Tips-Tools on Anything About IT

ToolTip: Portable WinCDEmu

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 19:32:22 +0000

One of the first things I usually do when setting up a new system that I plan to use for longer is to install an ISO mount tool. My favorite FREE tool for that is still Virtual CloneDrive. Today I came across another utility that does the same thing, but is portable, meaning there is no need to really install the software, this might come in handy when you can’t or don’t feel like you want to leave behind a system with all of your tools installed.

Windows 7 – MFU (Most Frequent Used Programs)

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 22:59:23 +0000

This week I found an interesting tool called UserAssist.exe written by Didier Stevens. The UserAssist tool lists the UserAssist registry keys stored under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\UserAssist. This is the location where Windows 7 (and earlier versions of Windows) retrieves the information about the execution frequency of applications started by users. If you are interested about the details of the UserAssist registry keys I recommend that you read some of Didier Stevens blog posts and his article he wrote for the Digital Forensics and Incident Response Magazine.

Why a double click in the upper left corner closes the Window

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 16:02:36 +0000

Ever wondered why a double click in the upper left corner closes the Window although there is no close icon?

Well I have no proof for this, but assume that this is because in the early days of Windows, the only way to close a Window with the mouse was to DoubleClick on the Window Menu icon in the upper left corner as on the upper right side of the Window there were only buttons to minimize and maximize the Window.

ToolTip: Soluto–Improve your Windows Boot Performance

Sun, 16 Jan 2011 10:27:58 +0000

Hey here’s another cool application that can help improving Windows startup boot times. The Application is called Soluto and can be downloaded from here.

Using Soluto is a no-brainer, just install it, and reboot. Soluto will show you the applications that are executed during the Windows Boot process and then allows you to either pause or delay the application during future boots.

Mute Windows System Volume

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 17:46:36 +0000

I came across a forum post where someone asked how to programmatically mute the Windows System volume. So this is what I have found:

NirCmd

NirCmd from NirSoft is a small command-line utility that contains many smart functions like muting and unmuting the system volume.

To mute the system volume, simply run the following command

nircmd.exe mutesysvolume 1

and to unmute you run

nircmd.exe mutesysvolume 0

With VBScript

Another option is to use a VBscript, the following code I found here will mute or unmute the system volume

Prevent the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool from formatting the USB flash drive

Thu, 23 Dec 2010 01:28:06 +0000

If you want to install Windows 7 from USB you can use Microsoft’s Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool which you can download from here. By default the tool requires that the USB disk is being erased before copying the Windows 7 installation media, hence you get the following messages.

This is a bit laborious, because sometimes you might want to store some additional files on your installation media, instead of having to store it elsewhere. I came across a small comment at the bottom of the Tools website about how to prevent the tool from erasing / formatting the USB drive prior copying the installation media.

ToolTip: Domain Time LMCheck

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 21:21:00 +0000

Refreshing my knowledge a bit on Time Synchronization, NTP etc. and came across this utility. It’s FREE and doesn’t require installation.

The Domain Time LMCheck test tool lets you assess the current time of all the Windows machines on your network quickly and easily. It uses the built-in LAN Manager NetRemote TOD (Time of Day) function to check the time on all the machines in the browse list.

LMCheck can be downloaded from here

ToolTip: checksum

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 22:50:37 +0000

Today’s ToolTip is about a utility called checksum and guess what, it can create and verify checksums. But beside all the other checksum utilities i came across so far this one has some nice features that make it worth mentioning it.

First it’s fast. I created a checksum for the Windows 7 x64 ISO file and it was about 15 to 20 seconds faster than other checksum utilities. Another feature that I like is that it can not only create checksums for individual files, but also for folders and it’s entire content. Checksum fully integrates into the Windows Explorer context menu but can also be launched from the command line.

Windows Mobile 6.1 Hot Fix for Sending POP and IMAP E-mail

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 19:26:33 +0000

Once again, there is always a solution for every problem, it’s just that it can take a while until you find the solution.

