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February 2005 - Posts

Scripting Clinic - what would you like to know?

I'm considering putting together a full day UK based event, either in Reading or London probably in early July. The provisional title is the "Scripting Clinic" . This would be a full day of scripting for IT Pro's (rather than developers - no offence intended!). Read More...
Posted Thursday, February 24, 2005 4:07 PM by jhoward | 11 Comments

Stretching Directory Boundaries, Cross Platform Identity Management, Authentication and Security

These are all critical pain topics among enterprises the world over. Fear not though (at least if you're UK based). You are guaranteed a fantastic learning opportunity by attending one of two all-day events presented by John Craddock and Sally Storey. Read More...
Posted Thursday, February 24, 2005 11:54 AM by jhoward | 2 Comments

Killing winlogon.exe remotely

No, not usually a good idea, I know. However, I was asked last night a "what would happen if...." question. Using taskkill, the process is identified as a critical system process. However, if you use pskill from sysinternals to kill winlogon on a remote Read More...
Posted Wednesday, February 23, 2005 2:58 PM by jhoward | 2 Comments

WMIC Samples

As promised, here are the sample WMIC commands I demonstrated in the Automating Windows Server 2003 session yesterday evening in Reading. Hope they are useful to you. Update static IP address wmic nicconfig where index=9 call enablestatic("192.168.16.4"), Read More...
Posted Wednesday, February 23, 2005 9:54 AM by jhoward | 4 Comments
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Access Based Directory Enumeration - markshareforABDE.exe utility download

Following the myriad of emails I received, here's a link to markshareforABDE.exe as used in my blogcast about Access Based Directory Enumeration a few days ago. Many thanks to DuWayne Harrison at Microsoft in the US, the author of this tool for giving Read More...
Posted Tuesday, February 22, 2005 3:19 PM by jhoward | 3 Comments

Expanding disk partitions when deploying using ADS and VSMT

At last nights Virtual Server 2005 Technet evening in Edinburgh, I was asked whether it was possible when migrating a system using VSMT if the hard disk could be expanded when deploying the image. Since arriving back home, I've now had a chance to try Read More...
Posted Friday, February 18, 2005 2:46 PM by jhoward | 2 Comments

Shared Networking (NAT) workaround in Virtual Server 2005

Following the Virtual Server technical overview event I presented in Manchester yesterday evening, I was asked about Shared Networking (NAT) which is present in Virtual PC 2004, but not in Virtual Server 2005 and whether there was a way to provide this Read More...
Posted Wednesday, February 16, 2005 2:31 PM by jhoward | 3 Comments

Blogcast on Security Configuration Wizard (SCW) in Windows Server 2003 SP1

The Aussies beat me to this one. If you want to find out more about the Security Configuration Wizard (SCW) new to Windows Server 2003 SP1, take a look at this excellent blogcast by Michael Kleef, a colleague and IT Evangelist from MS Austrialia. Nice Read More...
Posted Monday, February 14, 2005 5:05 PM by jhoward | (Comments Off)

MSN Messenger 5.1 Tab Functions

I just stumbled across Marts blog entry and thought this was such a cool way to use of the tabbed capability of Windows Messenger 5.1 to embed a view of your Exchange email. Had to share it! Nice one Mart & Stef- great tip. Read More...
Posted Friday, February 11, 2005 6:49 PM by jhoward | 6 Comments

Blogcast: Access Based Directory Enumeration (A Windows Server 2003 SP1 New Feature)

Find out about one of those really cool new features of Windows Server 2003 SP1, Access Based Directory Enumeration in this latest blogcast recording. In a nutshell, ABDE causes the server to examine access rights to sub-directories on a share, only showing Read More...
Posted Friday, February 11, 2005 3:58 PM by jhoward | 11 Comments

Windows Server 2003 as a client, MSN Toolbar Suite and Orca

I'm going to have eat a few of my own words now... I blogged in December about the "IT Pro" way of getting an unsupported program to install on a Windows Server box without a hint of an SDK in site. I relent, the Orca tool is the best tool for the job, Read More...
Posted Friday, February 11, 2005 2:45 PM by jhoward | 7 Comments

