System restore from the recovery console due to a Mup.sys hang.

I came into the office this morning and was told that a production machine running XP SP3 is failing to boot. It also can not get to safe mode and is bombing out at mup.sys. After Googling the hell out of it I discovered that lot’s of people have the same issue or at least some sort of version of it. I tried all the tricks I had up my sleeve and then I tried a suggestion that I found. It was to use the Recovery console to kind of run a system restore. It actually only restores the registry hive from the check point you want. And it worked beautifully! Here are the instructions to try it for yourself.

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How Can I Change Local Passwords on A LOT of Workstations? (1 Year Ago Today)

I know the feeling of your secure network being compromised by an end user… Passwords do fall into the wrong hands and then what do you do? Scenarios start running through my head and I make a mental list of all the passwords and system configs that need to be changed. These aren’t fun times in Admin land but they usually breed scripts and easier ways to do the necessary!

El Di Pablo tell us of his experiences… And is culminated by using a Great tool that AtA LOVES! Check it out…

I had a bit of a scare the other day. I get a call from a user in the field.

She is traveling with her laptop and she was calling from her hotel. she was complaining that she couldn’t log into her laptop using her normal log in credentials, and that the only way she could log in was using the local administrators account.

“Local Admin what?!?!”

I exclaimed then started hyperventilating. I asked her how she came across the local administrator password, and she told me that one of the techs at the company that is no longer with us gave it to her a long time ago.

I asked her to spell out the password for me, and low and behold it was the corporate standard.

I ran to my bosses office and reported the compromise, and recommended changing the local passwords. He agreed and called a meeting with me, our head desktop technician and one of the senior systems administrators to come up with a plan of attack. I told them that I can easily change these passwords using a script and pspasswd.exe that comes with Sysinternals PSTools.

I told them that I can export a list of all of the workstations on the network from Active directory, and put them in a text file. pspasswd will read directly from the list in the text file and change the password of the specified account on each computer in the list. I showed each of the guys in the meeting how it works, and they agreed that my script would be the best way to go with this.

Here is an example of the syntax used in my script. Keep in mind that this script must be ran from within the directory containing the pspasswd.exe program or else you have to modify the script to change into it’s directory. Of course, if you know batch scripting well, you can add all sorts of stuff to the script, but the basic run command looks like this:

>set /p filename=”Please enter name of computer list (ie: computers): “

>pspasswd @%filename%.txt -u administrator@domain.com -p password

administrator newpassword >> %filename%-results.txt

You’ll notice that I added an output to a text file so I could create a log of which workstations the password was changed on, and which ones it wasn’t. That is a good idea so you can keep whittling away at it until the change has been completed on all workstations. Also, you’ll notice that I added the -u and -p switches. You don’t need that if you are already running the script from an account that has permissions to change local passwords.

There are many other little changes you can do as well. I used the set command because I had different lists for different offices. You could just put the computer names in one list and not use the set command.

Let me know if you have used this or a similar product, and perhaps some other scripting ideas for this.

This article was written by El Di Pablo a guest contributor on AskTheAdmin.com. You can keep up with his high tech antics at his blog http://www.Bauer-Power.net!

This is one of those articles where you HAVE to read the comments. You guys have some great insights and ideas! Keep on Commenting, that is what makes this site great. Go ahead pat your self on the back!

Windows Mobile 6.1 will not send email. SMTP Issues?

I recently ditched my Dopod c730 for the HTC Fuze (AKA Raphael AKA Touch Pro Minus the Front Camera). I copped this guy from ATT and got my wife The HTC Diamond from Sprint. (More on this later…)

So I have been loving the new device in all its shinny shinny glory. I have beaten Teeter already and have made use of the Fuze’s functions to the best of my ability. When the device stopped sending ANY emails I was at a loss.

You see if my device does not send emails it really is more of a problem than anything else. Messages come in and I reply and then my message hangs out in my outbox indefinitely. NOT COOL. So now I have to call or text the person and first explain why I am not replying via email…

I hard resetted the device on the fly pulled my data back from my exchange server and was golden for another few days… When it happened again I was beyond myself.

I went’a Googling and surprise surprise other people were having the same damn issue! And Microsoft has released a patch in the form of a MSI or CAB file which you can grab here. I installed it, my device rebooted and all my messages flew out of the inbox.

I hate problems… But I love finding the solution!

Stay tuned for Diamond and Fuze applications, tricks and downloads coming soon. Anyone else have one of these guys? What have you loaded on it? Are you loving TouchFlo3D?

_TheDiamondAdmiN_

Windows Tip: Access The Windows Security Window In a Remote Desktop Connection (Control-Alt-Delete Doesn’t Work)

I get asked all the time how the hell do I bring up the security box (control + alt + delete) in a remote desktop session and here is the answer:

I tested it and it works beautifully on two Windows XP machines, 1 2003 server but on remoting in (What I can’t make up words??) to my Windows XP Pro SP2 Laptop it only brought up the task manager.

And for those of you that don’t know Control + Shift + Escape opens you directly to the task manager. And you can alt + tab through tabs on your remote desktop if it is opened full screen.

Got some good shortcuts for us? Tips at askTheAdmin dot com! I am off to my data center today. Should be interesting as we prepare for impending doom upcoming upgrades.

