Ali's Knowledge Base

On November 15, Microsoft released Windows PowerShell 1.0 (formerly codenamed Monad) for Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) and Windows Server 2003, which you can download at here . A Windows Vista Release Candidate 1 (RC1) version is also available, with the final Vista version available by January 31, 2007. The download is less than 2MB but does require that Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 is installed. Once PowerShell is installed, a new Programs group, Windows PowerShell 1.0, will be created, which has a number of shortcuts to documents and the actual Windows PowerShell application shortcut which points to the %SystemRoot%system32WindowsPowerShellv1.0powershell.exe image.

PowerShell is the future command-line and scripting environment for the management and automation of Windows environments, and many new Microsoft technologies have their management built on the PowerShell environment. For example, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 relies heavily on the PowerShell environment for many management actions.

The base PowerShell also includes a number of command-line tools called cmdlets that allow access to many system resources such as accessing the registry, Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), services, processes, event logs, and basically every part of the OS.

Common cmd.exe commands such as Dir and Type all work in the PowerShell, but its real power is via its improved cmdlets. To get started, it’s easiest to type

get-help

which opens an overview of the format of the PowerShell syntax and commands to get started. For example, the get-command command will display a list of all the cmdlets, and the get-command will display detailed information on that cmdlet.

Some handy commands to get started are get-service and get-process, which give information about services and processes, respectively. The figure shows a sample search for all processes that start with o:

In this example, the information is displayed in a table format, but you can easily output it to a list by passing format-list as it’s output, as the figure shows.

To get a list of all possible formats, type

get-help format*

at a command line.

Centro is the codename for Microsoft’s new infrastructure solution aimed at midsized businesses. This solution combines Windows Longhorn Server, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, and security and management technologies. This is very much a Microsoft Small Business Server (SBS) type solution for bigger companies. You can find additional information about Centro at:
here

I recently wanted to download a file from a Web site without using a browser, just in raw text format. I used the Telnet command to perform the operations normally performed as part of the HTTP download process, which are essentially a series of GET commands. To initiate the connection, telnet to port 80 (instead of the default port 23) of the Web site, as the following example shows:

c:>telnet www.alibutt.com 80

Nothing will be displayed to screen. Type the GET command in uppercase letters:

GET /index.html (press enter twice)

The page will then be displayed in the command window, and the Telnet session will terminate. You might need to append “HTTP/1.0″ at the end of the GET command (as the example below shows) depending on the Web server you’re connecting to. This tells the server which version of HTTP your client understands.

GET /index.html HTTP/1.0

When you receive a STOP error, Windows displays the STOP on a Blue screen, hence the name BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death).

If you prefer a Red screen with White text, or any other color combination that is easier for you to see:

1. Open %SystemRoot%SYSTEM.INI in Notepad.exe.
2. Locate the [386enh] section.
3. If the MessageBackColor= and MessageTextColor= entries are present, change them. Otherwise, add them to the end of the section. To have a Red screen with White text, use:

MessageBackColor=4
MessageTextColor=F

Using the following codes (case is important):

0 = black
1 = blue
2 = green
3 = cyan
4 = red
5 = magenta
6 = brown
7 = white
8 = gray
9 = bright blue
A = bright green
B = bright cyan
C = bright red
D = bright magenta
E = bright yellow
F = bright white

4. Save the changes to the %SystemRoot%SYSTEM.INI file.
5. Shutdown and restart your computer.

The Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder is a freeware utility that retrieves your Product Key (cd key) used to install windows from your registry. It has the options to copy the key to clipboard, save it to a text file, or print it for safekeeping. It works on Windows 95, 98, ME, NT4, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Office 97, and Office XP.

Download Here

Yes I have some MSN Messenger Live invites to give out.

Want one?

Its easy, just leave a comment and explain why you prefer Windows over Unix.

I will pick the best replies and mail the invites out.

Good luck !

No competitions, no quizzes, no waiting !…

Click here for your INSTANT free MSN messenger Live Invite !!

Enjoy

The Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP resource kits provide the cdburn.exe utility, which, like the dvdburn.exe utility, can burn an ISO file to a physical CD burner drive and uses the format

cdburn <drive>: <image>

Typing cdburn with no parameters will list the utility’s Help information, which includes additional options related to the speed of the burn, type of write mode (e.g., session-at-once instead of the default track-at-once), and sector postgap options.

Microsoft provides the Microsoft File Server Migration Toolkit (FSMT), which you can download from Here . The tool lets you migrate shares and data from any server running Windows NT 4.0 or later to a Windows Server 2003 (or Windows Storage Server 2003) machine.

The utility also interfaces with DFS, which lets you maintain the original UNC path of the data and avoid complications with accessing data once it has been migrated. However, Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition lets you maintain the original UNC path, and if the old UNC path doesn’t need to be maintained, DFS isn’t required.

When you create a performance alert, by default it runs as the Network Service account. However, you can specify a different account for its execution. If you specify another account, ensure that the named account has the following rights:

* Read access to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionPerflib
* Full Access to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesSysmonLog and its subkeys
* Read access to the files %windir%system32PERFC*.dat and %windir%system32PERFH*.dat