nmX.Memnoch

I tested the revised two line @DATE to $DATE conversion code. It works. I dunno why I never thought to do it that way before. I've copied your script out into one of the editors I use* so I can take a better look at it. I've made a few modifications for you to try out: Break On Debug On /* Translate @DATE into a useable value for directory names */ $DATE = SPLIT(@DATE,"/") $DATE = JOIN($DATE,".") $TQBackup = "V:\Data Backup\Game Backups";Titan Quest Backup Location If @USERID = "gaming" MessageBox("Beginning Test","alert", 48) $Result = CompareFileTimes("C:\Scripts\testfile.txt", "$TQBackup\CHKFileDir\testfile.txt") ? Select Case $Result = 1 OR $Result = -3 MessageBox ("Backing up Files Now..."+ @DATE,"alert", 48) ? COPY "C:\Scripts\testfile.txt" "$TQBackup\CHKFileDir\" @error ? COPY "C:\Scripts\*" "$TQBackup\$DATE\" /s @error ? Case $Result = -1 MessageBox ("Files are newer in target directory..." + @DATE,"alert", 48) Case $Result = 0 MessageBox ("Files are exact matches in target & Backup directories..."+ @DATE,"alert", 48) EndSelect EndIf Exit Note the use of a Select EndSelect statement instead of a bunch of If EndIf statements. If $Result could only be true or false then an If EndIf statement would be fine. But since $Result can be one of four values you should use Select EndSelect because it will run faster. Instead of having to run each If EndIf check, Select EndSelect will stop processing as soon as the the Case statement is true. For example, say the value of $Result returned a 1. With your original code it would process each If EndIf statement and recheck the value of $Result each time. That's four total checks (because you have an OR clause). With the Select EndSelect statement and a $Result value of 1 it will stop at the first true result and not process the rest. The difference in speed probably won't be noticeable in a script this small, but when you have a large script it's very noticeable. Also note that I put your variables inside the quotes ("$TQBackup\CHKFile\" vs $TQBackup + "\CHKFile\"). I know some people recommend not to put variables inside of quotes, but unless you specify SetOption("NoVarsInStrings","ON") and SetOption("NoMacrosInStrings","ON") it'll work without any problems. There's probably some other notes I forgot to mention so if you have any questions just ask. If you can give me the full paths of the source and destination I may be able to get around using the CHKFile directory. This supposes that the filename for the save game is the same every time...I know that with most games it won't be, but I don't play Titan Quest so I don't know about that particular game. I did some research on error code 3 from the COPY command. That the path isn't found (doesn't specify if it's the source or destination path that isn't found). I would assume the source since it's supposed to create the destination if it doesn't exist, providing you have the trailing \. From the documentation: Give this a try: COPY "C:\Scripts\" "$TQBackup\@day\test\" /s @error ? * I use PrimalScript Pro at home and AdminScriptEditor at work. I prefer AdminScriptEditor but the PrimalScript Pro license we have is a little more flexible in home usage allowance.

@DATE is tricky. Fortunately I've already done this before because I use a KIX script for some other backups. Give the code below a try and replace @DATE in your code with $DATE. The result from the following will give you a date format of YYYY.MM.DD. Another suggestion is to add BREAK ON as the first line of your script. If you don't turn this on and kill the script, KiX will automatically log you off. It was originally designed to be used as a logon script processor so this behavior was implemented to keep users from killing the logon script before it completed. I'll look at your script a bit closer tonight to see if I have any other suggestions from lessons I've learned over the years. ; Month variable Select Case @MONTHNO < 10 $MONTH = "0" + "@MONTHNO" Case @MONTHNO > 9 $MONTH = @MONTHNO EndSelect ; Day variable Select Case @MDAYNO < 10 $MDAYNO = "0" + "@MDAYNO" Case @MDAYNO > 9 $MDAYNO = @MDAYNO EndSelect $DATE = "@YEAR" + "." + "$MONTH" + "." + "$MDAYNO" Of course, there is also a much simpler way...but it only just came to me while I was typing this. It's untested but it should work. $DATE = SPLIT(@DATE,"/") $DATE = JOIN($DATE,".") As far as your question regarding the copy command; what you have should work. I'm not sure why it's returning an error code of 3. Again, I'll take a closer look at it tonight when I have a bit more time.

