Another way to list the Global Catalog Servers in your domain

You can display the Global Catalog Servers in the domain you are logged in to using Nslookup.exe:

1. Open a CMD.EXE window.

2. Type the following command and press Enter:

nslookup gc._msdcs.%USERDNSDOMAIN%

How can I hide the Windows Messenger icon in Windows XP?

1. Open a CMD.EXE Windows.

2. Type the following command and press Enter:

REG ADD “HKLMSOFTWAREMicrosoftOutlook Express” /V “Hide Messenger” /T REG_DWORD /F /D 2

3. When you restart your computer, the Windows Messenger icon should be hidden.

Where is the Administrator account in Windows Vista?

By default, new Vista installations have the built-in Administrator account disabled with a blank password. If you want to enable the account, you need to set a strong password by using the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Computer Management snap-in and clearing the disable flag. It’s advisable to leave the Administrator account disabled, however, and use the Runas command to use Administrator privileges when required. If you log on as the Administrator account, then User Account Control (UAC) isn’t implemented and the session will have full privileges.

How do I enable the new maximum database size in Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2)?

Exchange 2003 SP2 raises the maximum database size for the standard edition from 16GB to 75GB. By default, the size is increased to 18GB when you install the service pack, however you can raise this limit by modifying the registry, as follows:

1. Start the registry editor (regedit.exe) on the Exchange server.
2. Navigate to the HKLMSYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesMSExchangeISSAVDALDC01Private- subkey.
3. From the Edit menu, select New – DWORD value.
4. Enter a name of Database Size Limit in GB and press enter.
5. Double-click the new value and set it to a value between 1 and 75. Click OK.
6. Close the registry editor.

You can also set a warning level that writes a warning to the event log when the database size reaches a certain percent of remaining space. To do so, you navigate to the same registry subkey as the earlier instructions show, create a DWORD value named Database Size Buffer in Percentage, and set it to a value between 1 and 100 (the default value is 10).

This check of the database size occurs once a day at 5:00 A.M. You can change this time by creating a DWORD value named Database Size Check Start Time in Hours From Midnight in the same registry key as above and setting it to the number of hours past midnight at which to perform the check (e.g., a setting of 12 means the check would occur at noon). You need to dismount and mount the Store for the changes to take effect.

Where can I download Windows PowerShell?

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.

What is Centro?

Centro is the codename for Microsoft’s new infrastructure solution aimed at midsized businesses. The distro is especially good at running predictive analytics on mass amounts of data. You can learn more about this technology the distro can take advantage of right here. 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

How do I enable circular logging for a Microsoft Exchange Server storage group?

By default, Exchange writes 5MB transaction logs that are kept until you perform a full backup. If the database becomes corrupted, Exchange restores the last full backup then applies all the transaction logs. However, you can turn on circular logging, which instead reuses transaction logs when the 5MB is full, but this means in the event of a database loss, data could be restored only to the point of the last backup. To enable circular logging:

1. Start Exchange System Manager (ESM–Start, Programs, Microsoft Exchange, System Manager).
2. Expand Administrative Groups, Servers, then expand the server.
3. Right-click the storage group for which you want to enable circular logging and select Properties (remember transaction logs are per storage group and not per database).
4. Select the “Enable circular logging” check box and click OK, as the figure shows.
5. Click Yes to the warning.
6. Restart the Information Store by using the following command: net stop msexchangeis net start msexchangeis

How can I use Telnet to download an element of a Web page?

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

How can I export my BlackBerry Enterprise Server licence keys?

When run on your BlackBerry Enterprise Server the following command line will export your installed licence keys to a text file. Replace c:beskeys.txt with the path and filename of your choice.

bcp besmgmt..licensekeys out c:beskeys.txt -c -T

How do you upload Files to a Sharepoint Document Library in bulk?

In large organisations large amount of documents have to be uploaded into document libraries. This can be a time consuming task especially if the hierarchy has to be maintained in folders in the document library as well.

A quick fix is to map a drive to your sharepoint site from Windows Explorer. Simply choose Tools, Map Network Drive; choose a letter; and in the Folder field, paste in the full http://….. address for your sharepoint site. Click the “reconnect at logon” option and you’ll always have a drive mapped to sharepoint!