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Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

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Archive for the ‘Windows’ Category

KLS SOFT – WSCC – Windows System Control Center, for auto-updating SysInternals and NirSoft tools

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/12/24

For people that don’t want to run the wget on the URLs  http://live.sysinternals.com and  http://www.nirsoft.net, there is WSCC:

This edition of WSCC supports the following utility suites:

  1. Windows Sysinternals Suite (including support for Sysinternals Live service)
  2. NirSoft Utilities

–jeroen

via: KLS SOFT – WSCC – Windows System Control Center.

Posted in Power User, Windows | Leave a Comment »

SQL Server FineBuild

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/12/21

Interesting; is on my research list to see if the installation process gets easier and more standardized.

SQL Server FineBuild Introduction

FineBuild provides 1-click install and best-practice configuration of SQL Server 2012, SQL Server 2008 R2, SQL Server 2008, and SQL Server 2005.

–jeroen

via: SQL Server FineBuild.

Posted in Database Development, Development, Power User, Reporting Services, SQL Server, SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 R2, SQL Server 2012, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »

batch file example: Redirect stderr and stdout through pipe

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/12/19

I knew that 2>&1 was needed to redirect both stderr and stdout, but for piping, it cannot be at the end of the line. This works in the categories shown at the bottom of the post.

Rob van der Woude again to the rescue in redirection:

(4) Redirecting both standard output and standard error to the same file or device is done by adding 2>&1 to the command line. This will only work in OS/2 and NT, not in MS-DOS.
Where you put 2>&1 is rather critical. It will only do what it is supposed to do when placed at the end of the command line (as Jennie Walker pointed out to me) or right before the next pipe ( | ).

Example: batch file that checks if a few NarrowCast machines are indeed on-line and logged on with the right user.

It uses PsLoggedOn to verify who is logged on, and Explorer to show a hidden share.

The pipe is needed to verify there is indeed a domain user logged on.

@echo off
  for %%m in (Machine1 Machine2 Machine3) do call :show %%m
  goto :pause

:show
  echo %1
  %~dp0PsLoggedOn -L \\%1 2>&1 | find /I "MYDOMAIN\"
  start explorer /e,\\%1\NarrowCast$
  goto :end

:pause
  pause
:end

–jeroen

Posted in Batch-Files, Development, Power User, Scripting, Software Development, Windows, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows XP | 4 Comments »

namebench – Open-source DNS Benchmark Utility – Google Project Hosting

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/12/17

Interesting: namebench – Open-source DNS Benchmark Utility – Google Project Hosting.

It runs on Mac, Windows and Linux, comes with a GUI and a console version.

–jeroen

Posted in *nix, Apple, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, Power User, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »

Penetration Testing, Metasploit, Armitage and a nice book by Frank Neugebauer

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/12/11

Penetration testing is an important aspect of measuring how secure your network and computing systems are.

Both the German edition of iX magazine and the Dutch edition of c’t magazine had a series of articles (for instance this one) by Frank Neugebauer on penetration testing with Metasploit and the Armitage UI shell around it.

Just found out that Frank wrote a great book on Penetration testing mit Metasploit.

–jeroen

Posted in *nix, Power User, Windows | Leave a Comment »

Found back my WinImage license (still going strong: What is WinImage)

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/12/10

Every once in a while I need some disk imaging software. After all these years, WinImage is still my tool of choice.

This time, I needed it to create a Creating vSphere 5 ESXi embedded USB Stick.

Usually I only need it for a day or two, and most of the times I have reinstalled my system between uses. Not this time, so I needed to enter the license, which I knew I had, but had to search for it.

Luckily, I have installed the Lookout search tool for Outlook (which – even though you cannot officially get it any more – is so much better than the integrated search).

It found back the below message, from 1997.

1997! And the license is indeed perpetual: it still works on the most current WinImage build (which now supports x64 as well as x86, a lot more disk image formats and disk types, etc).

The WinImage site references some very old tools back from the days when you had BBS, FidonetARPANET, Simtel, and Compuserve (the latter both hosted on PDP-10 machines, 1970s based technologies still ruled many of the computing world).

But I digress.

Back then, the only disk image supported were floppy disks, and most tools were DOS based. Like the FDFormat tool from Christoph H. Hochstätter which allowed you to add 300 kilobyte of extra space on 3.5 inch 1.44 megabyte floppy disk.

You can still see that in the WinImage binaries: Bootsector from C.H. Hochstatter

The email:

From: Gilles Vollant [mailto:——@winimage.com]
Sent: 07 December 1997 13:02
To: ‘——@xs4all.nl’
Subject: WinImage registration notification

Thank you a lot for registering WinImage 4.00 Professional

Your code of registration is:
J——s
—————

Note there is now french, english, italian, portugese, spanish and german version of WinImage.
I send you a floppy with WinImage 4.00 and my freeware Extract. I hope you’ll be happy with WinImage !

Don ‘t hesitate to upload it on BBS and give to your friend !

Only two question : Where did you find WinImage and do you Windows 3.1, Win
95 or WinNT version, or both ? (you can answer in french or english)

For getting more information, you can connect on my web site at :
http://www.winimage.com/winimage.htm
and at http://www.winimage.com for information and downloading other tools (including related to WinImage)

Regards,

Gilles Vollant

–jeroen

via:

Posted in BBS, FidoNet, History, Power User, VMware, VMware ESXi, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »

Commandline equivalents for FsMgmt.msc: net share / net view / net session / net file / net use

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/12/03

For viewing shares, sessions and open files, you can use the FsMgmt.msc management console plugin (on the same page, Petri also has some interesting information on the NTLANUI.DLL)

You can do the same from the command line, using the NET command.

