Adam Wilkinson's blog

Shrink Windows XP disk partitions

Use the diskpart tool that ships with Windows Vista to shrink Windows XP disk partitions:

http://smallbusiness.itworld.com/4373/nlswindows070612/page_1.html

Easily create and use regular expressions

Do you find creating regular expressions as painful as I do? Check out Regex Buddy, which makes the process a lot easier.

Arconis Migrate Easy 7.0

I recently needed to copy the contents of a failing, partitioned hard drive to a new disk. I ran across Arconis Easy Migrate 7.0 for $40. It did the job, and was very easy to use. It will dynamically resize partitions, so moving from my existing 160GB drive to a 300GB disk was easy. The interface is simple -- anyone that can physically install a hard drive in their system should be able to use this tool to copy their system.

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/migrateeasy/

Copy songs from your iPod

iPodCopy 7.20 allows you to copy songs from your IPod to your Windows PC. This is handy if your music library gets wiped out without a backup.

http://www.download.com/iPodCopy/3000-2169_4-10352431.html?tag=nl.e415

I haven't tried this product myself, but I'm noting it here as I know people that wished for this functionality in the past.

Also, supposedly iTunes (at least v7.0.2 and later, maybe earlier versions as well) now offer this ability. You just need to authorize the computer in question.

Automatically Lock a Windows Session after Automatic Login

http://smallbusiness.itworld.com/4379/nls_windows_tulloch061002/page_1.html

]]> Windows Tip: Locking a desktop at logon
ITworld.com 09/29/2006

Mitch Tulloch, MTIT Enterprises

Recently an ITworld reader contacted me with an interesting question: Can you configure Windows XP so that it logs on automatically but into a locked state? In other words, if the AutoAdminLogon registry value found at HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon has been set to 1 and the DefaultUserName and DefaultPassword values have been configured appropriately, is it possible to make Windows lock the desktop immediately after automatic logon occurs?

The XP machine under consideration runs a scheduled task at night that copies data collected on the machine to another machine on the network. Unfortunately, to perform its work properly the machine has to automatically log on using admin credentials, but during the day this is not a problem as the user can simply lock the workstation when he has to leave the machine. But at night what happens is that whenever new security updates become available on the Windows Update website, the machine automatically downloads and installs these updates and reboots. Then the machine starts up, automatically logs on using admin creds, and the desktop appears. Anyone with physical access to the machine now has admin privileges on it, which is not good. Configuring a password-protected screen saver will help, but it still leaves a window of opportunity since an unrealistically short screen saver setting of 1 minute makes it frustrating to work on the machine during the day.

Unfortunately you can't configure Windows autologon to log on into a locked state, but a short script may provide a workaround for this situation. Simply open Notepad and copy and paste the following lines into it:

Wscript.Sleep 30000
Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WshShell.Run "rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation",1,false

Save the file as lock.vbs (not lock.vbs.txt) on your desktop and test it by double-clicking on this script. What should happen is that in about 30 seconds your machine should lock. If this works, copy lock.vbs into the Startup folder on your Start menu. Now reboot your machine and log on (or autologon) and about 30 seconds after logging on your machine should lock. This is totally independent of your screen saver timeout, and uses rundll32.exe to call out the LockWorkStation function from user32.dll.

The reason for using 30 seconds (30000 in the first line of the script) is to give the desktop time to settle before automatically locking the workstation. Once you can confirm that this works, you can then experiment by lowering this time value if you want to reduce the window for your desktop being exposed before automatically locking it. You may even be able to use a value of 0 to lock the desktop immediately after logon, but it's best to try changing the value gradually in stages and of course doing so on a test machine before you try it on a production one, just in case it causes problems of some sort.

View File Extension Information

Thanks to Jim Caldwell for finding this. This free utility allows one to easily view how file extension are defined on a particular computer. It's called ShellExView and is available from http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

A New Twist on Reporting Spam

Blue Security has an interesting approach to dealing with SPAM:

http://www.bluesecurity.com/solutions/consumer.asp

Terminal Server Printer Redirection Wizard

This tool scans your event log for printer mapping problems, presents an interface to allow you to match the problematic printer up with an existing driver, then creates the NTPrintSubs.INF file for you!

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=9AD27BE9-40DB-484F-862E-38A094EEEAF7&displaylang=en

]]> The Terminal Server Printer Driver Redirection Wizard will help you troubleshoot and replace print drivers that were unsuccessfully redirected. This tool automates the process found in the Microsoft Knowledge Base article KB239088 entitled “Windows 2000 Terminal Services Server Logs Events 1111, 1105, and 1006�? http://support.microsoft.com/?id=239088.

This tool will scan a server’s System Event Log and detect all events with Event ID 1111 and Source ‘TermServDevices.’ The tool will then scan the server’s registry for installed Version 3 MINI drivers, and prompt you to substitute an installed Version 3 MINI driver for each of the printers that failed printer redirection. Any changes will be written to a file named NTPrintSubs.inf which is where custom redirected printer mappings are stored.

SyncToy - synchroze directory contents

An interesting tool from Micrsoft to synchroze directory contents.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/synctoy.mspx

Conference XP

http://www.conferencexp.net/community/default.aspx

]]> ConferenceXP is an initiative of Microsoft Research. We’re exploring how to make wireless classrooms, collaboration, and distance learning a compelling, rich experience by assuming the availability of emerging and enabling technologies, such as high-bandwidth networks, wireless devices, Tablet PCs, and the advanced features in Microsoft® Windows® XP.

The ConferenceXP research platform enables researchers and developers to create distributed applications that take advantage of ConferenceXP technology as well as Tablet PCs and wireless networks. It also enables them to develop the collaborative tools and applications they need without having to build them from the ground up. By partnering with research organizations and universities,
the ConferenceXP project combines the academic
community’s expertise in the learning sciences with
Microsoft’s expertise in technology.

Explore this Web site to learn more about ConferenceXP and join the community of ConferenceXP developers and researchers

Classsroom Presenter

http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/dl/presenter/

]]> An interesting use of Tablet PCs in an edicational environment. This is a (free?) app from the University of Washington.

Cat5e Line Splitter

Allows you to run two devices over a single CAT5e drop.

Cat5e 100baset Line Splitter, 2pk at Cyberguys.com

]]> I haven't tried this yet, but I have a pair on order and should be installing them next week. I'll report back with the results.

Free Windows Backup Software

Cobian's site - The home of Cobian Backup

]]> I haven't tried this myself yet, but it looks interesting, especially since it supports FTP and SSL. I'm thinking that it might work via sftp.itd.umich.edu to backup to umich.edu AFS space...

More to come once I've played with this.

Background

Who am I? What do I do?

I work for IT Central Services (ITCS) here at the University of Michigan, located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Specifically, I'm in the User Services portion of ITCS, where my responsibilities include:

Telephone and email consulting for 764-HELP

Anti-virus support as a member of the UM Virus Busters team

Administering the campus FootPrints request-tracking system

System administration for 764-HELP, including maintaining the Terminal Server environment we use

Application and tools development for 764-HELP and other User Services groups

I work in both Windows and Linux environments for the tools we use and I support/develop, depending on what suits our needs. 764-HELP consultants use thin client computing, tied to Windows Terminal Servers to access these tools, allowing them to use the Intel and Macintosh computers at their stations to reproduce customer problems without fear of losing access to their tools or call notes.

Most of the tools I develop or maintain are written in Perl, with a judicious amount of shell scripting thrown in where approriate.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog. I don't expect to post here often, but who knows? I might just get into this. Regardless, my posts will probably be articles and links about interesting things in IT and how it affects us, with a focus on security and privacy issues.