We love our users, yes we do! Especially the ones who walk out the door with a laptop that they refuse to return. Having a computer off the corporate network for an extended period of time can create problems with Active Directory, some management software and some encryption software. MakeLaptopWarning.vbs is a script which the…
Author: Alan
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SaveAs Excel Fails in Scheduled Task
I wrote a script which outputs a text file as a log. I added a routine which allowed the log to be saved as Excel, when installed. The function worked fine when I ran it interactively, but crashed on the .SAVEAS routine on a 2008 R2 server as a scheduled task. I did some research…
User Notice – Survey Reminder
Occasionally you may hear a request to remind the users of a survey, or some other even where they want to present information with a URL for the user to click. There are may ways to do this sort of Windows based MOTD, and I will give you one more, SurveyReminder.vbs.This is designed to be…
Back to Blogging — Thoughts about Windows 8
I changed jobs at VA, had surgery (getting better, thanks), went on vacation, and didn’t take the time to work on the blog. But, Gentle Reader, I am back with a number of posts today of things that accumulated during the hiatus. First, some thoughts about Windows 8. I installed Win8 on the test machine…
Abort SCCM Restart
Sometimes you get a panicked call saying, “I got a message saying my computer will reboot in 5 minutes”. StopSCCMRestart.cmd allows you to abort the reboot on a local or remote machine. It works by killing the SMSCliUI.exe task. The task will be eventually restarted, but this should give your user a chance to reboot…
ShareEnum Alternative
The SysInternals ShareEnum.exe program relies on the NETBIOS browser list and chokes in very large domains. I wanted a program which let me to audit share permissions with greater flexiblity. ShareEnum.wsf is an alternative to ShareEnum.exe. It relies on WMI to enumerate share permissions. The WMI share security decoding was written by Chris Wolf and found in a 2006 article at redmondmag.com….
Beep! Beep! Using the Bell to Locate a Server
I got a message from a datacenter recently. They were looking for a server. Apparently the location information was mis-recorded (or forgotten). They asked me whether I could make the computer beep so it could be located. The DOS bell is CTRL-G. Typing CTRL-G (ASCII 7) was easy in DOS days, but is a little…
PortableApps and HFS, the HTTP File Server
If you carry around a USB drive, or any device with USB storage (for example, your phone), you should be running PortableApps. PortableApps is a menu of applications you like to take with you. Visit www.portableapps.com if you have not already loaded up your USB drive. Today, however, I wanted to take a moment to sing…
Enumerate SQL Servers for a Windows Domain
In a very large environment, getting a list and keeping track of SQL installs may be come problematic. I wanted a way to track down all SQL installs, for licensing, management and security. When you install SQL, it creates a Service Principal Name (SPN) in Active Directory. I took a script which created a list of…
Recursively Enumerate Local Administrator Group
Getting a list of the local administrators is a routine security task. A popular way to do this is with EnumLocalGroup.vbs, a script written by Richard Mueller. I found that this has some error handling issues, especially where you have the problem of a nested group which creates a recursion loop. EnumAdmins.vbs is my version of…