Various cool software and more

Group Policy Loopback

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I keep forgetting how to enable Group Policy Loopback processing, this is useful if you have an advanced structure/advanced needs within your OU’s in AD.

The recipe is simple;

To set user configuration per computer, follow these steps:

  1. In the Group Policy Microsoft Management Console (MMC), click Computer Configuration.
  2. Locate Administrative Templates, click System, click Group Policy, and then enable the Loopback Policy option.

This will allow for Usersettings to be propagated even if they are only in the Computer OU.

More here; http://support.microsoft.com/?id=231287

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MS-Word fieldcode editing/changing

You have likely been in this situation before, you paste a large ACSII text into a word document and word makes these annoying double line breaks (new style carrige return) and you actually just want a linefeed.   Well you can change every instance manually but that would take forever, so here is how to do to fix it via a simple “Search and Replace”.

  • Mark the text you want ‘changed’
  • Select “Replace” from the top menu
  • Enter;
  • And execute, that’s all there is to it 🙂

I got the first hint here
And there is a bit more on formatting/fieldcodes here

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iLO firmware is in a network flash recovery state

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If you use HP servers you hopefully also use or have configured the iLO connection, the iLO port will allow you to connect to the console screen of the server even if Windows is not booted, this allows for installing a server or configuring bios settings etc remotely.

However, yesterday when I tried to connect to one of our servers via iLO (you do this via Internet Explorer)  i got this message;

<?xml version="1.0" ?> - <RIMP>
-<MP>   <ST>5</ST>   <INFORM>The iLO firmware is in a network flash recovery state.</INFORM>
<REFERENCE>Refer to the iLO network flash recovery under the trouble shooting 
section in the iLO users guide.</REFERENCE>   </MP>   </RIMP>
Well that was not what I expected, anyhow the solution is fairly simple, you just need to download the iLO firmware and flash the iLO management processor, this can easily be achieved via FTP.
  • Download the iLO firmware from www.hp.com(support and drivers, search for iLO firmware), note there is difference between iLO/iLO2/iLO3 so check your server specs for which FW to get.
  • Unpack firmware (by far the easiest way is to use www.rarlabs.comWinRar, just rightclick and extract from the .exe you downloaded before)
  • Find the iloXXX.bin and copy it to C:\  (or use your own location if you prefer, just remember to change it in the commands below also).
  • Start a command prompt (cmd.exe)
  • Issue these  commands;

    FTP x.x.x.x  (replace x.x.x.x with the correct IP)
    User: flash
    Password: recovery
    type binary
    put c:\iloXXX.bin   (replace XXX with the version number of the image file)

    and then wait while it flashes the ROM you will see a progress indicator.

After this iLO should be back up working 🙂  easy as pie..

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VMRCplus for MS-Virtual Server 2005

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If you ever (god forbid) have to support Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 then this is the tool to use;

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=80ADC08C-BFC6-4C3A-B4F1-772F550AE791&displaylang=en

It is by far better than the native tools/website.

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Changing the default OU that new computers are created in (win2003)

By default new computers are created in the “Computers” OU in AD, however sometimes it would be smart to have them created in another OU.  The not so nice thing about the “Computers” OU is that you can not force GPO settings onto it, thus creating your own OU eg. “Domain Computers” and forcing new computers to be created here will allow you to force GPO settings onto new computers right from the start.

Another option is to change the Sysprep.inf settings to include the OU where the computers will be added, but this will only affect computers added via sysprep.

Example (sysprep.inf lines);
[Identification]
JoinDomain=Corp
MachineObjectOU=”OU=Workstations,OU=GEB,DC=corp,DC=inet”

You could also use the NETDOM command from the Support Tools to add workstations to the domain, the NETDOM command also allow for adding the OU in which to create the computer object, but this has the similar problems as sysprep.inf it will not FORCE every new computer to be added in a specific OU.

