Erik's Work Notes

RTSP Security Camera Viewer

2023-11-06T14:02:00.001-08:00

Working on an app to live stream four MJPEG preview streams from security cameras. Going to use WinForms on .Net Core.

Links to save for ideas about the app.

Really real full screen apps:

https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/16618/How-To-Make-a-Windows-Form-App-Truly-Full-Screen-a

RTSPClientSharp

https://github.com/BogdanovKirill/RtspClientSharp/issues/28

https://www.nuget.org/packages/RtspClientSharp

Accord-Net looked really cool, but doesn’t actually decode the video streams

https://github.com/accord-net/framework/blob/development/Samples/Video/Two%20Cameras/MainForm.Designer.cs

Didn’t want a VLC dependency (though it could be worse)

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10280794/play-rtsp-stream-in-wpf-or-winforms

Tossing an Outlook 2016 for Mac Profile

2021-03-28T20:24:00.001-07:00

I'm archiving this here for my own benefit. I didn't come up with this originally. Credit due to @ajkgordon on superuser.com (original link) for the original. To delete the Outlook profile, go to Finder > Applications > right-click / CTRL-click on Outlook > Show Package Contents > Contents > SharedSupport > Outlook Profile Manager > Select profile > Click the minus sign to remove. Then empty trash. After this, the user can launch Outlook and setup their profile as if it was first being setup. In case you're looking for PC instructions, here the are from memory. Open Control Panel (the legacy control panel, not the new Windows 10 settings) Open the Mail control panel Select Show Profiles Remove the profile Restart Outlook and setup the profile again.

Fun with Lipsum and Google Translate

2018-07-31T18:35:00.000-07:00

Feed the "Lorem Ipsim" text into google translate for interesting results. You can find out more about the history of the latin-like "Lorem Ipsum" or "Lipsum" text and its origins with Cicero at www.lipsum.com.

Original Text:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Duis egestas mattis massa ut tristique. Nunc euismod malesuada blandit. Praesent lacinia consequat gravida. Praesent rhoncus nunc ut odio pulvinar in suscipit enim vestibulum. Vivamus non justo pellentesque risus elementum interdum. Vestibulum ornare sapien in nisl feugiat pellentesque. Phasellus ut mi urna. Ut sit amet metus augue. In posuere pellentesque mattis. Curabitur ullamcorper placerat lectus sagittis aliquet. Morbi faucibus sem id diam mattis non auctor tortor adipiscing. Proin a massa congue lectus elementum accumsan ac ut sem. Curabitur blandit augue eu turpis tempus eu lobortis eros consequat. Donec sed tempus est.
Nulla interdum, lectus quis posuere ultrices, metus erat fringilla elit, vitae sollicitudin dolor ante vel risus. Donec tempus pulvinar venenatis. Nam ac eleifend erat. Praesent bibendum purus vel neque tempor quis tincidunt elit cursus. Etiam id eros urna, sit amet volutpat elit. Nullam non metus orci, eu adipiscing turpis. Nunc gravida lobortis quam ut adipiscing. Aliquam ultrices, purus sed sollicitudin malesuada, nibh lacus lacinia elit, eu euismod nisi felis at ligula. Integer eu lectus sed nisl tristique cursus. Mauris lectus massa, rhoncus et dignissim a, tempor vel quam. In tortor nisl, dictum id consequat at, cursus sit amet dolor. Vivamus ac massa at odio aliquam venenatis ac vel leo.

Google Translate Automatically "Translated" from Latin in Chrome 67 on Windows 10 with the Google Translate Extension installed. I'm still trying to figure out what exactly is the Latin word for CNN:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Mass poverty lot of homework to be sad. Performance now malesuada afternoon. Present skirt photography pregnant. CNN now present in order to receive the hated volleyball court. Live element, not just kids smile sometimes. Sapien eu football players betting on nutrition. Boat as my pot. To carrots fear propaganda. Put kids in real estate. Chat ullamcorper real estate arrows and bananas. Soccer team salad diam real estate is the author of macro customer. Planning graduated from the microwave mass element layer and the salad. Chat sit propaganda football high school football season carton peanut products. But until it is too late.
No protein, graduated one basketball set, fears of ecological cleaning, care of the pain and laughter. Until the time of volleyball blockage. In fact, it was ac Vestibulum. Chili drink or not present at any game and running. It also is reality urn, carrots methods. Does not meet the Nullam orci, eu adipiscing turpis. How to get pregnant now carton customer. The latest basketball, chili and care expected, nibh skirt competition, but football Performance at gas networks. An entire football players graduated, but the sad cycle. Graduated largest mass, grilled and soccer from, or how long. The temperature of Medicine, said that development at the cycle of products. And a poisonous hatred and mass live at or refrigerator.

And now I'm curious if someone out there runs this same test if they get a different result set.

I'm Still Around

2015-06-02T21:24:00.002-07:00

It's been silent around here for too long.

