Tips’N’Tricks

#RuTeched: answering the questions. Does the Dynamic Access Control work over replication?

By Alexander Trofimov

As I said previously my labs were a success, still I wasn’t able to answer some questions and promised to answer them later. the time has come for the first of them. One of the visitors told me that he had had an experience when some of files’ attributes wouldn’t replicate over DFSR and asked me if there is any problem with DAC in the same situation. I could definitely experiment myself (and I will), but any experiment of mine would just give me an answer: “yes” or “no”. Or “may be” for that matter. It wouldn’t explain why. As … Continue reading #RuTeched: answering the questions. Does the Dynamic Access Control work over replication?

FeedDemon + Windows 8: overcoming problems

By Alexander Trofimov

Will anyone be surprised to hear that I’m trying to move to windows 8 right now? No? Right. At the moment a couple issues make my stay on it uncomfortable or impossible: I still don’t have proper drivers for etoken for the OS. Evernote in the new OS with the new interface (we don’t use term “Metro” anymore) sucks. FeedDemon keeps giving me error messages in huge amount. And it seems as the latter problem now has a solution. First of all, here is the message:   or in text: “Error saving file: The process cannot access the file because … Continue reading FeedDemon + Windows 8: overcoming problems

Creating your own troubleshooting pack

By Alexander Trofimov

Take notice: My new feed address is now http://feed.feedcat.net/806052. Please re-subscribe. As I wrote in one of my blogs, you not only can tell your user which exactly troubleshooting pack to run, you can also create one of your own. Finally I decided to learn how and to tell you. I was pretty sure it was very hard, creating those. But I was plain wrong: it’s easy. Moreover it’s fun, because for creating it you should collect all the components of a geek’s fun: 1) Use GUI 2) Use scripting 3) Run the automation and see the result! So, let’s … Continue reading Creating your own troubleshooting pack

Lync and fortunes

By Alexander Trofimov

“Parachute for sale. Only used once, never opened, small stain” “Life is tough. Get a helmet” “I don’t have a smart phrase to share with you” Some people love to put sentences like these in their messenger. I, for sure, do. In case of OCS, you could do it manually. But really, only one message of the day? Boooooring (catchphrase: “Somebody’s boring me … I think it’s me. ”), especially if you have collected lots of them. Changing them manually, almost as boring as not changing them. Spend some time to create a small program for that: that’s how we, … Continue reading Lync and fortunes

Where’s mah mail, dude?! (meme edition)

By Alexander Trofimov

One of the recent requests from a user stated that all his mail without even visiting Inbox went right into … Deleted Items folder. No problem – just find the rule which does that and remove or fix it. Simple as “one, two, three, doesn’t work”. Yep, after I had deleted all the rules the Inbox still lacked the mail. Now what? Moving mailbox to another location? Probably that would help, probably not, but it is not a solution, actually (neither was the workaround we have found). Even Google Almighty wasn’t able to find the solution (I found it later, … Continue reading Where’s mah mail, dude?! (meme edition)

Network trace without NetMon, wireShark, etc… Part 2

By Alexander Trofimov

As I told you in the previous episode, there is more than just capturing without installing any software. Much more, actually. There is a .cab file which contains many files: 33 to be accurate (at least in my case). The files contain the heck of information about the computer’s networking configuration as well as logs. Let’s take a look at those files:   1) adapterinfo.txt: contains info about your NICs’ drivers: How can this be useful? Easily, say, you see the driver for a physical NIC which was issued 5 years ago: why not to upgrade it first? Anyway, this … Continue reading Network trace without NetMon, wireShark, etc… Part 2

Network trace without NetMon, WireShark, etc…

By Alexander Trofimov

It is often necessary to capture and analyze some network traffic to troubleshoot a problem. Usually, it requires to install some software package similar to several stated in the subject to this article. It’s ok, when the computer in question is, say, your laptop, or its user is at least advanced user, has administrative permissions and it is permitted by a security policy to install some new software. But what if it is not the case? A user is some sales manager who don’t want to spend their time installing anything? Or this is a server, where you cannot change … Continue reading Network trace without NetMon, WireShark, etc…

%systemroot%\System32 secrets: defrag

By Alexander Trofimov

The next command also seems to be used the further the less. Partly, probably, because performance of modern computers allows forgetting about the problem of fragmentation unless it is too late becomes huge. Partly because some myths about it have successfully died. But mostly because it is running by default once a week. Earlier (in 9x age) we had a nice GUI-based defragmentation program, now we have only a command line tool and very reduced (without that visualized fragmentation status: it was totally useless, but absolutely awesome. Hey, I believe that the fact we don’t have this magic now is … Continue reading %systemroot%\System32 secrets: defrag

BITS Transfer PowerShell cmdlets

By Alexander Trofimov

One friend of mine told me that I shouldn’t have spread knowledge about BITSAdmin command while there was the PowerShell cmdlets in place. Well, to some extent he is definitely right: 1) PowerShell is better self-documented. 2) It is waaaay easier to script with. 3) It is more simple to use in some basic situations like “just give me that darn file”. 4) Many people just like PoSh. So, the tasks I did in my post about BITSAdmin seems to be done in one command: Start-BitsTransfer –source <URL> –destination <PathToFile> but one need to do his homework better: Seems like … Continue reading BITS Transfer PowerShell cmdlets

Migrate scheduled tasks from 2003 to 2008

By Alexander Trofimov

Well, the time has come for me to learn at last syntax for schtasks what I was reluctant to do. Some time you have to migrate a task or a bunch of them from one computer to another. In my case it was even more “interesting” task: migrate some tasks from Windows Server 2003 box to Windows 2008 R2. If you have only one it is no problem to move it manually, but what if there are many of them? Here it is: the moment of schtasks’ triumph! =) What it can do for us is to export 2003’s tasks … Continue reading Migrate scheduled tasks from 2003 to 2008