Windows Server 2003 SP1 RC2 (Build 3790, v1433) released

The second release candidate (aka RC2) for Windows Server 2003 SP1 has now been released to the web. x32 download link: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=02734CEA-7A4B-4D95-B220-8E1708C3ED46&displaylang=en IA64/Itanium download Read More...
Posted Wednesday, February 09, 2005 7:21 AM by jhoward | 5 Comments

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 Technical Overview

I'll be presenting a Technet evening session on 15th Febuary at the Regus, Manchester and also on 17th Febuary in the Spey Room, Microsoft Edinburgh for a technical overview of Microsoft Virtual Server 2005. If you have already registered for either of Read More...
Posted Tuesday, February 08, 2005 9:35 PM by jhoward | 1 Comments

Scriptomatic (revisited)

The Scripting Guys released version 2 of their "Scriptomatic" tool a couple of weeks ago. Don't be put off by the somewhat frivolous name - it has some very true value. One such example I frequently use is for the WQL queries in WMI filters when building Read More...
Posted Monday, February 07, 2005 8:42 AM by jhoward | 2 Comments

This is a test post only - trying out customised style sheets.

This is a test post only - trying out customised style sheets. This is a test post only - trying out customised style sheets. This is a test post only - trying out customised style sheets. This is a test post only - trying out customised style sheets. Read More...
Posted Friday, February 04, 2005 6:57 PM by jhoward | 0 Comments

How-To install a certificate for SSL Encryption under IIS

Following on from my post a couple of days ago about using MakeCert to generate a self-signed certificate, this is one way in which you can test that the generated certificate is working correctly for SSL authentication within IIS. It was almost worthy Read More...
Posted Friday, February 04, 2005 8:56 AM by jhoward | 1 Comments

How-to boost Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 Guest Performance

One very easy win to gain fairly significant extra performance from your Virtual Server 2005 guest Virtual Machines is to use virtual SCSI disks instead of virtual IDE disks. Of course, a physical fast I/O subsystem on the host is going to make a far Read More...
Posted Thursday, February 03, 2005 2:51 PM by jhoward | 7 Comments

PKI and Certificate Management Information in Windows Server 2003

While on the subject of Certificates/Encryption/IPSec/PKI in general yesterday, I was looking around for some good information on how PKI works to post up. One white paper which stuck-out from the pile was published in December last year (so it's reasonably Read More...
Posted Wednesday, February 02, 2005 2:16 PM by jhoward | 1 Comments

IIS 7.0 - a first look

I saw several demonstrations of an early cut of IIS 7 when I was over in Redmond a couple of weeks ago. Again it's Longhorn timeframe material, so much can change and there's little concrete information publicly available. Remember we're way before pre-beta Read More...
Posted Wednesday, February 02, 2005 8:42 AM by jhoward | 1 Comments
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How-to use MakeCert for trusted root certification authority and SSL certificate issuance

I wasn't originally going to blog this, but my colleague, Mat , and I were discussing encryption late last night. Mat was specifically interested in its use for security traffic in the context of SQL Reporting Service, but we got massively sidetracked Read More...
Posted Wednesday, February 02, 2005 11:26 AM by jhoward | 3 Comments

MSN Search Launched

Kind of hard to miss the launch party. Well, as it happens I did :-) Even though I'd consciously seen Bill Gates plastered over the home page of both www.msn.com and www.msn.co.uk on-and-off all morning, it never dawned on me to read what the story might Read More...
Posted Tuesday, February 01, 2005 2:29 PM by jhoward | (Comments Off)

The future of the Windows-centric IT Pro?

I looked at Monad briefly a couple of months ago - after all it's still a reasonably long way off yet, probably in the Longhorn timeframe. However, there's been a couple of articles just posted on the Internet looking at the future of "shell scripting" Read More...
Posted Tuesday, February 01, 2005 12:00 PM by jhoward | 6 Comments