JD's Computer How to Guides

Find MAC Address - Win7 & Vista

2012-01-25T21:20:00.004Z

How to Find your MAC Address in Windows 7/Vista

Working on a desktop computer:
1.) Click Start
2.) Type CMD In the search box
3.) Press the Enter key
You should now see a black screen appear
4.) In the black screen type IPCONFIG /ALL
5.) Press the enter key
6.) Under ‘Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection’

you will see ‘Physical Address’

The MAC address is to the right of that

e.g

Working on a laptop and connected wirelessly:

1.) Click Start

2.) Type CMD In the search box

3.) Press the Enter key

You should now see a black screen appear

4.) In the black screen type IPCONFIG /ALL

5.) Press the enter key

6.) Under ‘Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection’

you will see ‘Physical Address’

The MAC address is to the right of that

e.g

Related Posts/Articles

Find MAC Address - Win XP

2012-01-23T20:52:00.002Z

How to Find your MAC Address in Windows XP

Working on a desktop computer:
1.) Click Start
2.) Click Run
3.) Type CMD In the ‘run’ box
4.) Click OK
You should now see a black screen appear
5.) In the black screen type IPCONFIG /ALL
6.) Press the enter key
7.) Under ‘Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection’

you will see ‘Physical Address’

The MAC address is to the right of that

e.g

Working on a laptop and connected wirelessly:
1.) Click Start
2.) Click Run
3.) Type CMD In the ‘run’ box
4.) Click OK

You should now see a black screen appear
5.) In the black screen type IPCONFIG /ALL

6.) Press the enter key

7.) Under ‘Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection’

you will see ‘Physical Address’

The MAC address is to the right of that

e.g

Related Posts/Articles

Email from Command Line/Batch File (Pre-Defined)

2012-01-16T23:32:00.001Z

This script will use pre-defined rules rather than variables

Coming from an IT department that loves email and text alerts telling us all about the status of our systems (from "System Down" & "System Up" right through to "I'm Still Fine") it was only natural that when I started using the built in Windows Backup utility to back up data on my home PC that I wanted to be kept up to speed with the status.

I wanted to know when the backup had started and when it had finished but unfortunately, as with most people, I don't have an SMTP server at home. This is where Gmail's SMTP server (in my case) comes in.

Create a VBScript with the blow code, this can then be ran from a 'Batch File' or a 'Scheduled Task'

Const schema   = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/"
Const cdoBasic = 1
Const cdoSendUsingPort = 2
Dim oMsg, oConf

' E-mail properties
Set oMsg      = CreateObject("CDO.Message")
oMsg.From     = "YourAccount@gmail.com"
oMsg.To       = "WhoEver@Domain.com"
oMsg.Subject  = "Subject Here"
oMsg.TextBody = "Message Body Here"

' GMail SMTP server configuration and authentication info
Set oConf = oMsg.Configuration
oConf.Fields(schema & "smtpserver")       = "smtp.gmail.com"
oConf.Fields(schema & "smtpserverport")   = 465
oConf.Fields(schema & "sendusing")        = cdoSendUsingPort
oConf.Fields(schema & "smtpauthenticate") = cdoBasic
oConf.Fields(schema & "smtpusessl")       = True
oConf.Fields(schema & "sendusername")     = "YourAccount@gmail.com"
oConf.Fields(schema & "sendpassword")     = "Gmail Password"
oConf.Fields.Update

oMsg.Send

All you need to do is update the above code under e-mail properties with:

From (Your Gmail Address)
To (The email address you wish to send too)
Subject
Message Body

Now you just need to put your authentication details in:

Enter your username (where you see "YourAccount@gmail.com")
Enter your password for that account (where you see "Gmail Password")

Related Posts/Articles

Email from Command Line/Batch File (Variables)

2012-01-16T23:31:00.001Z

This script will use variables rather than pre-defined rules

Kinda like 'Email from Command Line/Batch File (Pre-Defined)' this script will allow you to send emails via command line, batch files or scheduled tasks. The difference here is that the script will use .txt files to define the Subject and Message Body which can be very useful.

Lets say I want to send my family and friends a list of all my CD's and DVD's every week...

All I need to do is create a .txt file with a list of them (see related posts/articles below to see how to automate this) and put the path to this file in the script.

I also set the Subject of the email based on another text file, why?

Well, this allows me to automatically change the subject of the email by using a batch file to write to the Subject.txt file using things like data variables.

Create a VBScript with the blow code, this can then be ran from a 'Batch File' or a 'Scheduled Task'

Const ForReading = 1, ForWriting = 2, ForAppending = 8
 Dim fso, f

 Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
 Set f = fso.OpenTextFile("c:\<path>\msgbody.txt", ForReading)
 BodyText = f.ReadAll
 f.Close
 Set f = Nothing
 Set fso = Nothing

 Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
 Set f = fso.OpenTextFile("c:\<path>\msgsubject.txt", ForReading)
 subjectText = f.ReadAll
 f.Close
 Set f = Nothing
 Set fso = Nothing
 
 
Const schema   = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/"
Const cdoBasic = 1
Const cdoSendUsingPort = 2
Dim oMsg, oConf

' E-mail properties
Set oMsg      = CreateObject("CDO.Message")
oMsg.From     = "YourAccount@gmail.com"
oMsg.To       = "WhoEver@Domain.com"
oMsg.Subject  = subjectText
oMsg.TextBody = BodyText

