Great Tools for the Admin – you get signal .com

http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/open-ports/

This is a very nice and handy website based set of tools:

• Port Forwarding Tester
• Network Location Tool
• Visual Trace Route Tool
• Phone Number Geolocator
• Reverse IP Domain Check
• WHOIS Lookup Tool
• iGoogle Network Information Gadget
• Windows Network Gadget (Vista/7)

Boot INI Options Reference

Was researching the 3GB switch that could be used in the boot.ini file to extend Windows 2003 to more fully utilize memory when more than 3GB exists (think pre x64 days) – This is not recommended to be used with SBS and the SBS BPA will call your attention to this as is the case with why I did this research.

Overall this is a handy guide for many switch options.

Mark Russinovich

Published: November 1, 2006

Introduction

There are number of BOOT.INI switches that are useful for driver developers that wish to test their drivers under a variety of different system configurations without having to have a separate machine for every one. For example, limiting the amount of memory NT sees can be useful for stressing memory loads, and limiting the number of processors for testing scalability. I’ve compiled a complete list of the options that BOOT.INI currently supports. This list is reproduced in the Startup, Shutdown and Crashes chapter of Windows Internals, where you’ll find more information about the boot process.

Note: to see what options a system has booted with examine HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SystemStartOptions.

Boot INI Options Reference

When visiting a malicious/compromised site in IE 8 – Microsoft has your back

I was surprised to see this screen when I went to download a utility linked off a Microsoft MVP’s blog.  http://www.askvg.com/unlocker-1-8-8-released/

Nevertheless it is the French and we in the US know you can’t trust the French any farther than you can throw them. 

***please don’t be a dummy – don’t download this potential malware software while such an obvious warning is staring you in the face***

Direct File Downloading via OWA and Mobile Phones Now in SBS 2008

http://sbs.seandaniel.com/2008/07/allowing-owa-and-mobile-devices-to.html

Tested and verified.  This works, is simple to setup, and is cool!

ShadowProtect Success – Vista and Server 2008 Restores – Phillip is THE Man

Tomorrow morning some of the good folks from ShadowProtect are in town buying me and many colleagues breakfast and Molly Malone’s Irish Pub and having a nice presentation.  So I thought I’d publish this topical reference I found this past week.

Found this great article by accident and wanted to say thanks to Phillip Elder for figuring this out and sharing this information.  I know a few colleagues that will appreciate learning this ShadowProtect trick.

**below from the linked post***

First Successful Windows Vista ShadowProtect Restore! No Winload.exe Error!

We have had a very disappointing series of problems with restoring any Windows Vista images made by ShadowProtect.

Many black screens later, there is finally information out there on the “why” the problem happens. The main reason has to do with the way Vista keeps track of the system’s partitioning and OS location.

Apparently the newer versions of Acronis’ imaging product compensates for this new partition management structure in Windows Vista. Unfortunately, the folks at StorageCraft are a little behind the game on this topic.

The last restore attempt we made with a client’s system failed with a WinLoad.exe error.

So, it turns out, after a lot of searching, that one needs to perform a preparatory step on the Windows Vista box before creating the ShadowProtect image:

bcdedit /set {default} device boot
bcdedit /set {default} osdevice boot
bcdedit /set {bootmgr} device boot
bcdedit /set {memdiag} device boot

Place the above series of commands into a batch file and run the batch file As Administrator on the soon to be imaged Windows Vista box.