Since months I have had issues with “sending” e-mails from my Windows Mobile 6.1 device. I have several mail accounts configured on my mobile, but the one that is configured to use IMAP simply wouldn’t work.

Today I stumbled upon a patch that fixes this. If you happen to have the same problem then download the Windows Mobile 6.1 Hot Fix for Sending POP and IMAP E-mail from here

Troubleshooting Windows Update

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 18:04:06 +0000

Issues with installing Windows Updates? Then have a look at the following Microsoft Support Articles:

KB971058 How do I reset Windows Update components?

KB947821 Description of the System Update Readiness Tool for Windows Vista, for Windows Server 2008, for Windows 7, and for Windows Server 2008 R2

Windows 7 Search Provider

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 17:57:53 +0000

Inspired by the Windows 7 Federated Search blog post I created a Search Extender for my Anything about IT blog. You can download the Anything About IT Search Provider from here

Once you have downloaded the ZIP file, unpack aait.osdx and double click to install. You will see the following message. Click Add to install the Anything about IT Search Provider.

Once installed you can directly search for content on Anything about IT from your Windows Explorer.

End of Support for Windows XP SP2 – Deploy XP SP3

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 19:27:24 +0000

On July 12, 2010 Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack will reach end of support, for most companies this shouldn’t come as a surprise as this has been widely communicated when Microsoft released Windows XP Service Pack 3. however it appears that some companies didn’t took these message too serious then, but now suddenly realize that July 12, 2010 is just a few months ahead of them.

Many people have still in memory the challenges they faced with Windows XP Service Pack 2, this because this in fact was more than what people knew as being a Service Pack. Windows XP Service Pack 2 was not just a rollup of security and product fixes, but also contained various technology updates (Network protection, Memory Protection, Web Browsing security and Computer Maintenance). In these days the famous word was Trustworthy Computing and this was what Windows XP Service Pack 2 was about. From a technical and security perspective Windows XP Service Pack 2 was definitely a big step forward, but many companies faced quite some challenges in deploying it especially with regard to application compatibility.

ToolTip: Power Plan Assistant for Windows 7

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 14:43:37 +0000

Microsoft has spend a great effort on optimizing the power consumption for Windows 7, But here’s another FREE tool that I consider as a nice enhancement over the build in features in Windows 7. Power Plan Assistant for Windows 7 can be downloaded from here. For a brief feature overview read this.

My favorite feature is the instant “Power off the Display” option that can be invoked with just a double click on the tool’s tray icon.

ToolTip: No sleep for Windows

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 07:56:07 +0000

Assume that for whatever reason occasionally you do not want your system to enter the sleep mode, but you also do not want to change your power plan ? Then have a look at insomnia a free tool to temporarily prevent a machine from going to sleep.

The Tool can be downloaded from here:

Windows Home Server – A must have

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 23:03:45 +0000

This week I bought a HP MediaSmart Server EX490 which runs Windows Home Server. The primary reason for buying a Windows Home Server was to get an easy to use solution in place that allows us to perform automated backups and share the data across the multiple devices.

The most important computer at home is my wife’s notebook, as this has become a kind of the primary access point for the family to store pictures, music and documents.

ToolTip: Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 17:21:55 +0000

The Windows 7 USB / DVD Download Tool allows you to transfer the content of the Windows 7 installation sources to a USB device or DVD media. The tool is FREE and can be downloaded from here If you use Windows XP you must have at least the .NET Framework 2.0 or higher installed and you must install the Image Mastering API v2.0 prior installing the Tool.

**Additional Information:
**Microsoft Store: Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool
CodePlex: Windows 7 USB / DVD Download Tool

Windows Licensing Fact Sheet

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 14:46:19 +0000

Has your organization ever acquired PCs without operating systems preinstalled, and then used its Volume Licensing agreement to install the full operating system on those PCs? Download the Windows Licensing Fact Sheet to learn more about Windows Licensing.

Accessing the BIOS in Windows Virtual PC

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:05:37 +0000

When setting up a Virtual Machine in Windows Virtual PC, You will see the following progress window when the VM is started. This indicates that the VM is running in Enhanced Mode which is the default. To better understand the different modes of Windows Virtual PC I recommend reading the “Three Modes of Windows XP Mode” article.