Here is how to make the change via the redircmp command;
(from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324949);

Redirecting CN=Computers to an administrator-specified organizational unit

  1. Log on with Domain Administrator credentials in the domain where the CN=computers container is being redirected.
  2. Transition the domain to the Windows Server 2003 domain in the Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in (Dsa.msc) or in the Domains and Trusts (Domains.msc) snap-in. For more information about increasing the domain functional level, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
    322692 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322692/ ) How to raise domain and forest functional levels in Windows Server 2003
  3. Create the organizational unit container where you want computers that are created with earlier-version APIs to be located, if the desired organizational unit container does not already exist.
  4. Run the Redircmp.exe file at a command prompt by using the following syntax, where container-dn is the distinguished name of the organizational unit that will become the default location for newly created computer objects that are created by down-level APIs:
    redircmp container-dn container-dn

    Redircmp.exe is installed in the %Systemroot%\System32 folder on Windows Server 2003-based or newer computers. For example, to change the default location for a computer that is created with earlier-version APIs such as Net User to the OU=mycomputers container in the CONTOSO.COM domain, use the following syntax:

    C:\windows\system32>redircmp ou=mycomputers,DC=contoso,dc=com

    Note When Redircmp.exe is run to redirect the CN=Computers container to an organizational unit that is specified by an administrator, the CN=Computers container will no longer be a protected object. This means that the Computers container can now be moved, deleted, or renamed. If you use ADSIEDIT to view attributes on the CN=Computers container, you will see that the systemflags attribute was changed from -1946157056 to 0. This is by design.

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Search Companion under Windows XP

If you are as set in your ways as I, and if you are forced to use Windows XP in your workplace then you may just hate the Windows Desktop Search as much as I, in my experience it simply does not work properly.

Well you can return to the good old “Search Companion” quite easily, simply run this command;

regsvr32 /u "%programfiles%\Windows Desktop Search\wdsShell.dll"

And before you get too worked up then let me calm you down, in my case this also killed the annoying Fido dog that usually pops up – in other words it’s a win – win situation 🙂

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HP – ProLiant Support Pack – download link

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For those of you that have ever tried finding anything on HP’s homepage you know that it can be virtually impossible 🙁 thus I am often struggling to find the download link for “HP ProLiant Support Pack for Microsoft Windows Server 2003”, well no more my friends 🙂 here is the link to use 🙂

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareIndex.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodNameId=3716247&prodTypeId=18964&prodSeriesId=3716246&swLang=13&taskId=135&swEnvOID=1005

And as a bonuslink, here is how to install it on a “Server Core” (the one without the Win GUI)..

http://www.thomasmaurer.ch/2010/02/cheatsheet-how-to-install-hp-support-pack-on-a-server-core-installation-3/

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Windows 2003 R2 installation problems

I had to upgrade a server today from Win 2003 to Win 2003 R2, this should be a simple task however as with much IT this proved a no go 🙁

—————————
 Windows Server 2003 R2 Setup Wizard
—————————
 Setup cannot continue because this product disc is incompatible with the 
 service pack installed on this computer. To complete the installation 
 of Windows Server 2003 R2, you will need to insert the latest version of 
 Windows Server 2003 R2 Disc 2.
—————————
 OK
—————————

A quick google search however led me to;

http://blog.stealthpuppy.com/windows/windows-2003-r2-and-integrated-service-pack-2

where it was explained that a Windows 2003 Slipstreamed SP2 installation could cause problems with subsequent R2 installation, the solution is simple just modify the file “R2INTL.INF” in the \CMPNENTS\R2 directory like this;

change;

R2SPLevel = 1

to:

R2SPLevel = 2

and the installation will work without a problem.  Easy as pie (when you know what to do that is ;-))…

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PicPick will capture your (mind and) screen

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Long ago I wrote about www.jingproject.com (a free and cool screen capture software), but recently I was made aware of a “competitive” product called PicPick which is equally free and cool.

Compared the two products offer some advantages over each other;

Jing: Upload directly to screencast, video capture possibility and also a layered approach (when adding text and arrows onto captures).

PicPick: Lots of different capture modes (eg. freehand) and a build-in graphics editor in which you will work with your capture (ala Paint from windows).

Both:Hotkey support (pipick even separate hotkeys for the different capture modes), option to add both text and arrows to the capture to underline your point.

Which is better is hard to say – I guess it depends on what kind of captures you do the most..   A merge of the two products would be ever so cool 🙂

I think PicPick offer some great options when talking capture modes and also the build in editor is nice, it is however annoying that the editing is not layered (if you add an arrow it is added into the graphics and cant thus be changed later as opposed to Jing).  Maybe you will just have to have both 😉

Get PicPick free here; http://www.picpick.org/home

Get Jing free here; www.jingproject.com

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Photoshop now even more intelligent

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Adobe is making the next version of their “Content Aware Fill” feature in Photoshop even more intelligent, this will allow you to edit out even complex structures from pictures and this without advanced knowledge of photo editing.

See the video for a demonstration, it is quite amazing.

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