Here is how to copy a file from a MAC machine to a remote Windows share without mounting. It uses the smbclient:

smbclient '\hostshare' password -D 'the/directory'
          -U username -c 'put myfile.txt'

dscacheutil -q group

esxcfg-vswif -d vswif0

esxcfg-vswif -a vswif0 -p Service Console -i NEW.IP.ADDRESS.HERE -n NEW.IP.NETMASK.HERE -b NEW.IP.BROADCAST.ADDRESS

Russian based Novicorp has released “Win-to-Flash”:  http://wintoflash.com/home/en/

To prep a flash disk as a Windows installation disk, other methods require you to fdisk / diskpart, partition, format – using tools from lots of sources.  “Win-to-Flash” is the easy way to go:

Install “Win-To-Flash”.

Insert your USB Flash Disk.

Insert you Windows Install CD.

Run “Win-To-Flash”.

Pick the source and destination disks.

Let it finish.

It’s that easy.  I tested from Window 7, prepping a Windows XP install stick.

I’m 1/2 way through the Windows install on my EEE PC 900 Netbook.

Petri to the rescue!

http://www.petri.co.il/save_share_settings_and_permissions.htm

CamStudio
http://camstudio.org/

Capture a video of your on-screen action – great for presentations, instructions, etc… 

(I just tested on Windows 7 and it works great!)

THANKS KYLE!

A vendor pointed me to this great comparison of “Windows SharePoint Services”(WSS) and “Microsoft Office SharePoint Services”(MOSS):

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointtechnology/fx101758691033.aspx?mode=print&ofcresset=1

One area that isn’t covered is cost:  WSS is free with your Windows CALs, MOSS requires a SharePoint CAL.  (Microsoft should call is a MOSS CAL !).

Here is how I resolved the problem.

Check out this KB first 925976 ( http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925976 ) .

This might fix the problem that I saw when I ran KB929665.  I did not find this until later and I resolved the problem using the "brut force" method. Not graceful but successful.

Here were my steps:

1.    Uninstall WSS 3.0

2.    Uninstall .NET 3

3.    Uninstall Windows Internal Database:  (http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/f8abcf6e-b6ef-4872-bf51-1b89994700d51033.mspx?mfr=true)

4.    Cleaned Registry as per 925976. I only found two keys: SQLGroup and FTSGroup)

5.    Install AD

6.    Install  .NET 3

7.    Install WSS 3.0

8.    Restored Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 by using Central Administrator.  I had previously setup scheduled tasks for Full and differential back-ups with a cmd line script using stsadm.exe

KB 929665 left out some key info. Here are the 2 cmd line that worked for me.  I had to cd to the directory first. Putting the full path into the msiexec line did not work for me.

CD C:Program FilesMSECachewssv3database

Msiexec /i SSEE_10.msi CALLERID=OCSetup.exe REINSTALL=ALL REINSTALLMODE=omus /qn REBOOT=ReallySupress /l*v C:sqlfix.log

Change to this directory:

C:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft SharedWeb Server Extensions12BIN>

Issue this command:

stsadm -o setconfigdb -databaseserver YOUR_NEW_SERVER_NAME–farmuser YOUR_NEW_SERVER_NAMEadministrator -farmpassword YOUR_ADMIN_PASSWORD

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb530302.aspx

SQLIOSim utility

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=231619

SQLIO Disk Subsystem Benchmark Tool

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=9A8B005B-84E4-4F24-8D65-CB53442D9E19&displaylang=en

If you have an NTFS partition you’d like to shrink or grow, then ‘ntfsresize’ can help.  I won’t write a how to – there’s plenty out there, including the man page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ntfsresize

It’s on the default ubuntu bootable CD – download that and you have everything you need, including the the unix style fdisk  for adjusting the partition table after you’ve resized the file system.

http://www.ubuntu.com/

It’s the # in your username!  : : http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2009/03/06/9463700.aspx

Event Type:        Error

Event Source:    MsiInstaller

Event Category:                None

Event ID:              11406

Date:                     10/12/2009

Time:                    1:32:38 PM

User:                     BKST#aanthony

Computer:          DEMANDDEVSRVR

Description:

Product: Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 -- Error 1406.Could not write value InstalledBy to key SOFTWAREMicrosoftUpdatesMicrosoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1KB953595.  System error .  Verify that you have sufficient access to that key, or contact your support personnel.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Data:

0000: 7b 43 45 32 43 44 44 36   {CE2CDD6

0008: 32 2d 30 31 32 34 2d 33   2-0124-3

0010: 36 43 41 2d 38 34 44 33   6CA-84D3

0018: 2d 39 46 34 44 43 46 35   -9F4DCF5

0020: 43 35 42 44 39 7d         C5BD9} 

set yy=%DATE:~10,4%

set mm=%DATE:~4,2%

set dd=%DATE:~7,2%

set /a "yy=10000%yy% %%10000,mm=100%mm% %% 100,dd=100%dd% %% 100"

if %yy% LSS 100 set /a yy+=2000 &rem Adds 2000 to two digit years

set /a JD=dd-32075+1461*(yy+4800+(mm-14)/12)/4+367*(mm-2-(mm-14)/12*12)/12-3*((yy+4900+(mm-14)/12)/100)/4

set /a JD=%JD%+1

set /a L= %JD%+68569,     N= 4*L/146097, L= L-(146097*N+3)/4, I= 4000*(L+1)/1461001

set /a L= L-1461*I/4+31, J= 80*L/2447,  K= L-2447*J/80,      L= J/11

set /a J= J+2-12*L,      I= 100*(N-49)+I+L

set /a YYYY= I,  MM=100+J,  DD=100+K

set MM=%MM:~-2%

set DD=%DD:~-2%

set TOMORROW=%MM%/%DD%/%YYYY%

echo %TOMORROW%

Eggsulent…

http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Introduction-Network-Access-Protection-Part1.html

Microsoft’s tools failed where FSPRO’s Event Log Explorer succeeded!

