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

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Archive for the ‘Windows Server 2016’ Category

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17 years ago, C:\nul\nul crashed/BSOD Windows; now $MFT does for Windows < 10

Posted by jpluimers on 2017/05/26

Source:

History repeating itself: [Archive.is]Β 31607 – C:\nul\nul crashes/BSODΒ then, now it’s this:

Via:

All versions prior to Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016 seem vulnerable.

So add $MFT to this list:

The following device names have been known to render a system unstable: CON,
NUL, AUX, PRN, CLOCK$, COMx, LPT1, and CONFIG$.

Oh BTW: history repeated itself this year too. With NUL

In short, Steven Sheldon created a rust package named nulΒ which broke the complete package manager on Windows:

BTW: one of my gripes on learning new languages is that they come with a whole new idiom of their ecosystem: rust, cargo, crates, all sound like being a truckΒ mechanic to me.

–jeroen

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Posted in Development, Microsoft Surface on Windows 7, NTFS, Power User, Security, Software Development, The Old New Thing, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 9, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Defender, Windows Development, Windows ME, Windows NT, Windows Server 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »

automatic logon in Windows 2003

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/01/27

At a client that still runs Windows Server 2003 (despite the fact that it is in the extended support phase now), I needed to enable automatic logon (one of the tools they run sometimes fails when nobody is logged on).

This was a bit more tricky than just reading [WayBack] How to turn on automatic logon in Windows (now at How to turn on automatic logon in Windows) and following these steps:

To use Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe) to turn on automatic logon, follow these steps:

  1. Click Start, and then click Run.
  2. In the Open box, type Regedt32.exe, and then press ENTER.
  3. Locate the following subkey in the registry:
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
  4. Double-click the DefaultUserName entry, type your user name, and then click OK.
  5. Double-click the DefaultPassword entry, type your password, and then click OK.NOTE: If the DefaultPassword value does not exist, it must be added. To add the value, follow these steps:
    1. On the Edit menu, click New, and then point to String Value.
    2. Type DefaultPassword, and then press ENTER.
    3. Double-click DefaultPassword.
    4. In the Edit String dialog, type your password and then click OK.

    NOTE: If no DefaultPassword string is specified, Windows automatically changes the value of the AutoAdminLogon key from 1 (true) to 0 (false), disabling the AutoAdminLogon feature.

  6. On the Edit menu, click New, and then point to String Value.
  7. Type AutoAdminLogon, and then press ENTER.
  8. Double-click AutoAdminLogon.
  9. In the Edit String dialog box, type 1 and then click OK.
  10. Quit Registry Editor.
  11. Click Start, click Shutdown, and then type a reason in the Comment text box.
  12. Click OK to turn off your computer.
  13. Restart your computer. You can now log on automatically.

Since this depends on some registry settings, you need to make sure they are actually set.
And logging on as someone else will reset the DefaultUserName registry setting.

The article points to another article on “AutoAdminLogon looses DefaultUserName” to solve this using REGINI (and optionally REGDMP which can provide sample output for REGINI), but there is a much easier solution using RegEdit which – as Rob van der Woude points out – can be used unattended as well (besides: REGDMP cannot be downloaded any more, and REGINI requires an additional download).

This is how to do force the DefaultUserName to be reset after logon using RegEdit:

  1. Open an explorer Window in “%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\Startup“
  2. Create a batch file “run-RegEdit-DefaultUserName.bat” there with this content:
    regedit /s Administrator-DefaultUserName.reg
  3. Create a text file “Administrator-DefaultUserName.reg” in the same directory with content like this: 
    Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
"DefaultUserName"="Administrator"

Replace “Administrator” with the username you are actually using.

–jeroen

Via:Β How to turn on automatic logon in Windows.

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Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 9, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016, Windows Vista | 2 Comments »

batch-file trick: Starting Windows Explorer and selecting a file (“explorer” commandline parameters “/n” “/e” “/select” “/root” “/start” site:microsoft.com)

Posted by jpluimers on 2010/09/01

From a batch-file I recently had to start Windows Explorer, at the same time select a specific file or directory.

This turned out pretty easy: use the /select command-line switch from Windows Explorer.

In fact, Windows Explorer has a few command-line switches, and theΒ “explorer” commandline parameters “/n” “/e” “/select” “/root” “/start” site:microsoft.com query will find quite a few topics about it: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 9, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT, Windows Server 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016, Windows Vista, Windows XP | 1 Comment »

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