Here's a few of the things I've been working on for the last two years:

SCCM 2012
MDT 2013
Windows Image Creation and Deployment using MDT and SCCM and without those two using DISM/ImageX/GImageX
Mac OS X image creation and deployment using DeployStudio
Active Directory and Exchange Administration
Exchange 2010 -> 2013 on-premises upgrade
Sharepoint 2013 farm installation
Database migration to SQL Server 2012
XMPP-based IM server installation and maintenance
Virtualization with Hyper-V
High performance storage design, installation, configuration and operation (Dell|Equallogic, Lenovo, EMC)
iPad deployment using Apple's DEP
Enterprise Chromebook/Chrome OS Deployment
Scripts and Tools to manage Chromebook deployments
Network Management (Cisco, Ruckus, Meraki)

And much more.

I plan to get back to blogging on this site with insighes

Setting up WordPress 3.5.1 on 1and1 Windows/MSSQL Hosting Plan

2013-01-27T23:26:00.001-08:00

This article gives a great breakdown on setting up WordPress on IIS with Microsoft's SQL server. I'm not sure if this is specific to 1and1's hosting setup but I did find a quirk when using version WordPress 3.5.1 version 1.1.4 of the WordPress Database Abstraction plugin.

You're likely to run into an error similar to the following.

Call to undefined function mysql_free_result() in E:\kunden\homepages\19\<your user id>\www\mysite\wp-includes\wp-db.php on line 1126

Edit the file wordpress-root-dir\wp-includes\wp-db.php look for the following code block:

if ( is_resource( $this->result ) ) mysql_free_result( $this->result );

Comment both lines out otherwise mysql_free_result will always return an error:

//if ( is_resource( $this->result ) ) //mysql_free_result( $this->result );

Leave everything else in the function as is, including the closing curly brace "}" on the line below.

If you encountered this error while running install.php you will need to login to the MSSQL admin panel, delete the tables that were created by the WordPress install.php script and re-run install.php.

Configuring Google NoSSLSearch for Windows DNS Servers

2012-03-14T17:35:00.001-07:00

Create a new Primary DNS Zone on your DNS server for www.google.com.
Add a single CNAME record with a blank alias name and “nosslsearch.google.com.” for the FQDN for target host. The trailing dot after “com” is important.

Clear your DNS server cache by right-clicking on your server in DNS manager and selecting Clear Cache.
When your clients request www.google.com, your DNS server will direct the client to nosslsearch.google.com instead of www.l.google.com.
Sample output from NSLOOKUP after configuring this DNS zone:

C:\Windows\system32>nslookup www.google.com Server: dc02.domain.local Address: 10.254.1.2
Name: nosslsearch.google.com Address: 216.239.32.20 Aliases: www.google.com

Hope this helps.

Fun with AirPrint, Bonjour and DNS Service Discovery (dns-sd) for iOS

2011-12-19T09:38:00.000-08:00

I'm currently working on getting AirPrint working with our installed base of printers that don't share an IP subnet with a fleet of iOS devices. For now I'm just going to post links to the source material I've gathered. Once I've figured it out, I'll come back and expand this post:

High-Level Outline:

Create new DNS zone (ex: bonjour.yourdomain, this domain does not have to have a public TLD. For instance, I used print.test, and will refer to the zone as print.test in this document)
Add new DNS zone as published search suffix in DHCP
Install CUPS server (I used Ubuntu Linux Server v11.10)
Configure a shared printer queue in CUPS for printer1 named printer1_q
Add an A record for CUPS server to print.test dns zone (assumes CUPS server is at 10.0.0.10

cups1 IN A 10.0.0.10

Add b._dns-sd._udp and lb._dns-sd._udp PTR record

b._dns-sd._udp IN PTR print.test.
lb._dns-sd._udp IN PTR print.test.

Add PTR records for printer

_universal._sub._ipp._tcp IN PTR printer1._printer._tcp.print.test.
_cups._sub._ipp._tcp IN PTR printer1._printer._tcp.print.test.

Add SRV records for CUPS printer queue named printer1_q on the print server

printer1._printer._tcp IN SRV 0 0 631

Add TXT record for CUPS printer queue named printer1_q on the print server

printer1._printer._tcp IN TXT (
"txtvers=1"
"qtotl=1"
"rp=printers/printer1_q"
"adminurl=http://cups1.print.test:631/printers/printer1_q"
"ty=HP Laserjet Color 4650 DN"
"product=(GPL Ghostscript)"
"transparent=t"
"copies=t"
"duplex=t"
"color=t"
"pdl=application/octet-stream,application/pdf, application/postscript,image/jpeg ,image/png,image/urf"
"URF=none" )

Notes on the TXT record:

Always set URF=none, it must be present for the record to work
The value from the "ty" key is displayed in the iOS printer search results as the printer name
The value from the "note" key is displayed under the printer name in the iOS printer search results
Feature descriptors are added in a key= where is T (for true) or F (for false). If a key is not specified or is blank, the value is assumed to be false. Optional keys include:

Duplex: enable duplex (two-sided) printing
Staple: can staple
Copies: supports printing more than one copy of a document
Collate: can collate (group) pages
Punch: can punch
Bind: can bind (assume this is saddle stitch or other binding method)
Sort: printer includes a sorter

The printer-type key appears to reference bit mask data type. I have not found a description for this enumeration.
I have not found documentation printer-state enumeration. Most examples set this to 3
If your print server requires authentication, add the following literal string to the TXT record : "air=username,password"

I'm looking into the feasibility of using native IPP without CUPS in these TXT records and will update this post with what I find out.