The progress windows is being displayed until the OS running in the VM has started up, so you have no chance to interrupt the boot process to access the BIOS. To get access to the VM BIOS, you must run the VM in Basic Mode. Running a VM in Basic Mode means that you must disable the integration features.

Installing Branded IE7 on Windows XP Service Pack 3

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 14:56:41 +0000

I’ve spend nearly 3 hours in troubleshooting today to find out the reason why a custom IE7 package, that worked fine on Windows XP SP2 would not work on Windows XP SP3.

If you are using a custom Internet Explorer 7 package (created with the Internet Explorer Administration Toolkit) and plan to rebuild your enterprise image with Windows XP SP3, you might be interested in this article.

What you should know about Windows 7 and using the WAIK

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:45:13 +0000

Many of you have probably already considered installing the 64 bit version of Windows 7 if not done already. I just found a “must read” article on the Deployment Guys blog about the WAIK and creating unattends for x32 and x64 images. Click here to read the entire article.

Upgrade your existing KMS Service to support Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 09:08:53 +0000

If you are already running an existing KMS Service within your environment, and you do not plan to install a new KMS Service, the following information might be of interest if you have plans for deploying Windows 7 or Server 2008-R2 systems.

Update for Windows Server 2003 (KB968915)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=f3a0d90c-b7fd-44cf-bf81-11587adc599f&displaylang=en

Update for Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition (KB968915)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=1678151b-b577-476f-87da-df54024b98e2&displaylang=en

An update is available that installs Key Management Service (KMS) 1.2 for Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and for later versions of Windows Server 2003
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=968915

Adding Games on Windows 7 Enterprise

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 18:35:35 +0000

When you run a default Windows 7 Enterprise installation, you will notice that by default no games are being installed. System administrators using the Windows Automated Installation Toolkit can use the image manager to enable games within their customized Windows 7 Enterprise installation, but here’s another trick how you can get the games enabled.

Open a command prompt with elevated Administrative privileges and execute the following command:

dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:InboxGames

The “MZ” header in EXE files

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 21:01:12 +0000

When you open an executable in notepad, you might have noticed that every executable starts with the letters MZ

These story behind these two letters is that these are the initials of Mark Zbikowski the designer of the DOS executable file format. These two letters are basically telling the system that this is an executable file.

It must be a funny idea when going to sleep and knowing that your initials are spread on billions of systems.

Do not slipstream Windows XP sources on Windows Vista

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:05:45 +0000

Today one of my colleagues ran into an issue after having slipstreamed Service Pack 3 into Windows XP. During the Windows XP unattended installation process the provided product key within the unattend.txt file was not accepted, which caused the system to prompt for the product key.

This turned out to be a known issue as documented within the following Microsoft support article. After you create Windows XP Service Pack 3 slipstreamed media, your product key is not accepted.

ToolTip – PowerPlan Switcher for Windows

Sun, 24 May 2009 17:08:48 +0000

Just came across this very nice utility called the Smart Power Plan Switcher for Windows. The utility allows you to configure the power scheme to be used based on the current power status. So once your system runs on battery it will automatically switch to the preferred power scheme.

the Software can be downloaded from the MSDN Code Gallery

Windows 7 Theme Packs

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:27:04 +0000

Just found a nice article on Mike Swanson’s blog about Windows 7 Theme Packs. Windows 7 introduces theme packs, which are .cab files that contain all of the necessary assets to implement a theme, including sound files and images.

Download the official Microsoft Theme Packs here

Download the Theme Packs from Mike Swanson here

While in Windows XP it was rather a pain to create your own Themes, it looks like in Windows 7 things have been simplified a bit. Definitely interesting for companies as well to apply their corporate design to their clients.