It should show either 3.25GB or 3.50GB, depending on the chipset on your motherboard. This is more of a limitation of said chipset than a WinXP limitation.

I've been doing some searching and it appears that I'll have to create a virtual SCSI adapter for each shared VHD that I need to add. Can someone confirm this? If this is the case, then unfortunately I'll only be able to have four shared VHD's since VS2005 only lets you add a max of four virtual SCSI adapters.

It didn't take too much to look at the links he provided and figure out that the RAM speeds are the same...both 1.2GHz 128-bit GDDR3. BombaTwist: Definitely tell him to go with the 256MB version.

Here's a Google search for you: Sudden Northwood Death Syndrome. I've experienced this twice myself without overclocking/overvolting by all that much. On other words, there can be bad side effects to applying too much voltage.

Ok...notice the rolleyes smiley and the fact that it's in quotes? Sarcasm anyone? <----see?

A repair install will work, but a fresh install is definitely the better option when replacing a motherboard. Doing graphics card, network card, hard drive, etc upgrades are one thing...but the differences in chipsets and their associated drivers can cause things to act a little weird if you don't do a fresh install.

I'm in the process of setting up VS2005 on a server (Dual Xeon 3.2GHz, 12GB RAM, etc, etc...plenty of horsepower). What I've done so far is created two virtual servers, installed 2003 R2 Enterprise on both and successfully clustered them using the MS guide(s). The plan is to use this for testing an upgrade of our live SQL cluster from SQL2000 to SQL2005, and later for development purposes. I talked them into going with VS for the testing/development setup because I can create "point-in-time" backups of the configurations and virtual drives, then restore them easily should they mess something up during testing or development. The problem I am now faced with is that I can't get Virtual Server to allow any SCSI ID's beyond 0 for the shared drives. This means I can't add any shared drives for the SQL data/logs. Any suggestions as to what may be causing this? Here's some more information on the configuration: Both servers have the boot drive on the virtual IDE channel as recommended. Node 1 has a virtual SCSI controller configured in shared mode using ID 7. Node 2 has a virtual SCSI controller configured in shared mode using ID 6. The network connections have been configured as recommended. All virtual hard drives are configured to be dynamic size, except for the quorum VHD which is configured for a fixed size of 500MB.

That's probably the answer. I would imagine it has something to do with the Intel driver negotiating the failover. I can't explain why it doesn't happen with the Broadcom NIC...other than it's non-native to the Intel fault tolerance drivers. The Intel NICs do a very good job of offloading TCP/IP transmit and receive functions from the CPU. When the failover happens the CPU probably has to take over for a few seconds until the other Intel NIC can fully initialize. Again, this may explain why it doesn't happen with the Broadcom NIC. Broadcom NICs do some offloading as well...but again, that's non-native to the Intel drivers.

Ghost the drive and then restore the Ghost image. When you restore the image you'll have the option of changing the partition sizes. Be sure to have a good backup before you start. I've used this method on servers before (both to increase the system partition size as well as replacing drives without reinstalling or reconfiguring permissions/shares). I've even used it (very carefully) on Citrix servers. Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for loss of data.

As far as I know Domain Admin privileges aren't required to query information. I don't have Domain Admin privs at work, but I can query accounts within AD all day long. I am an OU admin, but even then we're setup in such a way that we can't do anything directly with AD Users & Computers. We have to use a 3rd party app from NetIQ.

So quick to blame Microsoft.... Did you also do the install on the Dell PC or was the same media use for both installs? As has been recommended several times...slipstream the service pack into your CD and see if you have the same issue.

Just a question...what's the reason for removing the cable so often? I have an Intel PCIe NIC but I've never noticed that behavior since...well...I really don't have any reason to remove the network cable unless I'm moving the PC, in which case it's shutdown for that.

If you only want to backup the saved game files you can either have it just copy the entire directory, or if it is the same file everytime you can have it use CompareFileTimes. There are several ways it can be done.