Sources:

IETF Draft: DNS-Based Service Discovery

http://files.dns-sd.org/draft-cheshire-dnsext-dns-sd.txt

Manually Adding DNS-SD Service Discovery Records to an Existing Name Server
http://www.dns-sd.org/ServerStaticSetup.html

Apple Developer Documentation: Bonjour Operations
http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/NetServices/Articles/NetServicesArchitecture.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20001074-SW1

Apple Support Discussion: Airprint Information and FAQ
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2658560?start=15&tstart=0

Apple Support Discussion: Airprint in the Enterprise across subnets
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2751128?start=0&tstart=0

Bonjour Printing Specification
http://devimages.apple.com/opensource/BonjourPrinting.pdf

Printing from the iPad without buying a new printer
http://jcostom.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/printing-from-the-ipad-without-buying-a-new-printer/

AirPrint and Linux
http://www.finnie.org/2010/11/13/airprint-and-linux/

Airprint across subnets
https://sites.google.com/site/iwastepaper/

CUPS & AirPrint from iPhone or iPad
http://element.edoceo.com/howto/cups-airprint

Automatically generate AirPrint Avahi service files for CUPS printers
http://atxconsulting.com/blog/tjfontaine/2010/11/21/automatically-generate-airprint-avahi-service-files-cups-printers

AirPrint with Ubuntu 10.10
http://hartlessbydesign.com/blog/view/197-airprint-with-ubuntu-1010

Exchange 2010 Development

2010-11-08T09:13:00.000-08:00

The following is a collection of links that I'm using to learn Exchange development

Exchange 2010 Developer webcasts
http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/10/12/452842.aspx

Exchange 2010 SP1 SDK packages
http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2010/10/29/456775.aspx

More Developer webcasts
http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/11/05/453052.aspx

MSDN Guide to Exchange 2010 SP1 Development Technologies
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd877025(EXCHG.140).aspx

JavaScript Speed Comparison IE9 Beta vs. Firefox 4.0b6

2010-09-17T21:35:00.000-07:00

Using the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark at webkit.org, here's the results for my PC. Both browsers support GPU acceleration. Both browsers have those settings set to their default values. IE9 comes out ahead, being about 20% faster than Firefox 4.0b6 on my work PC hardware (Core2 Duo E6550 @2.33 GHz, ATI Radeon HD 2400 Pro video adapter). This is by no means the end-all, be-all of browser performance ratings, just a cursory test since I was curious.

Firefox 4.0 beta 6: http://bit.ly/9AgL8b

Internet Explorer 9 Beta: http://bit.ly/dvlVWv

Load-Balancing Exchange 2010

2010-08-27T01:12:00.000-07:00

Load Balancing

http://www.msexchange.org/articles_tutorials/exchange-server-2010/high-availability-recovery/load-balancing-exchange-2010-client-access-servers-using-hardware-load-balancer-solution-part1.html

http://ingazat.wordpress.com/2010/03/27/load-balancing-exchange-2010-using-cisco-ace-part-1/

https://supportforums.cisco.com/thread/2029148

DAG Info

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/ocs/cc843611.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/ee886396.aspx

http://www.msexchange.org/articles_tutorials/exchange-server-2010/high-availability-recovery/uncovering-exchange-2010-database-availability-groups-dags-part1.html

http://www.msexchange.org/articles_tutorials/exchange-server-2010/high-availability-recovery/uncovering-exchange-2010-database-availability-groups-dags-part2.html

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd351172.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd979802.aspx

Generate all possible values for the Defcon 18 Badge Ninja Unlock in C#

2010-07-30T14:45:00.001-07:00

Part of the fun at DEFCON is the badge hacking contest. This year I decided to take a hard look at the code behind the badge. One area of interest was the Ninja Party "Locked" screen, so I decided to see if I could figure out how to unlock it. I did. Here's the code I used. There was also an Excel spreadsheet involved that computed the tumbler values based on the dc18_encode_tumblers function in the file DC18_Badge.c.

Once you figure out the pin encoding (I can’t make this too easy), this code will let you validate the integer result.