Windows 7 hands-on videos

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 16:34:56 +0000

Just came back from vacation and cleaning up my mailbox. One had send a link that contains a number of nice short hands-on videos about Windows 7. Don’t expect any level 500 deep technical insight from these videos, but they are good enough to get a general overview on what’s new around the following topics:

Installation Changes
New Desktop Features
New Superbar and Aero Features
Application Enhancements
The Action Center and UAC Settings

Windows Update Explained

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 15:01:00 +0000

Just found a document called Windows Update Explained on the Microsoft Update Team Blog. The document provides a good insight on how Windows Update works.

Shutting down or Reboot Vista when remotely connected

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:10:21 +0000

When you are logged on to a Vista Client through a remote desktop connection, you don’t see the option to shutdown or reboot the system within the Start Menu.

But if you are within the remote session and press CTRL+ALT+END you get the following screen

allowing you to Restart, shutdown or putting into sleep the system.

Another option is to enter the shutdown command at command prompt like shutdown /s that will shutdown the system.

Windows 7 secrets

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 22:07:34 +0000

Tim Sneath has written a must read article on his blog called “the bumper list of Windows 7 secrets". The article describes many new handy features included within Windows 7.

I take the freedom of copying one Secret into this post as it works well on Windows Vista too, and is really a must know for those that often use the command prompt.

***Command Junkies Only. *One of the most popular power toys in Windows XP was “Open Command Prompt Here”, which enabled you to use the graphical shell to browse around the file system and then use the context menu to open a command prompt at the current working directory. In Windows 7 (and in Windows Vista, incidentally – although not many folk knew about it), you can simply hold the Shift key down while selecting the context menu to get exactly the same effect. If the current working directory is a network location, it will automatically map a drive letter for you.

GPO Survival guide

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 20:04:35 +0000

Just came across this handy document from Microsoft called the “[Group Policy Documentation Survival Guide](http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/1/2/212db64c-3e9c-44d3-b822-b2508e0eccf3/Group Policy Survival Guide.pdf)”.

The guide contains all the links to the resources you need when dealing with Group Policies.

The document can be downloaded here

TechNet - Windows 7 Forums

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 17:20:56 +0000

Looking for answers on Windows 7 ? have a look on the Microsoft Technet Forums for Windows 7 Beta.

ToolTip – Clipname

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:20:04 +0000

Today I was writing an email that contained a couple of file name references, as i was writing the first 2 file names I remembered that in the past when I used WinBatch there was a nice explorer context menu enhancement that allowed copying file names and paths into the windows clipboard.

By searching the web for filename to clipboard utilities, i actually found quite a lot of them. Because i prefer small, lean and FREE I finally ended up with Clipname provided by MainSoft.

ToolTip - Unlocker

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 21:18:39 +0000

When trying out the Beta AIK for Windows 7 I got into a situation where some files got locked by the system, probably due to a not properly unmounted WIM file. A tool that has become most handy to unlock files is UNLOCKER. Unlocker integrates itself into the context menu, so that you can easily select a folder or file that you want to unlock.

Unlocker can be downloaded directly from the developers website.

Hyper-V and Dynamic discs

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:01:19 +0000

First let me avoid confusion here, I’m not talking about “dynamically expanding” discs but about the disc type e.g. Basic and Dynamic.

In the past weeks we have been migrating some of our physical servers into Hyper-V. Just before X-mas my colleague had prepared a plain Windows 2003 system for me so that i could continue with installing the necessary applications that were planned to run on that system. Two discs were created, the primary disc that contains the boot partition is connected to an IDE controller and the second disc to a SCSI controller. Note that the OS boot disc must always be connected to an IDE controller. So the disk layout looks as following:

Scripting Windows Explorer Details View

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 08:30:19 +0000

Those of you who are familiar with desktop engineering know the pain of scripting Windows configuration settings. While in general many settings can be configured by adding or changing a specific registry key value, there are still many things within the OS where Microsoft did not make our life as easy and provides a single registry key that can be tweaked.

Yesterday I worked on setting the Windows XP Windows Explorer View to “Details” by default for all users. The typical approach in identifying registry changes is to create a snapshot before and after manally applying the system configuration change, then in most cases the necessary registry keys are found and can be scripted. But unfortunately that wasn’t the case when changing the Windows Explorer View to Details.

