested in the Virtualization stencils from vmguru.com

TinyURL

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 15:02:24 +0000

Some of you who have read Technical books might have noticed that the author provided download links to content that starts with http://tinyurl.com/ TinyURL.com is a free service that allows you to create nice short URLs to your own or other sites or download content on the web.

Let me give an example with this blog post. The full URL to this blog post is: https://www.verboon.info/index.php/2009/02/tinyurl/ kind of a long URL right ? For demonstration purposes I have added the above URL on the TinyURL.COM web site which gave me the following nice short URL: http://tinyurl.com/cjygl7

Fix it automates steps described in Microsoft KB articles

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 19:42:37 +0000

Usually when you read a Microsoft Knowledge Base article you find a detailed description on how to solve a particular problem.

In some KB articles you will find the following picture

This indicates that the “Fix it Team” has provided a script / package to automate the system modifications required to fix the problem or change the system behavior.

The fix it team has their own “fix it for me blog” where they list the KB articles they have provided a fix it package.

ToolTip - Another Picture Resizer

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 17:01:08 +0000

I blogged earlier about Image resizer utilities, but just found another one worth mentioning.

Image Resizer Powertoy Clone for Windows is as its name says a clone of the Windows XP Image Resizer Powertoy that runs on Windows Vista as well, in both 32 and 64 bit version.

Once installed the utility adds an entry into the file context menu “Resize Pictures”.

Enjoy

Online Group Policy University

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 22:59:23 +0000

Today Jeremy Moskowitz has launched the Group Policy Online University. Taking into account that many companies in these days have restrictive travel and training policies, the Online University seems to be an excellent way how you can further extend your knowledge around Group Policy Management without the need to attend a live training e.g. you can attend the training at any time, from everywhere.

The only thing you need to do now is to convince your manager that it is worth the money :-)

Intel vPro - Known Issues, Best Practices, and Workarounds

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 21:00:20 +0000

Today when working on a vPro related issue, we came across the Intel vPro - Known Issues, Best Practices and Workarounds page. For those who deal with vPro it’s definitely worth reading that content.

Where has the Vista snipping tool gone ?

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 16:39:13 +0000

Today when I wanted to make a screen shot on one of my development systems I noticed that the snipping tool was gone. The snipping tool comes with the Vista operating system, so my thirst though was that something must have screwed up my system making the snipping tool disappear. But then i remembered that recently I had removed the Tablet PC Optional components from that desktop, thinking that I would not need that feature on a desktop PC.

MDT 2010 and AIK 2.0 Beta released

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 10:23:02 +0000

Just found out that Microsoft has released MDT 2010 AND AIK 2.0 BETA on Microsoft Connect. So now we cannot only test Windows 7 BETA but we can also start looking at it’s deployment.

ToolTip - ImageMaster for ISO files

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 21:10:56 +0000

ImageMaster is a .NET based application for reading, extract content and writing ISO files. There are many tools and products available that can do this but what i like about this one is that it’s only 1.2 MB and FREE !

What's running inside svchost.exe

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 20:46:26 +0000

When you open the Windows Task Manager and select the Processes tab and then select the “show processes from all users” button, you will find many instances of the svchost.exe as shown in the picture below.

So what are all these svchost.exe doing ? To get a detailed overview of each running svchost.exe you can run the follwing command at the command prompt that will list each svchost process its PID and the running services.

Your favorite apps anywhere anytime

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 10:18:20 +0000

Carrying your laptop with you sometimes can be a pain, and sometimes you don’t even expect that you would need your laptop. Especially when you are at some one’s private place and they ask you if you would mind to take a look at their PC that isn’t doing well anymore.

