jftuga

You should consider Microsoft's WSUS... http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversyst...es/default.mspx -John

BootIt™ Next Generation (BootIt NG) (BING) is a partition and multi-boot manager with a powerful and simple-to-use set of tools for partitioning, imaging, and multi-booting your computer. http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/ You can run the trial version for a number of days. I have used this program to non-destructively repartition my NTFS partitions. If you want to run a program when the screen is at the 'Press Ctrl-Alt-Del to Logon', then you want to use a program from the Windows 2003 resource kit... Autoexnt.exe: AutoExNT Service (should also work on XP) http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...&DisplayLang=en -John

I had the a similar problem come up after I installed Windows Updates last month on a Dell PowerEdge 2850. I did not even touch the hardware. To fix it, I upgraded the PowerEdge BIOS firmware, ESM, and PERC firmware. Once this was done, the system rebooted back into Windows and no blue screens. Next I went ahead and updated the Windows SCSI-RAID PERC 4 driver that I downloaded from Dell's web site. Good Luck, -John

Where can I download administrative versions of these updates: Update for Outlook 2003 (KB913807) (English version) Update for Outlook 2003 Junk Email Filter (KB914454) They are the last two I need in my slipstreamed version. :-) Thanks, -John

How does this compare with VMWare's recently-made-free offering? -John

IIRC, I tried @LDRIVE ( or was it @LSERVER ) but it was giving me problems. Permission problems I think. I ran it under the KixTart debugger and noticed that the return codes for WriteProfileString() was giving an access denied error. What I have written was the only way that I could get it to consistently work. Go figure... As for @TICKS, most, if not all, of our computers get turned off every night. -John

I found a new web site that may be of interest: http://www.firewallleaktester.com/ Click on Tests on the left. I am testing out the Jetico firewall (it is freeware). See also: http://www.firewallleaktester.com/reward_stats.htm -John

Actually, you can now run Squid on top of Windows and it works great. http://www.acmeconsulting.it/SquidNT/ However, ISA 2004 Server would give you a more comprehensive view of what users are going to what web sites, especially in an Active Directory environment. -John

We have a folder under \\domain.com\netlogon called LogonStatus. It is shared out a LogonStatus$ and users can write to this directory. Then we have code like this in our GPO logon script: $REWT = "\\example.com\LogonStatus$\@WKSTA.LOG" WRITEPROFILESTRING($REWT, "LAST LOGON", "Date", "@DATE") WRITEPROFILESTRING($REWT, "LAST LOGON", "Time", "@TIME") WRITEPROFILESTRING($REWT, "LAST LOGON", "IP Address", "@IPADDRESS0") WRITEPROFILESTRING($REWT, "LAST LOGON", "MAC Address", "@ADDRESS") WRITEPROFILESTRING($REWT, "LAST LOGON", "Host Name", "@HOSTNAME") WRITEPROFILESTRING($REWT, "LAST LOGON", "Uptime", "@TICKS") WRITEPROFILESTRING($REWT, "LAST LOGON", "User ID", "@LDOMAIN\@WUSERID") WRITEPROFILESTRING($REWT, "LAST LOGON", "Full Name", "@FULLNAME") WRITEPROFILESTRING($REWT, "LOGON SERVER", "LOGONSERVER", "@LSERVER") WRITEPROFILESTRING($REWT, "LOGON SERVER", "LOGONDRIVE", "@LDRIVE") WRITEPROFILESTRING($REWT, "LOGON SERVER", "LOGONHOMEDIR", "@LONGHOMEDIR") WRITEPROFILESTRING($REWT, "LOGON SERVER", "SCRIPTDIR", "@SCRIPTDIR") Regardless of which of our 3 DCs a user logs on with, all of these log files will be synchronized across the DCs with the built-in file replication functionality. If one of our DCs happens to be down, the script still works without any problems. In times like this, I think it is better to use \\domain.com instead of \\server in case that server is not up & running. -John

Why not install 2003 on a 2nd hard drive, and then keep you XP installation untouched? You could then dual boot between the 2 operating systems. -John

This would totally be awesome... Microsoft Shared Computer Toolkit http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sharedaccess/default.mspx http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details...&displaylang=en Maybe you could at least try to install it and see if it will install to completion. user hive cleanup service http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...&displaylang=en Sun Java 1.5 JRE, not the JDK http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/download.jsp Thanks! I can't wait until the public beta! -John

Solitaire FreeCell Mine Sweeper

Try putting you password inside of double-quotes. If that still dows not work, change the password to only be a combination of upper & lowercase letters and numbers. -John

Which versions of XP will work with MicrowinX ? OEM, Retail, Corporate? I would be using the Corporate Edition. I am assuming that you would provide you own XP media and serial #, like nLite, BartPE, etc. Thanks, -John

Installing a packet sniffer such as WinDump or Ethereal may help you debug the problem. You could run it on all of your systems to see where the pings and other packets are going to. http://www.winpcap.org/windump/ http://www.ethereal.com/ -John

gdogg, Would you consider RealAlternative (aka Windows Media Player Classic) ? http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Alternative.htm Thanks, -John

Wow, I just tried this! Very cool feature. -John

The easiest way for me to determine PCI hardware -- not just graphics cards, but also network, sound, ide, etc. is to use a Linux rescue boot CD or a Live CD. Once at a shell prompt, you can run: lspci | less - or for more detailed info - lspci -vv | less This will tell you everything about your PCI & AGP devices. You don't even need Linux installed. -John

IIRC, you can delete the processor or "APCI Uniprocessor PC" in device manager. Upon the next reboot, XP will install the dual processor driver. You should google around for the exact steps. -John

Autologon by sysinternals.com. This automates all of the manual registry editing. http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Autologon.html -John

These instructions worked for me: Slipstream Office SP: http://www.petri.co.il/office_system_2003_...ipstreaming.htm Slipstream Office hotfixes: http://www.petri.co.il/office_system_2003_...ipstreaming.htm Is this what you guys did? -John

Here is a recent discussion on packet sniffers and monitoring tools: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=70620 -John

I think Ghost tries to use Multicast by default which is flooding your network. Look for a Unicast option. -John

If you start using AD, you are going to want to have at least 2 domain controllers, in case one goes down or in case AD get corrupted on one of the systems. -John

On the client, remove them from the domain and put them into a Workgroup. Then make sure this computer is not listed in AD Users & Computers. Finally, add them back into the domain on the next boot. For some reason, this recipe seems to fix a variety of AD related problems in my experience. -John