Windows BCD Store

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 10:48:43 +0000

Before Windows Vista Boot Configuration Information was stored within the boot.inifile. With the introduction of Windows Vista Microsoft has completely reengineered the boot environment and Windows startup process. . Since then Boot Configuration information is not stored within the boot.ini anymore but within the BCD store. BCD = Boot Configuration Data.

To learn more about BCD read the following articles:

Booting Win7 from a VHD file

Sat, 03 Jan 2009 21:37:37 +0000

Windows7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 will support booting directly from a VHD (Virtual hard disk) file. This will allow you to run multiple operating systems on a single hard disk without the need of creating multiple partitions.

I found a nice description on the blog from rasmus sjoerslev about booting Windows7 from a VHD file.

Windows7 overview from Mark Minasi

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:34:58 +0000

Mark Minasi has put together a nice overview on Windows7. “the next Windows: Lucky7?”

Reducing the Windows Vista Footprint

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:47:56 +0000

The Windows Vista footprint is quite large, so my current thoughts are “how to reduce the Windows Vista footprint ?”. I hope to come up with a complete overview at some stage, for now i have found the following interesting references:

Uninstalling Drivers and Devices in Windows Vista a Microsoft white paper primarily intended for driver developers, but why not use the same methods described in there and reduce the driver store size ?

GPO Preferences require XMLLite

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 20:28:26 +0000

Reading the Group Policy Preferences Overview Whitepaper from SDM software, I just notice an interesting prerequisite for using GPO Preferences - XMLLite.

XmlLite Runtime Files

The XmlLite runtime file, Xmllite.dll, is integrated into the following operating systems and products:

Windows Server 2008
Windows Vista
Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 2 or later.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 and later.

The XmlLite runtime is also available as a download from the XmlLite Update Page for the following operating systems:

Enable Active Directory Services tools on Windows 2008

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:39:06 +0000

I just connected to our fresh installed Windows 2008 server that we intend to use as a remote system management console. The server is a member of our Windows 2003 Active Directory domain, not a DC itself.

I wanted to launch the Active directory users and computers console, but did not find it under the Administrative tools. Okay, this must be something similar like with Windows Vista when you install the RSAT tools I thought, and yes it is, you must first enable that feature.

InstEd - Free Windows Installer database editor

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 19:51:31 +0000

For those dealing with application packaging here’s an interesting tool you should know about. For more details check out the InstEd site and read theblog.

VI command reference

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 10:11:59 +0000

VI - last time i had my very personal fight with this text editor was back in 1992 or 1993 when sitting in a Oracle Administration trainging class, and probably was the only non-UNIX guy (some time months later I was the first Windows guy that installed Oracle on NT 3.51). Now nearly 15 years later again i come across that editor and NO i have not learned how to use it since then because so far my focus was on things where VI would not be needed, but my interest in Virtualization technologies seems to drive me somehow towards learning this VI editor , or at least the basics, like how to get out of that thing !. I had just edited a vmware configuration file on ESXi, but then found myself in not being able to save that file and exiting from VI.

ToolTip - chml.exe manage Windows Integrity Levels

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:02:34 +0000

To be honest i haven’t gone into the details of the Windows Integrity Levels myself but wanted to mention the chml.exe tool that can be downloaded from Mark Minasi’s web site.

More details about the Windows Vista Integrity Mechanism can be found here:

TCP/IP Fundamentals for Windows

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 05:39:12 +0000

Need an update on TCP/IP ? then download this paper: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c76296fd-61c9-4079-a0bb-582bca4a846f&DisplayLang=en

A site worth mentioning

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 22:17:19 +0000

While searching for something I came across the site computer performance, why the sites is called like that, i don’t know, but it has a lot of interesting content related to windows 2008, vista, scripting etc. so that i find it worth mentioning.

ToolTip - Shadowexplorer

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 20:09:32 +0000

This week i found a nice little tool called ShadowExplorer.

ShadowExplorer allows you to browse the shadow copies created by the Windows® VistaTM Volume Shadow Copy Service. It’s especially thought for users of the home editions, who don’t have access to the shadow copies by default, but it’s also useful for users of the other editions.