_TheShortcutingAdmiN_

Is there an easy way to copy a file or folder path in Vista?

Brought Back Up Top By Popular Demand…

Have you ever wanted to copy the path of a file located deep in your hard drive’s under belly (that you call a hard drive structure)? We are pretty sure you have one time or another, seeming that you are here at AskTheAdmin.com reading this article…

We previously covered how to copy a full error message to the clipboard to be googled here. That made your life easier, Right? So here is another goodie for you guys and girls running Vista.

Their are lots of reasons you could have wanted to copy that path. Looking to send the path on to share a folder or file, need to pop the full path into another application or simply for documentation purposes. No matter what you tried to use it for you know its a pain in the ass to:

• Launch Explorer
• Navigate to the directory
• Then to the file
• Select the contents of the address bar
• Copy the path
• Paste it in Notepad
• Then add the filename to the end of the path.

Now that’s just too many steps for something that should be simple.

Fortunately, the boys in Redmond stepped up with Windows Vista. You no longer have to jump through hoops just to copy the path to that file. [TechRepublic]

When you do this, the path to the file or folder you selected is copied to the Windows Clipboard. Then you can simply paste it anywhere your copy/pasting heart desires…

_TheShortCuttingAdmiN_

How can I edit pictures online without software?

Just a few years ago I would have had to answer this question with a, “Sorry you can’t, stick with Paint or spend hundreds of dollars on Photoshop.” Fortunately for you my friend, things have changed substantially. There are now a wide variety of websites out there that allow you to do all sorts of image editing. Some just do the basics extremely well, such as cropping, resizing, red-eye removal etc. Others are attempting to replace commercial image editing software like Photoshop for the semi-serious image manipulating hobbyist.

I’ll focus on two excellent sites, one that does the basics well, and another that does offers a lot of high end features. Thankfully, both of these websites are free.

Basic image editing is what most users are really looking for, and loading up GIMP or Photoshop will just scare them. The majority of people just want to remove red-eye or resize the picture. The developers of Picnik realized this, and created a great tool for doing just that. Picnik has a free edition that you don’t even have to register for, and it does a great job at all the basic image editing functions most people need. The interface is clean, with a very “Web 2.0″ look.

When you first load up the (web) application you will see 5 large tabs at the top of the screen. Home is just a generic area where they try to sell you on Picnik Premium, which I’ll explain later. The Library tab is where you can upload pictures from your computer or from other websites, and save them onto the Picnik website. Where the work really happens is on the next two tabs, Edit and Create. The Edit tab allows you to do the basics to photos, such as resize, crop or remove red-eye. Clicking on the Create tab let’s you do all sorts of nifty things to your image, like apply a “Effect” (Filter in Photoshop jargon) or add shapes or text. This is also where you can whiten your teeth or remove that nasty pimple from the 5th grade class photo!

Our next and final tab, Save & Share, is fairly self explanatory. But I’ll explain anyways, as it does have some nice features that aren’t found elsewhere. Under the Save & Share tab there are all sorts of options for saving to various photo sharing and social networking sites. You can save that 5th grade class picture to Flickr, Facebook, Myspace, Photobucket or Picasa. Alternatively, you can just save it to your computer if the picture is too embarrassing to share.

Picnik does offer a pay version of the software, which costs $24.95 a year. With the premium version you can upload 100 photos at a time, and upload your edited photos to multiple photo sites and social networks at the same time. You also get access to some cool effects and unlimited photo storage.

The target market for Picnik is anyone that has basic image editing needs, and wants to easily share them with friends online. If you are in that market, read no further, but if you need more in your image editor read on my friend!

Our next contender is really focusing on an entirely different market, so I really wouldn’t call it a competitor to Picnik. It is called Aviary, and it is an entire product suite for image editing and graphic design. Let me get this out of the way first, this is the most impressive web application that I have ever seen. The amount of features is simply amazing, it is sometimes hard for me to remember that I am using this application inside of Firefox.

The Aviary suite is grouped into 3 applications: Phoenix for image editing, Peacock for creating custom filters and effects, and Toucan for generating color palettes. To be honest I only really messed around with Phoenix, but what I saw was amazing. Phoenix really could replace Photoshop for a lot of hobbyists. It has layers, filters, smudge, paint bucket… the majority of things that I use in Photoshop or GIMP.

The pay version of Aviary ($10 per month) gives you unlimited storage, the ability to collaborate with others, access to a vector editor and a Firefox plugin that lets you easily take screenshots and upload them to Aviary. It also allows you to remove the small watermark that is put on all images created with the free version.

It seems to me that the target market for Aviary is for budding graphic designers that simply don’t have the cash for Photoshop. The community based around Aviary is also excellent, the forums and how-to’s are great at explaining on how to get the most out of the software.

I had a lot of fun researching this article and both sites are excellent for the users they are targeting. In conclusion, if you just need to do simple photo editing and sharing, Picnik is the tool to use. If you like a little more fire power and want to create complex images from scratch with a great designer community, then try out Aviary.

About the author: Rob Steenwyk is a network technician in West Michigan and writes the blog Bud Boy Tech which is all about computers and technology. He’d love it if you would subscribe to the Bud Boy Tech RSS feed!