So what you need is a USB stick with all your favorite applications and utilities , since you don’t really want to start downloading and installing tools on someone elses PC. Still interested ? Then have a look at PortableApps.COM

Download Web based video Trainings

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 08:42:56 +0000

Ever had that situation where you started looking at webcast that is being streamed and than for some reason you got distiurbed by something and can’t look at it till its end ? Or you would simply like to keep that webcast on your local disk for later use. Well, given that the publisher allows you to download the video, do the following to create your local copy:

Copy the URL of the video

Intel AMT in action

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 20:59:21 +0000

For those of you who do have vPro capable machines in their environment, but never had the chance to take a closer look at the AMT features, this blog post might be of interest.

For most people I assume the biggest hurdle to start using the AMT technology is that you need a System Management Infrastructure setup that provides AMT support like Microsoft SCCM, Altiris Client Management Suite, Intel Landesk or the HP System Configuration Management Suite. If you really plan to use the AMT technology , this of course is a prerequisite, but if you just want to explore the basic functionality of AMT there is an easier path.

No Battery Alarm Sound on Vista - it's by design

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 21:48:25 +0000

Early this year I bought a new laptop for my wife with Windows Vista Home Premium pre-installed, before she used a notebook with Windows XP. Since she is using that new notebook, she is regularly complaining about Windows Vista just shutting down. Of course we could argue that people should read the messages they get such as the one below:

If Windows Vista would play a sound, people would probably pay more attention to it, but according to a Microsoft Knowledge base article KB950161. low and critical battery alarms do not sound on Windows Vista.

Live Mesh - A review

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 22:37:48 +0000

It’s been in May this year that i first wrote about Microsoft Live Mesh, later in July I was able to get it installed and since then i have been using it on a regular basis.

Not that there is anything new in remote controlling a PC and sharing documents, but it is the simplicity how it is done and how it can be used.

Once you have added your clients to live mesh, you can remotely access them from anywhere where you have Internet access and the necessary permissions to install an ActiveX control. Note that you can also access your mesh clients from a PC that is not part of your mesh network, you just need to logon on mesh.com

Active Directory Limits

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 22:49:17 +0000

Interesting in knowing how many objects you can create within AD ? how deep your OU structure can be ? Then read “Active Directory Maximum Limits”.

Altiris related information sources

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 14:42:09 +0000

Today someone asked a question about importing computer accounts within the Altiris Console. I had created a script for that about 4 years ago, so I wanted to check if the tools and methods i used would still be valid today. In browsing the web for altiris related content I came across the sites listed below.

Altirigos.com http://www.altirigos.com/index.php?page=home

Juice http://www.symantec.com/community/

Altris Forums http://forums.altiris.com/

Altiris Support Portal http://www2.altiris.com/support/main.asp

RSS / ATOM Feed validator

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:52:56 +0000

Fort those that have a blog and enabled an RSS or Atom feed, you can use the FEED Validator site to check your feed.

Converting VMWare image to Hyper-V image

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:26:22 +0000

Tomorrow there are plans to move some VMWare slices into Hyper-V. In preparation of that i have found the following article on TechNet

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserverhyperv/thread/ef8c12f7-c45d-442e-9a30-c43cd87df3b3/

and on vmToolkit there is a the tool VMDK to VHD converter that should help doing the job, so far for the theory, hope it works out.

ToolTip - CDBurnerXP

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:18:17 +0000

CDBurnerXP is a free application to burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. It also includes the feature to burn and create ISOs, as well as a multilanguage interface. Everyone, even companies, can use it for free. It does not include adware or similar malicious components.

And guess what, instead of several hundred megabytes installation sources, CDBurnerXP is only 3.05 MB.

Microsoft Knowledge Base - What's new ?

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 23:18:08 +0000

So often you find yourself with a technical problem and after long searching you might come across a Microsoft Knowledge base article. Especially with new products so called quick fix engineering updates are provided on a regular basis, so I was wondering how do you get to know about such QFE’s ?. I finally came across the KBUpdate.info website which is scanning the Microsoft Knowledge Base every night.

Vista SP1 download using BITSADMIN

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 14:57:52 +0000

I wrote about BITSADMIN earlier, use the below command line to directly download Vista SP1. Note that you have to create the c;\download folder yourself or define an other path.