Download from: http://www.shadowexplorer.com/downloads.html

As always, give it a try.

AppDeploy Repackager

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 12:17:12 +0000

Bob Kelly has launched a free MSI Packaging tool called the AppDeploy Repackager.

The AppDeploy Repackager is a simple freeware snapshot tool for the creation of Windows Installer (MSI) setup packages

More information about what the Repackager can do and can not do can be found in the FAQ.

The VistaPE project

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 20:11:45 +0000

Those of you that work within the desktop management space might be familiar with the PE Builder aka as BartPE.Since WinPE was only available to enterprise customers, BartPE was a good alternative for those that had did not have access to WinPE. the PE builder allowed building a preboot environment boot CD by just using the Windows XP or Windows 2003 sources.

With the release of the Windows Automated Installation kit (WAIK), anyone has access to WinPE 2.0, so anyone now can build his PE based boot sources.

Enable access to RSAT after installation

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:11:39 +0000

On Windows 2000/XP you used to install the adminpak.msi to get access to the various Administrator tools such as the Active Directory Users and Computers or the DHCP management interface.

With Windows Vista SP1, you must install the RSAT package, RSAT stands for Remote Server Administrator Tool.

Once installed, I wanted to access them, so as I am used to do opened the Administrative Tools in the Start menu,…. but there weren’t there……. ??? To keep the story short, you must first “enable” them before you can use them.

Windows Vista Performance and Tuning Guide

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:48:01 +0000

Microsoft has published a Windows Vista Performance and Tuning Guide focusing on the following:

Making configuration changes that help a computer feel more responsive when you use it.
Using hardware to boost the actual physical speed of a computer.
Making configuration changes that help a computer to start faster.
Making the computer more reliable may help increase performance.
Monitoring performance occasionally so that you can stop problems before they get too big.

For those who liked Norton Commander

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 21:38:40 +0000

Remember this one ? Yes it’s the famous Norton Commander. I’ve been using it until we moved to Windows NT. A newer version was released that worked for Win96 and NT, but it looked a bit like they’ve had just dumped the NC in a “Window”

In the mid 90’s I was working with an external application developer, who always carried a tool called the Windows Commander with him on a floppy. The Windows Commander was a kind of a clone of the Norton Commander, but fully Window-mized. it ran perfectly on Windows 3.11.

Windows sidebar gadgets

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:29:44 +0000

Once announced as one of the great new features in Windows Vista, it has become silent around the Sidebar gadgets. To me it looks like people have ran out of ideas about what could be gadgetized.

You find tons of Vista sidebar gadgets that display the weather, latest news, stocks, clocks and a whole range of search gadgets. Then there is another set of tools and utilities where most seem to focus on displaying some system information.

Putting drive letters first

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:42:01 +0000

When launching Windows Explorer, by default the driver letters are being displayed behind the volume / share name.

Some people, like myself don’t find this very convenient and want to see the drive letters in front of the volume / share description. This can be customized by applying the following registry key:

Reg ADD HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer /v ShowDriveLettersFirst /t REG_DWORD /d 0x4 /f

Disable System Restore through WMI

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:16:05 +0000

If you are sure about what you are doing and you want to speed up the installation of multiple security patches or applications, you can use the following WMI command to disable Windows XP system restore.

on error resume next
set sr=GetObject("winmgmts:\\.\root\default:SystemRestore")
e=sr.disable("")

To turn on System Restore again, use the following command:

on error resume next
set sr=GetObject("winmgmts:\\.\root\default:SystemRestore")
e=sr.enable("")

A GUI for Windows Server Core

Wed, 21 May 2008 18:40:00 +0000

When i first read about Windows Server core, let’s say at some time in 2006, I immediately thought of the days managing Novell 3.11 systems, although there were a couple of NLMs (loadable modules) that provided a kind of GUI interface, most system configuration commands were typed at the console prompt. The command i will never forget is “get reply to get nearest server off” :-) this to prevent clients logging on to the wrong netware server.