We do the majority of desktop deployment using imaging. Imaging allows us to bypass most of the redundant manual desktop software configuration. But one part of the deployment process we had struggled with was configuring Outlook. Once the machine was placed, the technician had to login to the computer as the user and setup the Outlook […]
I control most of my networked computers’ Windows desktop firewalls through Group Policy. I have a few workstations that aren’t associated with any GPOs for testing purposes, and these machines have the Windows XP Firewall turned off. These machines also run antivirus software that Windows Security Center can’t monitor. Windows constantly wants to remind me […]
Some of our older laptops are starting run short on free space on the system partition. The MSOCache is a hidden folder, usually located on the C drive, that contains a copy of the Microsoft Office source installation files. This allows you to add program features or repair the program without requiring access to the original […]
by File in: Script
Here’s a simple batch file script to backup the Windows Server 2003 System State to a removable drive: for /f “Tokens=1-4 Delims=/ ” %%i in (‘date /t’) do set dt=%%i-%%j-%%k-%%l for /f “Tokens=1” %%i in (‘time /t’) do set tm=-%%i set tm=%tm::=-% set dtt=%dt%%tm% C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntbackup.exe backup systemstate /v:yes /r:no /rs:no /hc:off /m normal /j “server04 […]
I’ve had some authentication problems of late on one of my Windows 2000/2003 networks, so I decided to enable Net Logon debugging to help trace the source of the problem. KB 109626 details how to enable debug logging for Windows NT 3.51+, but if you’re running Windows 2000 or higher just exit to a command […]
I was browsing the Windows Server Command Line Reference today and came across clip.exe. I was not familiar with this little utility, but after a brief investigation I found that it could redirect command line output to the Windows clipboard. Why would I want to do this? I’m very command line oriented. I grew up with […]
We are replacing our old desktop security program with Zenworks for Desktops 7 Group Policies, which are essentially Windows Group Policies integrated into eDirectory. After deploying these policies, we found that users did not see any of the shortcut icons on their desktops that had been placed into the “C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Desktop” folder on […]
by File in: Utilities
MSTview.exe is a free, portable transform (.mst) viewer that is found in the Office 2003 Editions Resource Kit, as well as the Office XP Resource Kit. Rather than install the entire Resource Kit just to get this one file, try this: 1) Download the Office 2003 Editions Resource Kit (ork.exe) from Microsoft. 2) Browse to […]
Every once in a while I need to extract the content of a .msi file in order to customize a deployment for a particular network environment. Sometimes initializing the .msi installer will temporarily extract the files into C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Temp, but those files are removed once the installer exits. To extract files from a […]
I manage many Windows servers using Remote Desktop/RDC or Terminal Services. I have an icon saved to my desktop for each server, which contains the configuration settings for each specific connection, such as domain, user name, etc. This allows me to quickly connect to the server by double-clicking it’s shortcut and entering the appropriate password. […]