BITSADMIN /TRANSFER VSP1 http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/a/9/3a9b72c2-527d-4694-8a49-84c056d4c34d/Windows6.0-KB936330-X86-wave0.exe C:\DOWNLOAD\Windows6.0-KB936330-X86-wave0.exe

Remote Control your Mobile Phone

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 16:13:33 +0000

The task for this Saturday was to remote control my mobile phone. After a short search on the web I found MyMobileR

The first good ting about this application is that it is FREE ! Second it’s easy to install, within seconds i could remotely manage my mobile phone.

Using this application allowed me to perform an e-mail account configuration in just a minute, because you can use your PC keyboard to enter data, and that is a bit more convenient than typing on a mobile phone.

Vista SP1 cleanup tool VSP1CLN.EXE

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:24:20 +0000

If you have installed Windows Vista SP1 on top of your first Vista installation and have no plans to uninstall it, you might want to give the following command a try “VSP1CLN.exe”.

The Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) Files Removal Tool (VSP1CLN.exe) can be used to remove the files that are archived after Windows Vista SP1 is applied. Running this tool is optional.

Installing Windows Vista SP1 increases the amount of disk space that is used by the operating system. This space is used to archive files so that SP1 can be uninstalled. Typically, you should run VSP1CLN.exe if you want to reclaim this disk space after applying SP1 and if you will not need to uninstall SP1.

ToolTip: Bulk Drive Manager

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 15:36:07 +0000

Easily and quickly disable USB Storage Drives, CD and Floppy drives across the network. The tool can be executed in GUI and command line mode.

The tool is actually just configuring the appropriate system services , therefore after applying a configuration setting, the system must be rebooted so that the change can take effect.

The tool can be downloaded from dovestones software.

What is eating my disk size ?

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 21:14:11 +0000

Today I was testing some OS image within various Virtual Machines and at some stage noticed my available space on the disk became lower and lower. Although after each test i had deleted the VM entirely somehow i must have overlooked one or the other. So where are those BIG files on your local disk that are eating your disk size ?

Well I launched WinDirStat that one had recommended me once, and is really a great tool. WinDirStat provides a graphical overview of your disk, allowing you to quickly identify where the BIG files are that can be deleted to gain space again.

Installing ESXi in VMWare Workstation 6.5

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 11:28:38 +0000

Finally after several attempts, i’ve been able to install VMWare ESXi into VMware Workstation 6.5. The intend of doing this is purely to get familiar with the product. To get this done, i have been mainly following the instructions provided by xtravirt.com

Once installed i had some challenges with transfering files through the Virtual Infrastructure Client datastore browser where i received I/O errors. After some troubleshooting it appears to be related to the network , switch configuration which i haven’t solved yet. The workaround i used for the time being is to configure the ESXi vmware network setting to “host” only instead of “Bridged”.

Another great site around Virtualization

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 13:51:10 +0000

In continuing my journey in Virtualization, I’ve come across another great site called VirtualizationAdmin.com

the site has a great collection of tutorials, blogs, white papers, software and more, definitely worth visiting it.

User Profile Hive Cleanup Service Installation (UPHClean)

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 20:11:34 +0000

Today’s challenge was to get UPHClean.msi installing correctly. You would think that installing an MSI package is an easy thing to do, so thought I. But unfortunately MSI is not always MSI. Looking at all the posts on the web, it seems I was not the only one who had a bit of a challenge getting this installed in an automated way.

When launching the UPHClean.msi manually all works fine, software installs, service gets registered and the package is being listed in the Add/Remove programs list.

VMWare 6.5 available

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 20:17:15 +0000

I must have missed this somehow :-) VMWare finally released VMWare Workstation 6.5. For those that didn’t notice it too, here’s the release notes. It does note make sense here to list any of the highlights as there are just too many of them, all described within the release notes. Well…. for those that like automation, have a look at vmrun.