Somehow, can remember the NET SHARE and NET SESSION command, but I always forget about the NET FILE command.

Luckily, SS64 has documentation on the NET SHARE/VIEW/SESSION/FILE/USE commands on one page.

Here is what they have on NET FILE:

Display all the open shared files on a server and the lock-id

NET FILE

Close a shared file (disconnect other users and remove file locks)

NET FILE id /CLOSE

Two tiny notes:

  • for NET FILE and NET SHARE you need to be Administrator (and run them from an elevated command prompt when running on Windows Vista and up).
  • you can pluralize these commands as well:
    – NET SHARES
    – NET SESSIONS
    – NET FILES
    They work just like the singular version.
    NET USES and NET VIEWS won’t work though.

–jeroen

via: net share / net view / net session / net file / net use.

Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »

UNC and IPv6 (via IPv6 address – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/11/23

If you have a MYSHARE share on SERVER having an IPv6 of 2001:db8:85a3:8d3:1319:8a2e:370:7348, but your WINS fails, then you can use it in an UNC path like this:

\\2001-db8-85a3-8d3-1319-8a2e-370-7348.ipv6-literal.net\MYSHARE

Thanks to this part of the IPv6 addresses article on Wikipedia:

Literal IPv6 addresses in UNC path names

In Microsoft Windows operating systems, IPv4 addresses are valid location identifiers in Uniform Naming Convention (UNC) path names. However, the colon is an illegal character in a UNC path name. Thus, the use of IPv6 addresses is also illegal in UNC names. For this reason, Microsoft implemented a transcription algorithm to represent an IPv6 address in form of a domain name that can be used in UNC paths. For this purpose, Microsoft registered and reserved the second-level domain ipv6-literal.net on the Internet. IPv6 addresses are transcribed as a hostname or subdomain name within this name space, in the following fashion:

2001:db8:85a3:8d3:1319:8a2e:370:7348

is written as

2001-db8-85a3-8d3-1319-8a2e-370-7348.ipv6-literal.net

This notation is automatically resolved by Microsoft software without any queries to DNS name servers. If the IPv6 address contains a zone index, it is appended to the address portion after an ‘s’ character:

fe80--1s4.ipv6-literal.net

–jeroen

via: IPv6 address – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Posted in Microsoft Surface on Windows 7, Power User, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Vista | Leave a Comment »

Some interesting USB devices to add more than 2 monitors to your PC or Mac (via: USB Graphics – Graphic solutions GeForce & Radeon)

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/11/09

Thanks to Matthijs ter Woord who pointed me to these.

They require a single Intel®, Nvidia®, or AMD® primary WDDM driver. That driver does the actual rendering, the USB device then gets the rendered parts over USB to the monitor.

The really cool thing is: they work on a PC with Windows XP and higher, and on  Mac with OS X Tiger or better.

The chipsets are based on DisplayLink technology; they have their own USB devices as well.

USB2.0 to DVI-I Graphics

CSV-2000D – SenseVision USB Graphics – USB2.0 to DVI-I

USB2.0 to DVI-I graphics devices let you easily add an additional monitor to your notebook PC, desktop and MacBook®. The Club 3D SenseVision USB2.0 to DVI-I Graphics allows you to extend your desktop display beyond 1080p HD resolution displays. … View Details

USB2.0 to HDMI Graphics

CSV-2000H – SenseVision USB Graphics – USB2.0 to HDMI

USB2.0 to HDMI graphics devices let you easily add an additional monitor to your notebook PC, desktop and MacBook®. The Club 3D SenseVision USB2.0 to HDMI Graphics allows you to extend your desktop display beyond 1080p HD resolution displays. … View Details

–jeroen

via: USB Graphics – Graphic solutions GeForce & Radeon.

Posted in Apple, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, MacBook, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, Power User, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8 | Leave a Comment »

HOW TO: Change the Default Selection in the Active Directory Manager Snap-in

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/10/29

When managing entities in more than one Active Directory, it is very nice to know that the Active Directory Manager Snap-in supports command line parameters select the domain (and if you want the domain controller).

(Further tweaking needs to be done using scripts like this one)

From the HOW TO: Change the Default Selection in the Active Directory Manager Snap-in. documentation:

Specify the Domain Controller Before Starting the Snap-in

To specify the domain controller to be used before starting the Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in, use the “/SERVER=” switch as a parameter to the MMC saved console (.msc) file. In the process of connecting to the server, the domain of which the controller is a member is automatically detected. For example, either from a command prompt or in the Open box, type:

dsa.msc /server=dc-01.domain.com

Specify the Domain Before Starting the Snap-in

To specify the domain to be used before starting the snap-in, use the “/DOMAIN=” switch as a parameter to the MMC saved console (.msc) file. A domain controller for the domain specified is located automatically and used as the default domain controller. For example, either from a command prompt or in the Open box, type:

dsa.msc /domain=childdomain.domain.com

–jeroen

via: HOW TO: Change the Default Selection in the Active Directory Manager Snap-in.

Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 | Leave a Comment »