The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

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

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Archive for the ‘Windows Server 2000’ Category

in light of the zero-day Java exploits: JRE removal/install tool JavaRa from SingularLabs

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/01/17

Even though the JavaRa tool is Windows-only, it is a tremendous help scraping old vulnerable versions of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) from your systems and keeping only the fixed versions.

Regular JRE installs from Oracle/Sun will keep the old-and-vulnerable JRE versions.

(note that it seems the recent JRE update did not actually fix the vulnerability, just the exploit, and that a new Java vulnerability might already be exploited. Be sure to keep a watch upcoming Java updates for these).

JavaRa

JavaRa is an effective way to deploy, update and remove the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). Its most significant feature is the JRE Removal tool; which forcibly deletes files, directories and registry keys associated with the JRE. This can assist in repairing or removing Java when other methods fail.

JavaRa 2.1 (released 20130116) Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Development, Java, Power User, Software Development, 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 | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Forcing Java Update on Windows

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/01/04

Sometimes the Java Update checker crashes in the middle of something.

The long solution to restart it is to logoff/logon or reboot/logon and wait for it to come up.

The short solution is to manually restart it (you probably need to be Administrator to do this though) using either of these commands:

"%CommonProgramFiles%\Java\jucheck.exe" -auto
"%CommonProgramFiles%\Java\Java Update\jucheck.exe" -auto
"%CommonProgramFiles(x86)%\Java\jucheck.exe" -auto
"%CommonProgramFiles(x86)%\Java\Java Update\jucheck.exe" -auto

To keep it simple: The exact command depends (:

  • if you run on an x86 machine or not, or – on an x64 machine – which of the Java versions (x86 or x64) you have installed
  • if the jucheck.exe is in the Java directory itself, or in a Java Update directory

–jeroen

Posted in Development, Java, Power User, Software Development, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2000, Windows Server 2003 | Leave a Comment »

Getting localized translations of built-in Windows account names

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/12/31

A lot of scripts you find on the internet have hardcoded Windows account names or groups, for instance BUILTIN\Administrators

Those don’t work on many localized Windows versions, as part of the account names have been translated as well. Not only Administrators is translated, but BUILTIN can be translated too. Basically, expect everything in Windows to be translated as part of the localization process.

Some people keep translations lists, but that is not the real solution.

The real solution is that each such group, account or other identifier stems from a SID or Security ID.
Many of those SIDs are the same on any machine, or structured the same within a domain.
Microsoft has a list of these called Well-known security identifiers in Windows operating systems.

That list isn’t in a format most Windows tools use it, so I generated the list below that is more suitable.

The list below is based on a Windows 7 machine. Other versions or editions give slightly different results, but it is a good start.

At the bottom is the batch file that I used to generate this table. That file is adapted from the Microsoft list above.

The batch file depends on a few tools and tricks: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Batch-Files, Development, Power User, Scripting, Software Development, 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 | 1 Comment »

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 »

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 »

How To Backup Bootable USB Drive

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/10/15

I needed to make backups of a couple of maintenance USB drives.

It turned out to be pretty easy: How To Backup Bootable USB Drive describes how to do that based on a small USB Image Tool developed in .NET.

One of the things you can do with this is backup bootable Windows installation media.

Note it is a simple tool, so it backups only same size to same size. For more advanced copy purposes, use something like the professional tools from Acronis.

–jeroen

Posted in .NET, Development, Hardware Interfacing, Power User, Software Development, USB, 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 »

Robocopy Exit Codes: 0 and 1 usually mean success

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/10/08

Most console applications return 0 (zero) as success.

But sometimes there are multiple success result codes, and the success depends on what you want to do with them.

One example is RoboCopy.

The zero result code means that nothing happened: no error occurred and nothing was copied, because there was no need to.

But for most RoboCopy scenario’s result code 1 (one) is also success. It means that no error occurred and that one ore more files were copied.

In fact the RoboCopy result codes form a bitmap explained on ss64.com.

Most RoboCopy use cases will have [0,1] as the set off success result codes.

–jeroen

via: Robocopy Exit Codes.

Posted in Batch-Files, Development, Power User, RoboCopy, Scripting, Software Development, 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 | 3 Comments »

It looks like everything signed by an Adobe Code Signing Certificate can be malware

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/09/29

If I read Inappropriate Use of Adobe Code Signing Certificate my conclusion is that anything signed by the Adobe Code Signing Certificate since 2012-07-10 potentially can be malware.

As a precaution, I will manually revoke the certificate on all my systems (that’ll take a while!). If anyone knows how to automate that process, please post a comment showing how to.

Hitching on a trusted certificate of a big software company comes close to the ultimate hack: trojaning signed malware in the distribution of an OS vendor.

–jeroen

via: Inappropriate Use of Adobe Code Signing Certificate « Adobe Secure Software Engineering Team (ASSET) Blog.

Posted in *nix, Adobe, Android Devices, Apple, HTC, HTC Sensation, iOS, iPad, iPhone, iPod, iPod touch, Linux, 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, Opinions, OS X 10.8 Mountain 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 | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

RDP/MSTSC: keyboard shortcuts in Microsoft Remote Desktop

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/09/21

The Ctrl+Alt+Delete keyboard shortcut equivalent for VMware View/Workstation/Player is very easy to remember: Ctrl+Alt+Insert.

While searching for the Ctrl+Alt+Delete keyboard shortcut equivalent in Remote Desktop (which is Ctrl+Alt+End), I came accross the via List of the keyboard shortcuts that are available in Windows XP.

It includes these lists:

  • General keyboard shortcuts
  • Dialog box keyboard shortcuts
  • Microsoft natural keyboard shortcuts
  • Accessibility keyboard shortcuts
  • Windows Explorer keyboard shortcuts
  • Shortcut keys for Character Map
  • Microsoft Management Console (MMC) main window keyboard shortcuts
  • MMC console window keyboard shortcuts
  • Remote desktop connection navigation
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer navigation
  • Other information

I was after the Ctrl+Alt+End shortcut from the list below which works in any Windows version I tested so far. But the other lists are very useful too.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts, 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 »