And of course there is also the VMWare Player 2.5.

vPro colors in BIOS

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 19:48:16 +0000

When remotely accessing the system BIOS of a HP Compaq dc7800 desktop machine using vPro, the BIOS appears in black and white as shown in the picture below:

to get the native BIOS colors you must configure the terminal emulator mode to ANSI

then, the BIOS will appear with colors as if you were sitting in front of the physical machine.

Thanks to Claude Henchoz for the hint.

Slipstreaming IE8

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 18:44:23 +0000

The “New Zealand IE8 Taskforce” posted a nice article on how to slipstream IE8 into Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 images.

Wireless Router with Power button

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 15:34:31 +0000

This is what i have been looking for since a while, about 12 months ago i was actively searching for a Wireless router with a power on/off button, but with no luck.

Yesterday i read a local IT magazine where there was a reference to a Netgrear Wireless Router that has a power on/off button.

I find having a power on/off button very useful for 2 reasons:

Energy saving
Less Wireless signals in the house when not needed

Till now the family just unplugged the power cable , but that isn’t as convenient as just pressing a button, so soon this device will replace our current one.

3 seconds to get system serial number

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:30:21 +0000

Okay, depends on how fast you can type. Start a command prompt and enter the following command:

wmic csproduct get identifyingnumber,vendor,name

In simple words, wmic is a WMI commandline tool. It’s around since XP if i am right, but there hasn’t been much documentation for it:

Some references here:

Prep-ing WINPE does make a difference

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 12:35:57 +0000

When creating WinPE 2.0 boot images, make sure you run the PEImg /prep command against your boot.wim as it does make a significant difference in sze as shown in the table below:

Bootable ISO file with WiinPE 2.0 Size in MB

boot.wim prepped 146 mb

boot.wim not prepped 203 MB

Considering this all is loaded into memory, you might want to make sure to reduce the size of the boot.wim to an absolute minimum.

Organize your desktop

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 20:32:55 +0000

Sysinternals published a new nice utility called Desktops. Not that this is something we haven’t seen before, but like all the tools from sysinternals it’s all nicely packaged into one executable.

It’s definitely worth a try. Thanks Tobi for the hint :-)

Identifying the WDS Server

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 20:14:47 +0000

When deploying an image from a WDS server it might be useful to know its computer name. Johan Arwidmark has posted the details about the WDSServer variable on his blog here:

http://www.deployvista.com/Blog/tabid/70/EntryID/35/Default.aspx

No Automatic reboot please

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 13:59:22 +0000

Saturday morning, before going out with my family on a shopping tour I started a large FTP download and assumed it would have completed upon my return…. a few hours later, I found my system at the logon prompt, as it had rebooted itself automatically and of course the FTP download was not completed.

What happened ? Very simple, Windows Update had automatically rebooted the system, probably after having displayed a message as shown in the screen shot below.

The need for installing the Intel Chipset update

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 21:56:10 +0000

Within one of the projects I’m working on, there was a debate about installing the Intel Chipset software. It was requested not to install it. I could not agree with that, as it is a common known best practice to install the Intel Chipset update software unless the operating system can configure the Intel chipset natively.

A detailed table about when the Intel chipset software installation is needed can be found here:

Energy Saving Software

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:55:57 +0000

Edison, provided by Verdiem helps you saving power and our environment.

The tool can be downloaded here: http://www.verdiem.com/edison/

Reading TechNet Magazine offline

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 14:32:57 +0000

staying up to date is key when working in IT. As mentioned in an earlier post, i spend nearly 2 hours a day traveling to work and back home. Today i just noticed that TechNet Magazine is also made available as a HTML help file, so looks like i have another source for reading now.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc135917.aspx

Unfortunately the articles aren’t consolidated in one file, but every months issue is made available in a separate download. The link below let’s you download the September 2009 edition.