<> Keywords: DEFCON DC8 Ninja Badge NinjaNetworks

Query Windows 7/Vista/Server 2008 Security Log for Login Failures using an XPATH

2010-06-28T18:49:00.001-07:00

The following XPATH query allows you to query for all “Audit Failure” events from the Windows Security event log where the user name matches the string “username”. Ideally you’d be able to use a contains(.,“username”) clause instead of the =“username” syntax, but so far I haven’t been able to make that work.

Code Snippet
 <QueryList>
  <Query Id="0" Path="Security">
    <Select Path="Security">*[System[Provider[@Name='Microsoft-Windows-Security-Auditing'] ]] and (*[System[band(Keywords,4503599627370496)]]) and (*[EventData[Data[@Name="TargetUserName"]="username"]])</Select>
  </Query>
</QueryList>
 

If you have some über-cool XPATHs you use to query your event logs, post them to the comments section.

Technorati Tags: Windows Vista,Windows 7,Win7,Server 2008,Windows Server,XML,XPATH,Event Log,Security,Audit Failure

Background Transparency In Office 2004

2010-02-18T20:10:00.001-08:00

Edit the slide master

Add your picture

Send it to the back of the slide by choosing Send to Back on the Layering menu.

Next, click Format Picture… in the formatting palette.

Slide the Transparency slider until a desired transparency effect is reached. You can click the Preview button in the bottom left-hand corner of the window to see the results of your chosen settings.

Above (before). Below (after)

NY Times Launches Own Version of DiggBar?

2009-07-27T15:08:00.001-07:00

So I clicked on a Digg article link for an NYT story this morning, and to my surprise I didn’t get the DiggBar at the top of the window as I’ve come to expect. In its place was the message “Welcome to TimesPeople”. It would appear that the NYT has launched its own toolbar for its TimesPeople social network. At least I don’t have two site bars at the top of my screen…

Check it out for yourself:

Digg story link I saw this morning: http://digg.com/d3yhY9

TimesPeople home: http://timespeople.nytimes.com/home

Undo SQL 2000 hardening by restoring potentially dangerous xp_* proecdures

2009-07-01T21:02:00.001-07:00

ArcServe backup uses some of these xp_* extended stored procedures to execute SQL agent backups. I can never find this quickly (took me over an hour searching the web today) so I’m re-posting this script here.

Disclaimer: Before you run either of these scripts, please know exactly what you’re doing. I’m not responsible if you use these and break your SQL server installation. Remember that with great power comes great responsibility. Use yours wisely.

Scripts after the break.

SQL Script to restore potentially dangerous stored procedures:

use master exec sp_addextendedproc xp_cmdshell,@dllname = 'xplog70.dll' exec sp_addextendedproc xp_enumgroups,@dllname = 'xplog70.dll' exec sp_addextendedproc xp_loginconfig,@dllname = 'xplog70.dll' exec sp_addextendedproc xp_enumerrorlogs,@dllname = 'xpstar.dll' exec sp_addextendedproc xp_getfiledetails,@dllname = 'xpstar.dll' exec sp_addextendedproc Sp_OACreate,@dllname = 'odsole70.dll' exec sp_addextendedproc Sp_OADestroy,@dllname = 'odsole70.dll' exec sp_addextendedproc Sp_OAGetErrorInfo,@dllname = 'odsole70.dll' exec sp_addextendedproc Sp_OAGetProperty,@dllname = 'odsole70.dll' exec sp_addextendedproc Sp_OAMethod,@dllname = 'odsole70.dll' exec sp_addextendedproc Sp_OASetProperty,@dllname = 'odsole70.dll' exec sp_addextendedproc Sp_OAStop,@dllname = 'odsole70.dll' exec sp_addextendedproc xp_regaddmultistring,@dllname = 'xpstar.dll' exec sp_addextendedproc xp_regdeletekey,@dllname = 'xpstar.dll' exec sp_addextendedproc xp_regdeletevalue,@dllname = 'xpstar.dll' exec sp_addextendedproc xp_regenumvalues,@dllname = 'xpstar.dll' exec sp_addextendedproc xp_regremovemultistring,@dllname = 'xpstar.dll' exec sp_addextendedproc xp_regwrite,@dllname = 'xpstar.dll' exec sp_addextendedproc xp_dirtree,@dllname = 'xpstar.dll' exec sp_addextendedproc xp_regread,@dllname = 'xpstar.dll' exec sp_addextendedproc xp_fixeddrives,@dllname = 'xpstar.dll’ go

Test

And to remove them, you can execute this script.