' GMail SMTP server configuration and authentication info
Set oConf = oMsg.Configuration
oConf.Fields(schema & "smtpserver")       = "smtp.gmail.com"
oConf.Fields(schema & "smtpserverport")   = 465
oConf.Fields(schema & "sendusing")        = cdoSendUsingPort
oConf.Fields(schema & "smtpauthenticate") = cdoBasic
oConf.Fields(schema & "smtpusessl")       = True
oConf.Fields(schema & "sendusername")     = "YourAccount@gmail.com"
oConf.Fields(schema & "sendpassword")     = "Gmail Password"
oConf.Fields.Update

oMsg.Send

All you need to do is update the above code to point to the path of your msgbody.txt and msgsubject.txt

Then under e-mail properties set the following:

From (Your Gmail Address)
To (The email address you wish to send too)
Subject
Message Body

Now you just need to put your authentication details in:

Enter your username (where you see "YourAccount@gmail.com")
Enter your password for that account (where you see "Gmail Password")

Related Posts/Articles

Find Computer Name - Win7 & Vista

2012-01-15T14:04:00.002Z

How to Find your Computer Name in Windows 7/Vista

1.) Click Start
2.) In the search box Type CMD
3.) Press the enter key
You should now see a black screen appear
4.) In the black screen type HOSTNAME
5.) Press the enter key
The computer name will be shown below
e.g.

Related Posts/Articles

How to find your Computer Name - Windows XP

Find Computer Name - XP

2012-01-15T13:56:00.000Z

How to Find your Computer Name in Windows XP

1.) Click Start
2.) Click Run
3.) Type CMD In the ‘run’ box
4.) Click OK
You should now see a black screen appear
5.) In the black screen type HOSTNAME
6.) Press the enter key
The computer name will be shown below
e.g

Related Posts/Articles

How to find your Computer Name - Windows 7 & Vista

Find IP Address - Win7 & Vista

2012-01-15T12:19:00.002Z

How to Find your IP Address in Windows 7/Vista

Working on a desktop computer:

1.) Click Start
2.) Type CMD In the search box >> Press the enter key
you should now see a black screen appear
3.) Type IPCONFIG In the black screen >> Press the enter key
4.) Under ‘Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection’
you will see ‘IPv4 address’
The IP address is to the right of that

Working on a laptop and connected wirelessly:

1.) Click Start
2.) Type CMD In the search box >> Press the enter key
you should now see a black screen appear
3.) Type IPCONFIG In the black screen >> Press the enter key
4.) Under ‘Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection’
you will see ‘IPv4 address’
The IP address is to the right of that

Related Posts/Articles

Find IP Address - XP

2012-01-15T11:57:00.001Z

How to Find your IP Address in Windows XP

Working on a desktop computer:

1.) Click Start
2.) Click Run
3.) Type CMD In the ‘run’ box >> Click OK

you should now see a black screen appear

4.) Type IPCONFIG in the black screen >> press the enter key
5.) Under ‘Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection’

you will see ‘IPv4 address’

The IP address is to the right of that

Working on a laptop and connected wirelessly:

1.) Click Start
2.) Click Run
3.) Type CMD In the ‘run’ box >> Click OK

you should now see a black screen appear
4.) Type IPCONFIG in the black screen >> press the enter key
5.) Under ‘Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection’

you will see ‘IPv4 address’

The IP address is to the right of that

Related Posts/Articles

Create a Batch File

2011-09-11T18:41:00.000+01:00

How to Create a Batch File

First thing you need to do is open 'Notepad'
This program can be found - Start >> All Programs >> Accessories >> Notepad.

1. Click File and select Save As.
2. Change the ‘Save as type’ to All Files (*.*).

3. Give your file a name and put .bat at the end.
4. Click Save.

This is now a batch file.

*Notes*
.bat is the file extension for batch file

Running and Editing a Batch File:

Running a batch file:
To run a batch file, all you need to do is simply double click it.

Editing a batch file:
Right click the file and click edit.

*Notes*
If the file you are running/editing is on a location other than your local drive then you may get a security warning.
(the warning may look a little different depending on your operating system).

Just click run, this will not run the actual batch file, it will just open notepad so you can edit the batch file.

Create Scheduled Tasks - Win7

2011-09-06T20:57:00.002+01:00

How to Create Scheduled Tasks in Windows 7

Well, it all comes down to what you want the Scheduled Task to do but in this guide I will show you how to create a basic task.

Lets start by opening the 'Task Scheduler'
Click Start >> Control Panel >> System and Security >> Administrative Tools >> Now double click 'Task Scheduler'

Now lets take a look at creating a 'Basic Task'

1.) Click 'Create Basic Task' {Located on the top right in the 'Actions' pane}

2.) Enter a name for the task. You can also add a description to help identify what the task does in the future. Once finished, click next.

3.) Now select when you would like the task to start. For the purpose of this guide i am going to select 'Daily' and then click next.
3a.) Choosing 'Daily' now gives you some more options, I'm going to set it to:

Start: 07/09/2011 @ 22:00:00 (based on the time this guide was created)
Recur every '1' day

Once Finished, click next.

4.) Now select the 'Action' required for your task. I'm going to run a VB Script so I'm going to select 'Start a program' and then click next.

4a.) Choosing 'Start a program' now gives you some more options, I am going to:

Browse to the VB script and select 'Open'

Once finished, click next.

5.) A summary of the task will now be displayed, once you are happy with these settings click finish.

6.) The task has now been created.