Microsoft Shared View Software

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 17:17:55 +0000

Those that often work with other people in different locations and don’t have access to a corporate managed solution where they can share their screen or documents, have a look at Shared View from Microsoft.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc645019.aspx

Microsoft Shared View download:

Microsoft Shared View download

A GUI for Robocopy

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 17:04:00 +0000

Some of you might now this already, I just came across this today :-) Although i prefer command lines, I must admit that i like this tool, as it allows you to either run the command immediately or save it as a script. And for some reasons I have always had a bit of a “typo” issue using robocoy. .

Read Article and download the tool here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc160891.aspx

A new book arrived

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 10:51:40 +0000

Since yesterday this book joined my book collection.

Using BITS for file downloads

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 21:12:01 +0000

Today I have come across the topic BITS which stands for Binary Intelligent Transfer Service which is a file transfer technology that is included in Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista.

What is nice about BITS is that it provides Checkpoint recovery and network throttling. This means that when a download is being interrupted because the remote site became temporarily unavailable or you had shut down your client, BITS will automatically resume the download when the remote source becomes available again or when the machine has been powered up again.

Grow vmware size - an update

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:11:57 +0000

Earlier i wrote about how to extend you virtual disk , although I have not been able to test , verify this new feature myself, from the documentation provided, it looks like ESX Server 3.5 Update 2 provides hot virtual extend support.

Grow vmware size

Hot Virtual Extend Support – The ability to extend a virtual disk while virtual machines are running is provided. Hot extend is supported for vmfs flat virtual disks without snapshots opened in persistent mode

Automating Regional settings configuration for Vista

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 19:24:34 +0000

In my earlier post “Automating Regional Settings configuration” I described how to script the Regional Options settings for Windows XP using a rundll command.

For Windows Vista there is a similar trick using the following command:

 control intl.cpl,, /f:“filename.xml”

Details on how to populate the filename.xml are documented on Microsoft Technet - Guide to Windows Vista Multilingual User Interface.

Blocking Live Mesh within corporate networks

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 11:57:00 +0000

When i wrote about Live Mesh back in May, I asked myself what corporate security administrators would thnik about having their users starting meshing their private and business systenms.

In Microsofts KB951861 you find more information on how IT Administrators can block Live Mesh on their networks. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951861/en-us

Web Archive

InstallShield Setup Parameters

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 11:46:00 +0000

On www.AppDeploy.com you find an excellent document describing all Installshield setup parameters, very helpfull if you want to install applications in silent mode. http://www.appdeploy.com/articles/InstallShield%20Setup%20Parameters.pdf

Live Sysinternals

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 06:18:00 +0000

For those that need quick access to the famous sysinternals tools, direct access to the executables is now available through: http://live.sysinternals.com/

On Microsoft Technet, the tools can be found here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx

https://web.archive.org/web/20080513070655/http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx

Reducing energy consumption

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 19:57:00 +0000

Everybody can help a little bit, turn off your TV from standby, and why not shutdown your home computer completely ?

On HPs latest client hardware, you’ll find a nice little tool that helps you reduce energy costs as well, it’s called the HP Power Manager.

The tool lets you select a power saving scheme and dows display as well the potential cost and energy savings, and most important how much you help saving the environment.I did just install a standalone version, but for large enterprises Verdiem provides an enterprise suite, that allows you centrally manage your users power settings. I’m just about to send them an e-mail to get a trial version, so hopefully i can let you more abuot this in a couple of days or so.

Looking for HP Drivers ?

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:21:00 +0000

Usually when you would need a specific driver you go up to the vendors website and search for the driver download area.

Since a while, HP provides a more convenient way to find latest drivers for your HP hardware. It’s called the HP Softpaq download manager.

The HP Softpaq download manager allows you to easilly navigate to your device and get a list of all availabble drivers and related software, view the release note, and with just one click, download the content that you need to your client.

BIOS Boot delay on VMWARE

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 09:56:00 +0000

Ever had that issue that you wanted to enter the VMWARE BIOS, but you simply don’t made it because the VMWARE session boots too fast ?

Add the following line to your *.vmx file.

bios.bootDelay = "3000"

http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-1201¨