SQL Script to remove potentially dangerous stored procedures:

use master exec sp_dropextendedproc 'xp_cmdshell' exec sp_dropextendedproc 'xp_enumgroups' exec sp_dropextendedproc 'xp_loginconfig' exec sp_dropextendedproc 'xp_enumerrorlogs' exec sp_dropextendedproc 'xp_getfiledetails' exec sp_dropextendedproc 'Sp_OACreate' exec sp_dropextendedproc 'Sp_OADestroy' exec sp_dropextendedproc 'Sp_OAGetErrorInfo' exec sp_dropextendedproc 'Sp_OAGetProperty' exec sp_dropextendedproc 'Sp_OAMethod' exec sp_dropextendedproc 'Sp_OASetProperty' exec sp_dropextendedproc 'Sp_OAStop' exec sp_dropextendedproc 'xp_regaddmultistring' exec sp_dropextendedproc 'xp_regdeletekey' exec sp_dropextendedproc 'xp_regdeletevalue' exec sp_dropextendedproc 'xp_regenumvalues' exec sp_dropextendedproc 'xp_regremovemultistring' exec sp_dropextendedproc 'xp_regwrite' drop procedure sp_makewebtask go

Remove (Annoying) AOL Email Footer

2009-06-01T17:49:00.001-07:00

I regularly get a few calls a month about this issue, so I decided to (finally) write a post about it. If your anti-spam software or appliance is set to block ad links to doubleclick.net (as mine is), you’ve undoubtedly faced this issue as well. Some, but not all messages from aol.com mail users will be blocked. This is caused by AOL’s automatic message footer which includes ads from various online ad services, doubleclick.net being the most prevalent. This reminds me that I need to tune the filter to block the other ad agencies footer content as well.

All is not lost, there is a way for the average AOL mail user to disable the problematic message footer. Thanks to Microsoft MVP Bill Pytlovany who has provided clear and concise instructions on how to disable the message footer, which I have reproduced below based on his original post:

AOL users can click the following, remove the check box next to Show the message footer at the bottom of each email you send. and click Save.
http://controls.api-mail.aol.com/mailcontrols/app/en-US/FooterControl.html

The original post on Bill’s blog can be found here.

Weather site for HDTVs and other large format displays

2009-05-06T20:39:00.001-07:00

I needed to find a website that displayed quick weather info on a 1920x1080 display as part of a series of websites that cycle through every 30 seconds. Various IT systems status, news headlines, company facts, etcetera.

I couldn’t find something out there that I really liked, so I decided to craft my own with the help of the Yahoo! Weather RSS Feed. Although I had to get past Yahoo including some field names “yweather:condition” that don’t validate when using LINQ, I was able to coax the RSS feed to my will using plain old XML parsing into a dictionary object.

The code’s attached (documentation is little to none), and provided without warranty of any kind. YMMV. Let me know what you think.

Download

This code is released under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Technorati Tags: weather hdtv asp.net vb.net visualbasic aspx

How to prevent Boot Camp help from launching on first logon to Windows

2009-02-28T15:48:00.001-08:00

As part of preparing a Mac Mini/Boot Camp/Windows XP deployment, we needed to prevent the Boot Camp help from running each time a new user logged into the computer. There are two ways to do this.

Disclaimer: While I have proven that the content of this post works for me, this information is provided without warranty of any kind. And remember the standard registry editing disclaimer applies. As always, have good backups before changing system settings.

Method 1:

The first is to remove the Apple_KbdMgr entry from the HKLM\…\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run registry key. This change will affect all users who log on.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

This method prevents the boot camp system tray (aka notification area) icon from appearing. I’m not entirely sure what else this KbdMgr.exe is doing, but I suspect is has something to do with Apple’s use of the function keys (F1-F12) for things such as screen brightness and volume control. Obviously I’ll have to spend some time researching what this app really does besides the icon and context menu.

The Boot Camp manager context menu:

You can also make this change using the msconfig utility or Sysinternals’ AutoRuns tool.

Method 2 (this only works on Windows XP):

The second method allows you to keep the Boot Camp icon running in the system tray (aka notification area) and still prevent the help file from launching on first logon. This method involves editing the default user profile. The registry key we are going to update is:

HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Apple Inc.\Apple Keyboard Support

You need to add a value of type DWORD, named FirstTimeRun with a value of 0. Save the code below as DisableAppleKbdMgrFirstRun.reg and double click on it to add it to your registry.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Apple Inc.\Apple Keyboard Support] "FirstTimeRun"=dword:00000000

Method 3 (Windows Vista, 7 and later):
Thanks to commenter MacTroy for pointing this out

The third method allows you to keep the Boot Camp icon running in the system tray (aka notification area) and still prevent the help file from launching on first logon and works on Windows 7. This method involves editing the default user profile. To perform these steps you will need to launch a command prompt with "Run as administrator". You'll know you've done it correctly if you see the following in the title bar:

Step one, mount the real "Default User" registry hive by pasting the following command into the command prompt window..

reg load hku\RealDefault "%USERPROFILE%\..\Default\NTUSER.DAT"

The registry key we are going to update is:

HKEY_USERS\RealDefault\Software\Apple Inc.\Apple Keyboard Support

You need to add a value of type DWORD, named FirstTimeRun with a value of 0. Run the following at the command prompt. (watch out for wrapped text. The following statement should appear on one line. Thanks to Will for catching the /d /v typo)

reg add
"HKEY_USERS\RealDefault\Software\Apple Inc.\Apple Keyboard Support" /v FirstTimeRun /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Finally, unload the real Default User registry hive by running the command below.

reg unload hku\RealDefault

(Updated 2011-08-12, Added method 3)

Template Testing

2009-02-15T18:43:00.000-08:00

I've been spending some time experimenting with the blogger template code. Let me know if I've broken anything serious.

