Have you ever found an error message in your windows event log with
“\Device\Harddisk3\Volume7 Read Error.”
Then you lost your hair and went mad trying to figure out which Hard Disk IS the 3rd hard disk according to windows.
Category Archives: Tutorials
Windows "\Device\Harddisk3\" Translated to actual hard disk letter
Posted by OMEN on 02/10/2010
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Enable RDP to XP Desktops on W2K3 Domain
Posted by OMEN on 22/09/2009
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Enable RDP to desktops on domain.
This allows domain users to RDP into their workstations, this uses workstation RDP and NOT terminal server license connections.
You will need:
W2K3 > with ad configured and installed.
WXP
PSexec
MYSQL – Importing SQL
Posted by OMEN on 22/09/2009
1 comments
Say you have a mysql server and have a long list of sql files to import in a specific order. Some files are 20kb some are 400Mb phpmyadmin will keel over and die, all that stress is just unnecessary.
Messing about with XP user profiles
Posted by OMEN on 10/03/2009
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Migrating to AD can be a pain, creating new users, migrating the profiles and settings.. oh dear – and keeping your users happy. If you have a small office with about 10 computers/users, there is an easy hack to make the users keep their profiles.
- The procedure involves you creating the user accounts in AD;
- Adding the computers to the AD;
- Giving users full permissions of the profile folder they want to keep so for example “%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\andy”
- Editing the registry;
- Log in with the new username;
NOTE: these profiles are local computer profiles – they are not roaming profiles.
OK, join the computer to AD and create a username for the computer user, “andy” for example. Now log into that computer as a domain admin and give “andy” full control over “%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\andy”
Now log into that computer as “andy” the domain account so he gets a uid generated and a profile created – this will be an empty profile.
Profile generation for AD will create a new profile folder similar to this
"%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\andy.000"
Log onto the computer as admin again, now go to start > run > regedit > hit enter:
Now go to: HKLM>Software>Microsoft>Windows NT>CurrentVersion>ProfileList
here you will find all of the profiles on the computer, the nubers indicade uids, find the uid that has the same “ProfileImagePath” variable as your new domain user account for “andy”
"%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\andy.000"
now replace this with the local user account profile folder
"%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\andy"
Reboot the computer and let andy log in with his domain account, all of the profile settings will be there as before joining AD.
Experiment – may be you find some more hacks.
Please do tell me if anything is unclear.
VMWare Trickery
Posted by OMEN on 29/12/2008
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I use vmware server, it’s brilliant. Here are some reasons to use it.
- Testing slipstreamed Windows disks (service packs and drivers);
- Configuring messy software like msSQL, without it crippling your computer;
- Recovering a backup image ghost/true image to recover some files/settings;
- Running almost any operating system and no dual boot mess;
- Preparing for and testing vpn, ssh, pki, deployment;
- Consolidating servers, have apache2 ubuntu, mssql xp, active directory 2003, all running on the same box. Centralize management and backup policies.
netsh: Administrators friend
Posted by OMEN on 29/12/2008
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Resetting the TCP/IP Stack
For XP/2003
Go to start > Run > type “cmd” press enter > then type the following:
netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt
For Vista
Go to start > Run > type “cmd” press enter > then type the following:
netsh int ip reset netsh winsock reset
CleaningComputers on a Windows Domain – [Lazy ADMIN]
Posted by OMEN on 29/12/2008
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Lately I have been cleaning up too many computers and need to find a way of automating everything.
A post by “StreamlinePanda” @ Piriform forums (ccleaner people) http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=14936
How to unlock O2 ST780WL [updated]
Posted by OMEN on 17/11/2008
8 comments
How to unlock O2 ST780WL
Why unlock O2 Wireless box?
Well, O2 wireless box is actually ST780WL router with some nice features. The O2 firmware is a dumbed-down version of generic Speed Touch firmware, it locks you down to only using the router for O2 adsl (or be-there or other broadband).
Another thing is that O2 and other ISP firmwares are broken, and insecure: the router has a “technician” account with a password that’s either the same across the entire ISP firmware version or easily breakable based on routers MAC or other information. You have no control over this and potentially have a backdoor into your network. Read more »
PHPBB3 – Backup & Restore Tutorial
Posted by OMEN on 13/11/2008
7 comments
PHPBB3 – backup & restore tutorial (this tutorial should apply to other forum/bbs on mysql)
For this tutorial we will use several methods to backup and restore mysql databases.
Since you are reading this guide and need to back the database then you may already have a running server or have it hosted somewhere, for those who don’t have a server here is some software to get you hosting.
These downloads are for Windows, but the back up process is more or less universal.