Thanks!

http://www.eventlogxp.com/

It is not as easy as it sounds…

Go to http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404146.html - it gives you some of the information you need.

Follow the link there to sign up and agree to the distribution agreement. 

Adobe will send you an email to confirm you are who you say you are.

Then, they send you an email with links to ‘special’ copies of the software.  Their site says this can take up to 3 days, but it took 10 minutes for me.

When you get the email with the links to the software, scroll down to the “updates” link.

From the “updates” page, select “Adobe Reader – Windows” from the drop down, and click “Go”.  (Adobe Reader For – Macintosh is the default – pahsssss)

Download the following: 

                Adobe Reader 9.1 - multiple languages

                Adobe Reader 9.1.3 update - Multiple Languages

Adobe Reader 9.1.2 Update - Multiple Languages

Adobe Reader 9.1.1 Update - Multiple Languages

+ any other updates that are available when you read this

(The updates are incremental)

Follow the instructions at http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404146.html to get the MSI and CAB files. 

Put the MSI, CAB and the three MSPs (or as many as were available) in a directory together.  Important:  make sure the user group ‘everyone’ has full security rights on that directory.

Go to the command line, and change to that directory.  Execute the following commands – accept all defaults for the GUIs that pop up:

C:someDirectory>msiexec /a AcroRead.msi /p AdbeRdrUpd911_all_incr.msp

C:someDirectory >msiexec /a AcroRead.msi /p AdbeRdrUpd912_all_incr.msp

C:someDirectory >msiexec /a AcroRead.msi /p AdbeRdrUpd913_all_incr.msp

You will notice that the timestamp on the MSI will change with each command.

The resulting MSI + the original CAB file is your fully patch / fully up to date Adobe Reader package, and is GPO deployable.

SQL Mail with SQL 2000 requires Outlook 2000, SP3 – but keep reading…

To patch Outlook 2000 to SP3, you must first update to Outlook 2000-SR1.

Microsoft no longer provides a stand-alone Office 2000 SR1 patch (that works).  But, you can get the admin pack and patch your install source with this command:

                msiexec /A "D:YOUR_OFFICE2KCD1_SRCDATA1.MSI" /p "D:YOUR_SR1_ADMIN_PATCH_SRCDATA1.MSP" SHORTFILENAMES=1

Then you can patch your actual installation from your patched source.

                msiexec /i "D:YOUR_OFFICE2KCD1_SRCDATA1.MSI" REINSTALL=ALL REINSTALLMODE=vomus

Oh, but wait… there’s more…

The MSSQLSERVER and SQLSERVERAGENT services must be running as an actual user (not SYSTEM).  You must login (to windows) as that user and create an Outlook (MAPI) mail profile from the user’s session.

AND… Outlook must be configured in the “Corporate or Workgroup” mode, or the message will end up in your inbox until Outlook is started.  Yea, they’ll just sit there.  Why do they go to your inbox?  I don’t know. (this was my final stumbling block!)

AND…  Make sure you have a real mail account – you can’t just push mail on your POP server, because outlook will attempt to send AND RECEIVE and will get hung up on the receive.

You can test your SQL Mail configuration with the following command (fill in your email address).

exec master.dbo.xp_sendmail @recipients='nobody@nowhere.com', @subject='Nothing…', @message='Oh, nevermind!'

Before your write to Microsoft and complain about all this, remember – you’re working with software from 10 years ago!

Auto logon (autologon, autologin, auto login) unexpectedly didn’t work on about 400 machines overnight.  Ouch!  No changes were made to the systems that related to login rights, and the autologon values were unchanged in the registry.

It was other changes, namely computer policies, delayed the boot process.  The delay was enough to allow the screen saver to come on during the application of computer settings.  Having the screen saver up before auto logon seems to prevent it.

You can reproduce the problem by setting HKEY_USERS.DEFAULTControl PanelDesktop"ScreenSaveTimeOut"="60" (1 minute) and linking in a long computer startup script.

HKEY_USERS.DEFAULTControl PanelDesktop applies to the console session pre-login.

To prevent the Screen Saver from interfering with your autologon settings, make the following Registry Changes:

[HKEY_USERS.DEFAULTControl PanelDesktop]

"ScreenSaverIsSecure"="0"

"ScreenSaveTimeOut"="0"

"ScreenSaveActive"="0"

You may also want to turn off screen savers for all other users.  That can be done with simple built in GPO settings.

If you need to connect many machines with VNC, write a batch file with the following command.

start c:PATH_TO_VNCvncviewer.exe /shared /password VNCPASSWORD /scale 1/2 192.168.1.1

( /scale 1/2 make the window 1/2 size)

(THANKS K.M.)

…reboot.

Here’s a step-by-step:

http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-install-windows-7vista-from-usb-drive-detailed-100-working-guide/

I haven’t tried booting the USB stick yet, but I’m on the final step – copying from DVD to USB.  The only gotcha that I hit was that my work station is Vista 32, and my Windows 7 source was 64; BOOTSECT.EXE was not compatible.