Export Exchange query-based distribution group members to a CSV file

2008-12-04T17:35:00.000-08:00

This is a script I run internally to generate reports of query-based distribution group members as CSV files (viewable in Excel).

You'll need the free ADFIND tool from joeware for this script to run.
http://www.joeware.net/freetools/tools/adfind/index.htm

You'll also need to change the following line to reflect the proper LDAP base DN for your domain.

SET BASEDN="dc=domain,dc=local"

Script: Run-QBDG-Export.bat

@ECHO OFF SETLOCAL IF "%1" EQU "" ( ECHO. ECHO ERROR! ECHO Parameter required ^ ECHO. ECHO Usage: Run-QBDG-Export.bat ^ ECHO. GOTO :EOF ) REM CHANGE THIS LINE TO MATCH YOUR DOMAIN SET BASEDN="dc=domain,dc=local" SET CMDLINE=ADFIND -b %BASEDN% -f "cn=%1*" -nodn cn %CMDLINE% >%1-GETGROUPS.txt 2>NUL IF EXIST %1-GETGROUPS.txt ( FIND /I "0 Objects returned" %1-GETGROUPS.txt IF ERRORLEVEL 1 ( GOTO START_SEARCH ) ELSE ( ECHO ERROR: Could not query Active Directory for groups with %1* GOTO END ) ) ELSE ( ECHO ERROR: Could not query Active Directory for groups with %1* GOTO END ) :START_SEARCH FOR /F "usebackq tokens=1*" %%A IN (`type %1-GETGROUPS.txt ^| FIND /I ">cn:"`) DO ( SET GRP_OBJ=%%B CALL :GET_MEMBERS %%B ) FOR /F "tokens=1,2 delims=:" %%A in ("%TIME%") DO ( SET MYTIME=%%A:%%B ) GOTO END :GET_MEMBERS SET FLT_QRY_OBJ="msExchDynamicDLFilter:" SET FLT_DN_OBJ="msExchDynamicDLBaseDN:" SET FLT_QRY_CMD=ADFIND -b %BASEDN% -f "cn=%GRP_OBJ%" REM GET QUERY STRING %FLT_QRY_CMD% > %1-ADINFO.txt 2>NUL FOR /F "usebackq tokens=1*" %%A IN (`type %1-ADINFO.txt ^| FIND /I %FLT_QRY_OBJ%`) DO ( SET QRY_STR="%%B" ) REM GET QUERY BASE DN FOR /F "usebackq tokens=1*" %%A IN (`type %1-ADINFO.txt ^| FIND /I %FLT_DN_OBJ%`) DO ( SET QRY_DN="%%B" ) ECHO Running the following query: ECHO ------------------------------------------------ ECHO CN: %GRP_OBJ% ECHO DN: %QRY_DN% ECHO QS: %QRY_STR% ECHO. IF EXIST "%GRP_OBJ%.csv" ( DEL /Q "%GRP_OBJ%.csv" ) ECHO Creating export file... ADFIND -csv -b %QRY_DN% -f %QRY_STR% sn givenName mail title physicalDeliveryOfficeName employeeID -nodn >"%GRP_OBJ%.csv" 2>NUL ECHO Done. ECHO. ECHO. IF NOT EXIST "%GRP_OBJ%.csv" ( ECHO Could not create "%GRP_OBJ%.csv" ECHO. ECHO Press any key to continue or Ctrl-C to quit... PAUSE >NUL 2>NUL ) REM PAUSE GOTO :EOF :END DEL /Q %1-GETGROUPS.txt >NUL 2>NUL DEL /Q %1-BODY.TXT >NUL 2>NUL DEL /Q %1-ADINFO.txt >NUL 2>NUL ENDLOCAL

Windows Update Errors to KB Article Cross-Reference

2008-10-14T19:36:00.001-07:00

This list is hardly definitive, but imagine my surprise when I discovered this cluster of sequential knowledge base articles in the Microsoft KB. I didn't like my options for searching for them and since my colleagues witnessed a few of these error codes in the past day or so, I thought it was wise to create a quick-reference lists for myself (or anyone else who may read this). If you find one I've missed, please add a comment.

