Stoic Joker

This MS KB article should cover it: NTFS Preinstallation and Windows XP

No it didn't pull the Key ... I'm running MSVS 2005 pro on XP here at the office, registry path appears to be: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0

I believe LClock's home is over at Neowin.net ... There is a 75 page thread about it there that has been running for the last 3 years.

Amen! The company I work for is an HP ASP, and we can't get a straight answer out of those clowns half the time either. They're even charging US for support on out-of-warrant items! ...And still I get some bubble headed teen ager that wants to read quips from the manual in an attempt to pretend I'm being "Supported" (If the answer was in the Manual I wouldn't be on the flipping phone now would I...). Christ on a Cracker I'm stuck not lonely ... I don't need to be paying $39.50 to have some id10t read to me, I can do that on my own. Sorry ... When I started typing I hadn't planed on ranting ... I was just going to agree with you.

No ... and having a single 400 Gig C: partition on a server is an insane recipe for disaster. It will stay in a constant state of badly fregmented because everything is doing read/writes to the same partition. I once saw a badly deployed Exchange server that had gotten turned into an open-relay overflow a 200 Gig drive overnight. Being it was the clients only server DC/inventory/Accounting they were completely hosed until we had time to respond for the rescue. Applications/Services/User files should be isolated by partition and all log files should be pushed to a small partition where they can fragment till hell won't have it (because that is their nature...). It'll make the server happier, and the Admin happier as it's much easier to figure out who or what is eating space and why.

Long shot, but did you run the virtual install twice? Or just copy the first one and rename it? If you do the copy .vhd and rename it for the second machine (I do) you can't reuse the .vmc file or both VMs will have the same MAC address. I only mention this, because I did it once, and it was a PITA to figure out what was going wrong.

TClock is a handy little (open source) program for doing that and more. There are currently to (completely seperate) versions available: WildBill's TClock and (Mine) Stoic Joker's T-Clock. WildBill's is written in Delphi and continues to support Win9x - Vista (x86) OSs Mine is written in C++ and supports only Win2k - Vista (x86 & x64) OSs

Crap ... Make that none of the above. I've been trying to hack a copy of Win2000 for an hour with no joy. I sent viper a PM with a link to a (Um...) "Security" site that had instructions on a known working method of accessing the necessary creds via DSR mode. I guess we suck at hacking... *Sigh* (lol)

No dice on that one either (I just tried), permission denied writing to .Default user key. How ever I think you are on to something (memory = jogged) If he uses a WindowsPE disk (adding RAID drivers if/as needed) he can gain write access to the file system on C:. Then rename logon.scr to logon.bak (so it can be put back later), then copy cmd.exe to logon.scr. Reboot back to the harddrive but don't login. Wait 15min (Default SS timeout) and he's got a running with system rights comand prompt, that thinks it's a screensaver.

Things needed: 1. Any account that can initiate a console session on the server. 2. A script that will create a user account and add it to User Group X (Might as well go for broke and try the Domain Admins group). But make sure you give it a complex enough password that it doesn't "trip" over the GP password complexity requirements. 3. A rey of hope that SP1 was not installed A bit of background on what we're attempting: The AT command is an command line Task Scheduler, that by default runs under the System context and therefore has all the privliges of the System account. It's been a while since I used this so some googleing may be in order to get the syntax for the command right. but the object is to use the AT command to set the (user creation) script to run one minute in the future, wait that minute for the script to run, then log off and (hopefully) log back on with the newly created (administrative) user account. Yes I am being intentially sketchy with some of the details ... but I'm trying to give you enough information to get the job done, without completely outlining how to hack a box that some id10t script kiddie might try to missues. (not to mention that this has got to be right on the razor edge of the forum rules). Good Luck Man! Stoic Joker

Not exactly ... If you unplug the device and then plug it in again it will be running a DHCP renewal which is a 5 step process not the usual (never been there before) 7 step process. The (first two) steps that are skipped during renewal are the broadcast packets that locate the DHCP server. What impact that will have on DHCP Scope Classes (which I assume you're using) I'm not sure, but I thought the 5 step -vs- 7 step distinction might be worth pointing out.

Assuming it's a 2k3 server, you can use the iisreset command to stop, start, or restart all of the IIS services at one time with a single command.

I know MS heavily restricted the system account a while back ... but I don't recall exactly when (and viper hasn't mentioned the SP level). (Anyhow...) There used to be an option (exploit) to run something under the system context by using the at command. Is it possible they could run a user account creation script (using the system account's rights with the at command) to create a user in (at least) the Server Operators group to try an get partial control of the box? It was a very effective privilege escalation hack back in the 2k days, I just don't recall when it was "fixed" (Eliminated).

Why would you want to, it's a safety feature. The Press any key... prompt only shows if there is a detectable OS on the drive. If the drive is bare (no OS installed) the prompt is skipped and the Windows setup starts automatically.

