Various cool software and more

Debugging Shadowcopy Scheduling

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volumeshadowcopySo, I had this server where I enabled Shadow Copy on the D: volume, and I could create snapshots just fine however the scheduled shadow copy jobs never ran.  If I looked in “Control Panel”, “Scheduled Tasks” I could see that the job had never run, and if I tried to edit the schedule I got an error “0x8007000d: The data is invalid“.  I suspected the scheduler to be the culprit, but after trying whatever I could think of and google I ended up with nada..

In the end, all I had to do was to delete one single file and viola everything works.

What Microsoft claim is that I enabled Shadow Copy before running dcpromo on a memberserver, and that thus the service (Shadow Copy) would try to use an old local account (which is deleted as the server is promoted) to schedule the jobs and subsequently fail.  This in my case however was not true, however as the server was installed in Russia over our wan lines the thing might be that the server had not completed a full replication before I enabled Shadow Copy..

Anyhow, the solution can be found here;
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;822904

And to break it down, all I needed to do was to delete the one file that was in;

%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA\S-1-5-18

(in my case there was only one, but according to the MS site you should only delete files that begin with “d42”.

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Windows Update – script it

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So you need to fiddle a bit with Windows Update, the reasons can be many;

  1. you want to centrally initiate an update
  2. you are paranoid and want to script a daily/weekly or monthly Windows Update (in case the automatic detection fail).

Well, for help on how to launch it on different remote machines I suggest you visit Dave’s Blog;
http://skatterbrainz.blogspot.com/2009/01/script-code-batch-running-wuauclt.html

A Desktop shortcut;
You could also simply create a desktop shortcut linking to

wuauclt.exe /resetauthorization /detectnow

This would force a Windows Updates detection to run upon clicking the shortcut, somewhat easier than launching the website.

The script you would need locally could look something like this;

@Echo off
Echo Stopping Windows Update Service
net stop wuauserv
Echo Starting Windows Update Service
net start wuauserv
Echo Forcing Windows Update detection
%windir%system32wuauclt.exe /detectnow

I also stumbled across some neat commands to try in case you are debugging Windows Update (update not working);
http://www.techsupportforum.com/microsoft-support/windows-xp-support/279270-automatic-update-not-started-error-1058-a.html

net stop wuauserv 
del /f /s /q %windir%SoftwareDistribution*.*
net start wuauserv 
wuauclt.exe /detectnow
_____________________

net stop bits 
net stop wuauserv 
%windir%system32
egsvr32.exe /s %windir%system32atl.dll 
%windir%system32
egsvr32.exe /s %windir%system32jscript.dll 
%windir%system32
egsvr32.exe /s %windir%system32msxml3.dll 
%windir%system32
egsvr32.exe /s %windir%system32softpub.dll 
%windir%system32
egsvr32.exe /s %windir%system32wuapi.dll 
%windir%system32
egsvr32.exe /s %windir%system32wuaueng.dll 
%windir%system32
egsvr32.exe /s %windir%system32wuaueng1.dll 
%windir%system32
egsvr32.exe /s %windir%system32wucltui.dll 
%windir%system32
egsvr32.exe /s %windir%system32wups.dll 
%windir%system32
egsvr32.exe /s %windir%system32wuweb.dll 
net start bits 
net start wuauserv 
wuauclt /resetauthorization /detectnow
_____________________________

net stop bits 
net stop wuauserv 
regsvr32 /u wuaueng.dll /s
del /f /s /q %windir%SoftwareDistribution*.*
del /f /s /q %windir%windowsupdate.log
regsvr32 wuaueng.dll /s
net start bits
net start wuauserv
wuauclt.exe /resetauthorization /detectnow

PPS. Vista/Win2008 users beware.
Stopping services etc under windows vista/2008/7  require the scripts to be run as an administrator.

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Kiwi Application monitor

screen9

Now this seem fairly cool, a utility that will allow you to monitor running applications, take action upon conditions met and give you great statistics.  All in all it looks promising enough.  I will hopefully be giving it a spinn shortly.

Get it here; http://www.drinkprog.com/kiwi/

And yes sure enough, nothing super good is free and hence you seem to have to pay for the advanced features, but lets first see if its worth the money 😉

note;
I just did a quick install on a virtual pc and I am a bit disappointed, both the layout of the software and the timers in it seem to be off.  Could be that its because of the virtual environment but….

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Totalindex for PHP sites

So if you have a PHP driven web hotel and want to create a simple browsing system for your files there (lets say you got a directory with subfolders and files etc that users need to browse around in), well take a look at TotalIndex it looks simple enough and furthermore its free 😀 nice..

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Delete files older than data using a batch file

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This post (see below) was taken from Scott’s blog and works for Vista/2003/2008, I am yet to find the cool solution for XP.

This problem has nagged at me for years.  Here is a batch command to delete files on a Windows 2003 machine.