Windows Version

Error Code

KB Article

2000

Server

2003

Vista

Server

2008

0x643

KB958052

●

0x80070420

KB958054

●

0x80070422

KB958043

●

0x80070490

KB958044

●

0x80070643

KB958052

●

0x8007064C

KB958055

●

0x8007066A

KB958049

●

0x8007F0DA

KB958050

●

0x8007F0F4

KB958051

●

0x800B0001

KB958045

●

0x80200010

KB958047

●

0x8024000B

KB958040

●

0x8024002D

KB958041

●

0x80246002

KB958056

●

0x80246007

KB958042

●

0X80248007

KB958046

●

0x8024D00C

KB958053

●

0xC80001FE

KB958048

●

Install SteadyState and Enable Disk Protection in one shot!

2008-10-01T18:44:00.001-07:00

After 12 years, Microsoft's support for Windows XP ended April 8, 2014. Since there will be no more security updates or technical support for the Windows XP operating system I have removed the transforms file link.

This article remains online for historical purposes only.

Here's the code that I used to install Windows SteadyState v2.5 and enable windows disk protection all in one shot. This took forever to figure out with myself and a colleague doing a significant amount of head scratching.

After Windows installer finishes the SteadyState install (I used a custom transform to skip the WGA validation since an unattended install would always freeze during this process), you need to run the SCTUI.EXE application located in the folder C:\Program Files\Windows SteadyState\. The catch is that if you try and run it from the same script that you ran the installer from, SCTUI will launch and immediately exit without enabling disk protection. The workaround we finally came up with was to have the installer script create a temporary user account that is a member of the local administrators group and execute SCTUI as that user. Ah, but you can't pass a password to RUNAS.EXE you say? That's where cpau from joeware comes in.

With cpau, you can specify both the user id and the password on the command line. The beauty of this is that once SCTUI has been launched you can delete the "temporary" administrator account we created earlier (the one that cpau is using to launch SCTUI) and the process will still run because of the way security contexts work in Windows (note: I have not yet tested this on Vista).

We guessed (correctly) that the SCTUI was somehow sensing that it was being launched from the same parent process as the Windows Installer instance that installed SteadyState. That's where the other benefit of cpau comes in. The process that cpau creates will be in an entire new user context and won't inherit any of the parent process' environment.

Once the installer scripts finish, the system will reboot. Once the system comes back up, you'll have to run the Windows SteadyState management tools to more fully configure Windows Disk Protection if you don't want all disk changes discarded with each boot.

Getting this all going took me 2 scripts, since I wanted to do some tidying up with the second script. Remember to watch out for line-wrap. As always, your mileage may vary, run these scripts at your own risk and always test on non-production systems and have good backups! That said, I cannot spend a significant amount of time supporting these scripts, here they are:

Script 1; GO.CMD:

@ECHO OFF ECHO Installing SteadyState Components... MSIEXEC /I SteadyState.msi /qb TRANSFORMS=SteadyState-attempt4.mst /log %TEMP%\SteadyState.Log :WDP ECHO About to enable disk protection... ECHO. ECHO Please close all running applications and save all settings. ECHO When the computer reboots after this, all changes made to the ECHO hard drive will be discarded when the computer is shutdown or ECHO restarted. ECHO. ECHO THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING! Press CTRL-C and choose Y to cancel or PAUSE NET USER WDPINSTALLER WDP@ss0123 /ADD NET LOCALGROUP ADMINISTRATORSWDPINSTALLER /ADD @START cmd /c wdpenable.bat

Script 2; WDPEnable.BAT:

@ECHO OFF REM Cleanup the SteadyState installer and any files that REM contain sensitive account information (like passwords). DEL /Q *.CMD DEL /Q *.MSI DEL /Q *.MST @cpau -uWDPINSTALLER -p WDP@ss0123 -ex "C:\Program Files\Windows SteadyState\SCTUI.exe /EnableWDPAndReboot" REM Once the process has been launched we can safely REMdelete the installer user account @NET USERWDPINSTALLER /DEL DEL /Q CPAU.EXE

If you want to know more about the transform file I used, send me an email message.

Update (3/18/2009):

Some people have asked me what I used to create the transform (MST) file. The tool I used is called ORCA, which is included in the Windows SDK Components for Windows Installer Developers, part of the Microsoft® Windows® Software Development Kit. If you’re just looking for the Windows Installer tools (which includes ORCA) and not the full SDK (which can be huge), Microsoft has also released the Windows Installer 4.5 Software Development Kit which is only 7MB.

Update (2/26/2011):

Instead of using ORCA I now prefer InstEd for MSI editing and transform file creation. I have found it to be more stable and far more powerful than ORCA.

Command Line Printer Management

2008-09-29T17:07:00.001-07:00

Some really cool stuff to manage printers via batch file.

