Archive for the ‘ windows ’ Category

Remotely change power options in XP

First of all, get the pstools and set them up. then run

 \\[workstation name] powercfg /query
Field Description          Value
-----------------          -----
Name                       Home/Office Desk
Numerical ID               0
Turn off monitor (AC)      After 20 mins
Turn off monitor (DC)      After 5 mins
Turn off hard disks (AC)   After 60 mins
Turn off hard disks (DC)   After 10 mins
System standby (AC)        Never
System standby (DC)        After 5 mins
System hibernates (AC)     Never
System hibernates (DC)     After 20 mins
Processor Throttle (AC)    Not Supported
Processor Throttle (DC)    Not Supported

that will tell you what the current settings are. After that, you can set the power scheme by doing this:

psexec \\[workstation name] powercfg /setactive "[scheme name]"

It will exit with “error code 0″, but no worries. Just check your work using the query command above after your changes.

Logitech webcam drivers

are packed in with an awful, bloated program. Just want the drivers and nothing else? I did this with a Quickcam 4000 Pro. The same basic steps may apply to other cams:

1. Download the Program from .com
2. use 7-zip, winRAR, or some other decent compression program to extract the contents of the .exe to a folder on you computer.
3. Open up Device Manager. right-click on the unknown USB device, and select “Update Driver”.
4. Point it at the folders you extracted. it should be under a folder appropriately named “drivers”. mine was in “pro”.
5. happy happy. you web cam works without the extra bloat.

running msc’s as admin account

Got tired of right-clicking and “run as” and putting in my uname/password. I just updated the shortcuts to run something similar to this. This example is for 2007 server management console.

runas /user:DOMAIN\ADMIN_ACCOUNT "cmd /c \"c:\program files\microsoft\exchange server\bin\exchange management console.msc\""

Conference rooms with outlook and exchange 2007

Server 2007 allows administrators to create objects such as Mailbox, Contacts, Mail User, and Distribution Groups. Here are the steps needed to create a room mailbox object:

  1. Open the Exchange Management Console.
  2. Expand Recipient Configuration.
  3. Click on Mailbox.
  4. In the Mailbox pane, click on New Mailbox…
  5. For our purposes, we will pick “room mailbox” This is a mailbox to be assigned specifically to Meeting Rooms. Its associated user account will be disabled in Active Directory.
  6. In the User Type window, we can choose either to create a new user or to assign an existent user to the new resource mailbox. If we choose to assign it to an existent user, we will have to check if the account does not already have a mailbox associated to it. Click Next to continue.
  7. In the User Information window, we should fill out the user’s personal information and select the Organization Unit where it will be created. After that click on Next
  8. On the Mailbox Settings page, we can define the mailbox information such as Alias, Mailbox Server, and Mailbox Store where the new resource mailbox will be located. The policies for Mailbox and ActiveSync can also be defined in this step. We can choose which fields we are going to fill out and then click Next to continue.
  9. In the New Mailbox window, we will get a summary of all the information that we have selected in the previous steps. These parameters will be used by the cmdlet New-Mailbox for the creation of this resource mailbox object. To create the resource mailbox, click on New.
  10. In the Completion window, we will see the cmdlet New-mailbox and the parameters that we used in the creation process of this new resource mailbox.
  11. Grant yourself and users who will manage the mailbox “full access”. Right-click on the mailbox you just created and select manage full access permission.
  12. Sign into OWA.
  13. Click the dropdown next to your username on the upper-right corner of the screen and open up the room mailbox you just created.
  14. go to Options, then Resource settings
  15. go through these.
  16. Add the room mailbox to outlook.
  17. go to the calendar, right-click on the room’s calendar, go to properties.
  18. Under the permissions tab, set the default permission to “reviewer”. This will let everyone see what is going on in the room when they are scheduling

props to: http://www.msexchange.org/articles_tutorials/exchange-server-2007/management-administration/managing-resource-mailboxes-exchange-server-2007-part1.html

Windows XP’s /etc/hosts file

To my surprise, XP has an equivalent to unix’ “/etc/hosts” file. you can find it here:
c:\\system32\drivers\etc\hosts’