jftuga

I decided on Win 2008 EE 32-bit. It uses all 4 GB of RAM (from task manager). It looks like you can evaluate it for up to 240 days. Hopefully by then, Windows 7 (or a release candidate) will be in usable shape. -John

I am thinking about trying out Win 2008 Standard 32 bit on my Dell Vostro 220s desktop that also has a 256 MB ATI graphics card. Will this OS be able to see all 4 GB of RAM? Or do I need to go with Win 2008 64 bit? The reason I ask is that I my Dell Optiplex 755 desktop which has 4 GB and runs XP 32 bit, winver.exe only reports 3,143,208 KB available. Is anyone running 2008 Server Standard 32 bit with 4 GB? How much total memory does the OS report? Thanks, -John

Try: nslookup wiki s1 nslookup wiki s2 and make sure they are both returning the same IP addresses. I would still also open up the DNS management tool on both DCs and double-check that they are publishing the correct IP address. Another option would be to delete the entry out of both DNS servers and then add it back in again. -John

How can I change the scope for file & print sharing on Windows 2008 server? Our local subnet is 10.0.1.x and our offsite network that we use for backups uses a VPN and has a network of 10.0.2.x. (and also edit the properties) Thanks, -John

We have Windows Active Directory running on 3 Windows 2000 servers DCs. Can we upgrade straight to 2008 AD? Or must we migrate to 2003 first and then to 2008? Thanks, -John

crahak, Very nice list! We use VMWare Server (on top of 2003) to host 5 guest Win2003/2000 server OSs. We will be migrating to ESX 3.5 very soon. -John

I was just wondering what other mid-sized organizations with 200-500 computers are planning on doing with SP3. We are using WSUS to manage our monthly updates to our client XP systems. We may approve & push out SP3 when is becomes available through the WSUS channel. If you run SP2 + all of the patches, what is the rush to get to XP3? I can see using it for a new Ghost image or somethin similar, but I just don't see us cranking this out any time soon. So am very curious as to what other IT managers will be doing with SP3. Thanks, -John

Now you can: - Receive product updates easily using the enhanced Product Updater Will this work if the person logged on only has user level credentials and not power user nor administrator? -John

I wrote an AutoIt v3 script to do this, see www.autoitscript.com. You can compile the wh.au3 into a stand-alone .exe file. -John ; ; wh.au3 -- winhide ; -John Taylor ; Oct-12-2006 ; ; I use this to hide svchost cmd windows that are ; launched from a Scheduled Task ; ; 1st cmd-line arg : partial window title ; 2nd cmd-line arg : optional, always should be "1", shows a windows ; instead of hiding one ; #notrayicon Opt("MustDeclareVars", 1) Opt("WinTitleMatchMode", 2) Const $max = 4 Dim $rv, $i if 0 == $CmdLine[0] then MsgBox(16, "Error", "You must give a partial window title on the command-line.") exit endif if 1 == $CmdLine[0] then for $i=1 to $max $rv = WinSetState ( $CmdLine[1], "", @SW_HIDE ) next endif if 2 == $CmdLine[0] then if "1" == $CmdLine[2] then for $i=1 to $max $rv = WinSetState ( $CmdLine[1], "", @SW_SHOW ) next endif endif ; ; end of script

Nice tip. Is there a web page that discusses these type of features in depth? Thanks, -John

set datemonth=%date:~4,2% I did not know that you could extract part of an environment variable with :~x,y. This will be really useful. Also, I did not know about %date% nor %time%, either. For example, I noticed that echo %logonserver:~2% returns the server name, without the two backslashes. Very interesting! -John

See these threads too: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...st&p=637342 -John

I have to agree about RAID-10. I think most businesses are now going to either RAID-10 or RAID-6 on new installations. If possible, I would get another drive and either do one RAID-10 or two RAID-1s. -John

My first choice would be an Intel based NIC. You could also try Broadcom, too. -John