IE7 - IE7 - (&...) IE7 Why? Well, because it there and it works. I'm also not foolish enough to believe my carefully selected "Magic Uber Browser" will protect me from EviL ... I use common sense for that instead.

Actually SharePoint Designer 2007 is the ("direct") replacement for Frontpage. The Expressions line of Web Dev tools is for advanced creation of interactive content/streaming media oriented web sites.

Direct wNIC to wNIC, as apposed to infrastructure mode where an Access point is Used. It should be do-able between XP & Vista. How depends on the hardware used and what is managing the cards

Your app suggestion may actually be a better idea, as it will focus the changes on a specific target ... depending on its flexability (Rename file to same name but change case). The Pretty Path reg hack will globally change every file on the box, which could create a larger problem...

Might give this a shot You can enable this feature in the following manner: Open the Registry Editor (Regedit.exe). Navigate to the registry entry HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Explorer\Advanced. Double-click DontPrettyPath from the right pane of the Registry Editor. (If the DontPrettyPath key doesn't exist, you'll need to create a new REG_DWORD value with this name.) Set the value to 0 to enable PrettyPath. Click OK. Close the Registry Editor. Restart Windows.

While not cheap, there are some PoE (Power over Ethernet) routers that can be used with a power injector on the switch end of the drop. If you want something pingable, its gota be powered.

I'm thinking the Mboard is OK from the description. If Sophy was getting lights & fans but no output then maybe Mboard. But no lights, no fans, no nothing is power supply. It's probably "hanging" mid cycle where it can't start because it "thinks" it's already on. I've seen this quite a few times and it's really annoying but fairly easy to fix. Unplug the machine Hold in the power button for two minutes (god I hate that part) Plug the machine back in and it should start. If it happens frequently ... plan on buying a power supply. I brought up the attrib think because of two statements earlier in the thread one about read only files, and one about not being able to recover (browse to/find) Emails. The mail stores are buried in one of two hidden folders, either Application Data or Local Settings. So for "recovering" mail from a dead install I usually remove the HSR attribs from everything on the drive, rename the Windows, Documents and Settings, and Program Files folders to WIN_OLD, DOC_OLD, and PROG_OLD then delete all the boot files. Then I can do a "Clean Install" without having to format the drive. This makes reuniting users with the files they forgot to backup much easier, and nicely eliminates the hard to find drivers issue because they can be pieced together from the old install via C:\WIN_OLD\INF ... and a lot of browsing for the remnants scattered through out the System32 folder. Do an on-site reinstall for a client that has a lot of peripherals, no install CDs, and a dial-up connection, once ... and you'll understand just how handy this trick can be.

Greetings It's late so I only kinda skimmed the thread, but the initial post referred to a read only file error, that's an attribute not an NTFS permission. If you want Control of your files back, you'll need to run attrib -h -r -s *.* /S /D at the root of the user acount folder you're trying to recover files from. On the flakey Cd issue, if it was burned on that machine, and that machine can't read it after the reinstall ... It's most likely a multi session disk that was burned in a propritary (unfinalized) format. Reinstalling whichever burning software the computer came (and the disk was burned) with should make it "readable" again. I'm tired, and thinking out loud ... So forgive me if I'm off base. Gnite

Asking an end user a direct question will usually reveal nothing ... however engaging them in a relaxed and casual chat about "stuff" (albeit loosely related to the computer) in general will usually give you a fairly good idea exactly what they screwed up. e.g. Users never directly admit their mistakes ... but it's easy to get them to slip and tell you what really happened... Check the logs Check the logs Check the logs Then check EventID.net to find out what to do about what's in the logs. Microsoft has some great white papers on how to properly configure one of their servers/networks, find them, read them, use them ... Your life as an Admin will be much simpler that way (Remember Excitement is bad...) Redundancy is good. Outages that go unnoticed mean you're doing you job right! Single points of failure are bad. If you have to play "Hero" (for the crowd) to resolve an outage ... you failed. Document EVERYTHING Backups are great, but if you don't know where, how, and why they go where they go during a restore ... You're still screwed. If all the documentation for your network is stored on the server that just went "P00F" ... You have no documentation. While I hate "Hard-Copy" I regularly print two copies, one for my files, and one for the owner of the company's files, that way everybody is covered (Even if I get hit by a bus...).

I haven't used Gene6 in a few years, but it may (judging by your connection log) be an Active FTP server. Active FTP servers require you to forward both ports 20 & 21. As apposed to a PASV FTP server (like MS FTP) which only requires you forward port 21.

Ya know, that's funny because I assumed the same thing when I switched to an ATi video card ... (but we're wrong) They don't. Neither of my ATi video cards (1 x300 & 1 of the new X1650pro) have the dual screen configuration flexibility of the nVidia MX4000 that I had in my old comp. If it's an nVidia card then it can be configured through advanced properties. If it's an ATi card I'd love to know how the hell he got it to do that in the first place. Because mine won't & I'd gotten used to having it with my nVidia card.