No problem... I figured...I just wanted to be sure. I wondered about that...and it was going to be my next suggestion. To be honest I have KIX32.EXE (and WKIX32.EXE) in my Windows directory so I've always specified the full path to the script itself. Personally, when I'm using KIX I use as much native code as I can (i.e. use KiX's COPY command instead of shelling it out). Now if you want to make the source and destination match exactly, I recommend giving XXCOPY a look. I use that for disk-to-disk backups with great results.

I don't know of any problems with those adapters. Personally, I would get the adapters and put the HDD's on the SATA ports, then put the CD/DVD drive(s) on the PATA port. Intel has decided to completely remove PATA support from ICH8 (southbridges) and on. The 7th onboard SATA connector, eSATA port and PATA port are all provided by a JMicron controller on the Asus P5B series motherboards (I have the P5B-E). If you do end up getting another controller I would recommend getting a PCIe controller instead of a PCI controller. Then move the drives to the addin board and put the CD/DVD(s) onboard. The reason I say this is because I know the onboard JMicron controller supports booting CD/DVD drives and it's one less feature you have to worry about when looking for the addin board.

The SHELL command in KiX allows you to shell other executables. In this case we are shelling out to a Command Prompt (%COMSPEC%). START is a command you can use in a Command Prompt environtment to control whether or not a script is instructed to wait on the command to complete or not. You can also use it to control the CPU priority of an application. Open a Command Prompt and type start /?. You'll see the list of available commands for START. Cool. Hmmm...ok, we need to see what user context the logoff scripts run in. They should still run in the context of the user that was logged in since they're user logoff scripts. Make this change: run > gpedit.msc > User Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Scripts >Set "Run logoff scripts visible" to Enabled Add the following to the top of your logoff script so we can see what user the script is running as: ? "@USERID" Sleep 10 When it runs it will display the username that the script is running as, and pause for 10 seconds so you can see it. Make sure that it displays the same username as what you were just logged in with. That's the proper way to do it. You should be checking for a user name, not a computer name. Make sure you have the user's name in the If line instead of the computer name. This kind of has me wondering if the system variables are still valid during the logoff process. We can test this next.

IsoBuster can sometimes pull information off of damaged disks. http://www.isobuster.com/

NTFS and FAT32 are two completely different file systems. NTFS is much more resilient to fragmentation than FAT or FAT32. For this reason the drive probably wasn't as fragmented when formatted with NTFS as it was with FAT32 when you ran your tests. There's also a major difference in cluster sizes as well.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931125 NT4 and 2000 are not listed in the "Applies to" section of the KB article. But then again, neither is XP x64 (although generally what applies to 2003 x64 also applies to XP x64, but not always).

You need to install the NVIDIA nForce4 chipset drivers.

That does nothing more than start a cmd.exe process. %COMSPEC% is an operating system variable like %SystemRoot% (your Windows directory) or %SystemDrive% (the drive Windows is installed on). KiX uses the @ symbol to identify built in variables that can be used. For instance, @USERID is the current users logon name, @WKSTA is the computer name, @DATE is the current date, @TIME is the current time, etc, etc. If you want to use "@" in a string you have to double it...like so: If @USERID = "comp1" Shell '%COMSPEC% /C START "" /WAIT net start "FAH@@E:+Program Files+Folding@@Home+F@@H1+FAH504-Console.exe"' Shell '%COMSPEC% /C START "" /WAIT net start "FAH@@E:+Program Files+Folding@@Home+F@@H2+FAH504-Console.exe"' EndIf Notice that I also added START "" /WAIT into the command. This basically forces cmd.exe (and in turn KiX) to wait until this command has finished processing before starting the next command.

You can either use the TweakUI utility to manually do it, or write a script to write the registry values using the instructions here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315231 Just beware that doing it the with a script will cause the password to be written in clear text.

Thanks for the idea nmX.Memnoch...I don't know anything about kix32 yet but I'll study up, tinker around and see if I can get it to work. If not, I'll ask for some more help. KiX can be pretty powerful. Just let me know if you have any questions and I'll see if I can provide some code examples. There's also a wealth of information on the KiXtart website, as well as the following sites: http://www.adminscripteditor.com/scriptlibrary/browse.asp http://www.kixtart.org/udf/ http://www.scriptlogic.com/kixtart/