Thanks to everyone for all of your great responses. I will be taking them all into consideration. -John

I have been thinking about doing this myself, switching from XP to 2003. I am not a gamer. Here are the advantages that I see: there is no WGA in 2003 less patches to install Volume shadow copy software RAID support arguably more secure What are some other advantages? If an application's installer requires XP, is there a general known workaround for this? Also, I can also vouch for Nod32 on 2003...it works great. Thanks, -John

We have about 80 Dell 1700n and 1710n laser printers that have been is use for about 1 - 2 years. They were fine at first, albeit a little on the slow side. Now, they have become a nuisance. Here is the cycle we are in: frequently jam, IT staff clean them out (possibly replace rollers), they work for awhile, and then start jamming again. We are at the point of wanting to replace all of these printers. I am now looking for recommendations for HP Laserjet printers. As things stand, it would be a hard to convince us to purchase anything other than HP printers. Although network capable, only about 10 of these use the ethernet port. Most are directly attached with the USB port. I am only interested in hearing recommendations from people who have had their equipment for over a year, preferably two, as I want to know about performance and/or issues after the printers have been broken-in. I believe that we want to stay in the $200 to $300 range as we don't need high capacity, high volume printing. One feature that is important to us is the amount of time spent before the first page is printed. This is one thing we would like to minimize as well as paper jams, having to clean them, etc., etc. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, -John

I have two Dell Ultrasharp 19" monitors (not wide screen) at work. I really like this because it is 1280x1024 and I don't think that I would like a much higher resolution because it would look too small for my eyes. Since our servers run at 1024x768, I can run UltraVNC and see the full server screen w/o it having to take up my entire desktop space. This is a huge plus for me. -John

Is there a way to create a (preferably domain) user that would allow my student helpers to have local admin access on a machine (or group of machines) without giving them any domain level admin permissions? Thanks, -John

I got this on one of our Dell servers once. After I did the following steps, the problem went away. I am not exactly sure which one fixed the problem. upgrade the bios firmware upgrade onboard raid controller firmware upgrade onboard scsi controller firmware upgrade server backplane firmware --- upgrade to the newest Dell PERC Raid, SCSI, video, and network software drivers. IIRC this was a Win 2000 server. YMMV, -John

If you still can't get it working, try the NOD32 forums. The people there are very knowledgeable & helpful. http://www.wilderssecurity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=15 -John

Try http://www.ubcd4win.com/ -John

I have found that I need this functionality every now and then and this batch file is quicker than having to dump data into an Excel spreadsheet. I posted it here because others may find it useful, too. -John @echo off rem sumcol.bat rem -John Taylor rem Aug-20-2007 rem rem Computes the numeric sum of a given column of data rem mawk.exe is from: http://www.klabaster.com/freeware.htm#mawk rem rem Example: rem cd c:\windows\system32 rem dir *.dll | findstr /i /e ".dll" | sumcol 4 rem ---- rem now compare this to the output of: rem dir *.dll | findstr "File(s)" setlocal set COL=%1 set FNAME=%2 if not defined COL goto USAGE :RUN rem for debugging... rem mawk.exe "{ gsub(/,/, '', $%COL%); SUM += int($%COL%); print NR' 'SUM} END { print 'sum: 'SUM }" %FNAME% mawk.exe "{ gsub(/,/, '', $%COL%); SUM += int($%COL%) } END { printf('%%15.0f\n', SUM) }" %FNAME% goto END :USAGE @echo. @echo Usage: @echo %0 [ column # ] [ filename ] @echo column numbers start at 1 @echo filename is optional, this will otherwise read from standard-in @echo. @echo you can also use NF for the column #, which means the last column @echo (NF-1) means the 2nd to the last column, (NF-2) means the 3rd to the last column, etc. @echo. goto END :END endlocal

You may also consider this program: Password Safe http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net/ -John

Thanks for the tip. I'll give it a try in 2-3 days. Something more urgent came up, as it often does in IT. -John