How to add printers with no user interaction in Windows

Usage: rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry [options] [@commandfile]
/a[file] binary file name
/b[name] base printer name
/c[name] unc machine name if the action is on a remote machine
/dl delete local printer
/dn delete network printer connection
/dd delete printer driver
/e display printing preferences
/f[file] either inf file or output file
/ga add per machine printer connections (the connection will be propagated to the user upon logon)
/ge enum per machine printer connections
/gd delete per machine printer connections (the connection will be deleted upon user logon)
/h[arch] driver architecture one of the following, x86 | Itanium | x64
/ia install printer driver using inf file
/id install printer driver using add printer driver wizard
/if install printer using inf file
/ii install printer using add printer wizard with an inf file
/il install printer using add printer wizard
/in add network printer connection
/j[provider] print provider name
/k print test page to specified printer, cannot be combined with command when installing a printer
/l[path] printer driver source path
/m[model] printer driver model name
/n[name] printer name
/o display printer queue view
/p display printer properties
/q quiet mode, do not display error messages
/r[port] port name
/s display server properties
/Ss Store printer settings into a file
/Sr Restore printer settings from a file
Store or restore printer settings option flags that must be placed at the end of command:
2 PRINTER_INFO_2
7 PRINTER_INFO_7
c Color Profile
d PrinterData
s Security descriptor
g Global DevMode
m Minimal settings
u User DevMode
r Resolve name conflicts
f Force name
p Resolve port
i Driver name conflict
/u use the existing printer driver if it's already installed
/t[#] zero based index page to start on
/v[version] driver version one of the following, Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Millennium Edition | Windows NT 4.0 | Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 | Windows XP and Windows Server 2003
/w prompt the user for a driver if specified driver is not found in the inf
/y set printer as the default
/Xg get printer settings
/Xs set printer settings
/z do not auto share this printer
/Y do not auto generate a printer name
/K changes the meaning of /v and /h to accept 0,2,3, respectively for Windows x64 and Windows IA64 | Windows NT x86 | Windows 4.0
/Z share this printer, can only be used with the /if option
/? help this message
@[file] command line argument file
/Mw[message] show a warning message before committing the command
/Mq[message] show a confirmation message before committing the command
/W[flags] specifies flags and switches for the wizards (for APW & APDW)
r make the wizards to be restart-able from the last page
/G[flags] specifies global flags and switches
w suppress setup driver warnings UI (super quiet mode)

Examples:
Run server properties:
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /s /t1 /n\machine
Run printer properties:
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /p /n\machineprinter
Run add printer wizard localy:
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /il
Run add printer wizard on \machine:
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /il /c\machine
Run queue view:
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /o /n\machineprinter
Run inf install:
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /if /b "Test Printer" /f %windir%infntprint.inf /r "lpt1:" /m "AGFA-AccuSet v52.3"
Run add printer wizard using inf:
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /ii /f %windir%infntprint.inf
Add per machine printer connection (the connection will be propagated to the user upon logon):
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /ga /c\machine /n\machineprinter /j"LanMan Print Services"
Delete per machine printer connection (the connection will be deleted upon user logon):
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /gd /c\machine /n\machineprinter
Enumerate per machine printer connections:
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /ge /c\machine
Add printer driver using inf:
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /ia /c\machine /m "AGFA-AccuSet v52.3" /h "x86" /v "Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003" /f %windir%infntprint.inf
Add printer driver using inf:
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /ia /K /c\machine /m "AGFA-AccuSet v52.3" /h "Windows NT x86" /v 3
Remove printer driver:
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /dd /c\machine /m "AGFA-AccuSet v52.3" /h "x86" /v "Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003"
Remove printer driver:
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /dd /K /c\machine /m "AGFA-AccuSet v52.3" /h "Windows NT x86" /v 3
Set printer as default:
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /y /n "printer"
Set printer comment:
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /Xs /n "printer" comment "My Cool Printer"
Get printer settings:
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /Xg /n "printer"
Get printer settings saving results in a file:
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /f "results.txt" /Xg /n "printer"
Set printer settings command usage:
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /Xs /n "printer" ?
Store all printer settings into a file:
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /Ss /n "printer" /a "file.dat"
Restore all printer settings from a file:
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /Sr /n "printer" /a "file.dat"
Store printer information on level 2 into a file :
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /Ss /n "printer" /a "file.dat" 2
Restore from a file printer security descriptor:
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /Sr /n "printer" /a "file.dat" s
Restore from a file printer global devmode and printer data:
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /Sr /n "printer" /a "file.dat" g d
Restore from a file minimum settings and resolve port name:
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /Sr /n "printer" /a "file.dat" m p

Run Windows 2003 Admin Tools on Vista

2008-09-10T15:28:00.001-07:00

I was getting tired of having to use remote desktop to get to the Active Directory admin tools on my old XP box or a domain controller. Then I found this:
realtime-windowsserver.com/tips_tricks

If that's down, the original link is here:
blogs.technet.com/fareedmk

w00t!

Yahoo Finance Widget Test

2008-09-10T11:00:00.001-07:00

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href='http://finance.yahoo.com'&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Yahoo! Finance&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br/&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href='http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=^IXIC'&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Quote for ^IXIC&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Yes, not exactly work, but it's my blog.