Forfiles -p c:ackup -s -m *.* -d -5 -c “cmd /c del /q @path”

This will delete all files in my backup directory older than 5 days. To test it first, use this:

Forfiles -p c:ackup -s -m *.* -d -5 -c “Cmd /C Echo 0x22@Path@File0x22”

Workarounds for XP users might be;
http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/71600/jsi-tip-0274—delete-files-older-than-xx-days.html (but this require additional software to be ‘installed’).

Hmm the below seem to be some unix variant, but maybe something similar is possible in Windows.

http://lifehacker.com/software/command-line/cli-fun–delete-files-older-than-x-days-239124.php (seem cool)
find /path/to/files* -mtime +5 -exec rm {} ;
http://lifehacker.com/software/geek-to-live/geek-to-live-hard-drive-janitor-133190.php (the deluxe edition)

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Virus Total Uploader

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en_virustotal-uploaderYou may recall me mentioning Virus Total, this is a priceless service that allow you to upload a file and have it checked by many different antivirus engines within seconds. Excellent if you are suspicious about a file, or just if you want to be sure that the file you just downloaded is clean.

Well I did not mention another neat feature from Virus Total, a “send to” addition to Windows right click options. Once this is installed you can right click on ANY file and have it uploaded to Virus Total for analysis easy and painless.

VirusTotal Uploader

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FileMenu Tools – customize context menu

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menuJust stumbled over this tool, it seem to be very practical (sure its not rocket science, but its easy and convenient) 😉

Now you can customize the context menus of Windows Explorer to add your own functionality and not only is it easy, its free as well 😀

http://www.lopesoft.com/en/index.html

.

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Skype – some reading

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skypeSo you are a network administrator and are concerned about Skype (supernodes and all), well take a swing around https://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/twiki/view/CF/SkypeConfiguration here you will find links to some very interesting Skype disections and tips on how to prevent becomming a supernode.

Be sure to read the text from Blackhat 2006;
https://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh-europe-06/bh-eu-06-biondi/bh-eu-06-biondi-up.pdf

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Temporary mail alias – reminder

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spammJust a quick reminder to myself (and other interested), if you need to sign up for something (eg. you have to provide a valid email to recieve a download link, etc etc), then I have been using;

www.mailexpire.com

and this service seem to do a fairly good job.

It work like this;

  • Connect to www.mailexpire.com
  • Provide your current email, and select how long your temporary email should be valid for hours to 3 months. I would suggest at least a week or so (you can cancle it immideately at any time).
  • Accept the activation mail you get from them (in this mail you will also find your temporary email)

You are done, now simply use the mail you got in the activation mail to get those download links etc.  Its simple, safe and free 😀

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Microsoft SMS Sender

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sms2 Bit of an oldie here, and still untested with newer GSM Phones, however should you want to have SMS capability in your organization this may be a cheap way to go.

It requires a compatible phone (and cable) and then you can fire off scripts (or commandlines) to send sms messages.  Seem easy enough, but sadly I don’t have a data cable to the old Nokia phone in our storage room 🙁

Do let me know if you try it and it works 🙂

 

http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/outreach/dnloads/smssender.mspx

SMSSender.msi

Update:
I finnally had the chance to test this (I had no data cable for my cell phone), anyway it is all very straight forward until you try to send an sms from command line, this will fail with a message like this “there is no device previously used by SMS sender…….”.

Unfortunately the SMS sender software has a bug that causes it NOT to write your choice from the GUI to registry :-(,  so you need to enter the device name manually to registry.

smsreg

 

 

 

 

 

 

The keyname is;
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\SMSSender
The key is a sting;
DeviceName
And the value is the name of your device/cell phone (as displayed in the GUI)
eg. “Nokia 6230i USB Modem” (without quotes)

once this is done you can send command line sms’s (as shown below P=phone number M=message L=Log message);

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SMS Sender>smssender.exe /p:12345678 /m:"Hello World" /l

smsreg1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are more details plus some C++ code for semi implementation into your own software here (it’s a rather basic launch routine for the exe file);

http://veskokolev.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-to-send-sms-under-windows-using.html

One problem with the SMS sender software if you use it in scripting, it will once the SMS is send bring up a message window telling you that the sms was send succesfully, now this is not that practical it this actually ‘halts’ thr process until the message window is closed (the above C++ code will as I can see solve this by killing the window afterwards).  Another issue, ONLY ONE sms can be send at the time, if you try to send several SMS’s in a row the software will fail – guess that is logical enough but not that practical if the script that sends the sms can somehow be called several times at nearly the same time..

Aparantly there also exists an Outlook 2003/2007 extention (MOSA) that will do something similar vai Outlook, I have not had time to test this but as it’s also from Microsoft it should work just as well or maybe even better(however this requires Outlook);
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/confirmation.aspx?familyId=240080b4-986e-4afb-ab21-3af2be63508b&displayLang=en

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