Archive for June, 2009
Windows Vista Quick Tip: Turning on/off Thumbnails
Jun 11th
I posted a little while back about how I recently upgraded my entire home network to a Windows 2008 domain, which includes Windows Vista Clients.
Well, my wife got to playing with her desktop for the first time last week, and one of the things she noticed was that when she went to view her photos in her pictures directory, that there weren’t any thumbnails for her to preview the images. Me being her free tech support (I think that is why she still puts up with me) she asked me to fix it.
There are two ways to get the thumbnails back. The first way, you do the following within the folder you meant to view thumbnails in:
- Click on Organize > Folder and Search Options
- Click the View Tab
- Uncheck the “Always show icons, never thumbnails” option
- Click Apply, then OK.
The other option is to:
- Click Start > Contol Panel
- In classic view, click on Folder Options
- Click the View Tab
- Uncheck the “Always show icons, never thumbnails” option
- Click Apply, then OK.
You guessed it, the second option is basically the same as the first. To turn the thumbnails off, you just check the box instead of uncheck it. Do you have any other cool, quick Vista tips you want to share? Hit me up in the comments.
Windows Command Line tips.
Jun 10th
Did you know that you can hit F7 in The Windows Command Line for a history of commands that you can choose with your keyboard? Did you know you can copy a file path by just dragging a file into the command line?
Hit F7 and you will get a complete list of commands that you executed. Use the arrow keys to highlight the command you want to run again or just hit the number key corresponding to the command that you want to execute.
History keys
Use F1 to paste the previous command one character at a time, F2 (followed by a number) to paste the previous command up to the said number and F3 to paste the previous command.
Run multiple commands
You can run multiple command by separating them with &&. Note that this doesn’t run the commands simultaneously. Instead, the command towards the left is run first and if it completes successfully then the second command will run. If the first command fails, then the second command will not run
Check out these and other great Command Line Tips from Varun over at MakeUseOf.com here:
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-windows-command-line-tips-tricks-you-should-definitely-check-out/
Windows 2003 Error Message Insufficient Memory on Xcopy, Enter: XXCOPY,
Jun 9th
Over the weekend I was working on a seriously f-ed up Windows 2003 server. Let’s just say that this basket held all of this companies eggs. I needed to copy off ALL the data from the 1TB Raid array. I had 2TB in eSata drives connected to the machine. I went to run a simple XCOPY batch file and all it kept doing was opening a dos window and closing pretty fricking fast. WTF?
I hit Window-R and typed CMD. I pasted the first line of my batch file into the command prompt like so:
xcopy e:\users\* x:\server32\\users /D /E /C /F /H /Y
I got back Insufficient Memory and 0 files copied. This box has 4gb of memory and less than 1gb in use. I hit up Google who had be try disabling my Antivirus to no avail.
I then found a XCOPY replacement called XXCopy (found here). It says that it should help me with this exact error. It also says XXcopy is faster than Xcopy and can deal with file names longer than 256 character. So instead of counting the paths and filenames characters I downloaded and installed it. I replaced the XCOPY with XXCopy in my scripts and they took off like a bullet. I haven’t gotten into it yet but it does all of XCOPY’s switches and then some as you can see below.
Guerrilla Event Log archiving: why and how.
Jun 8th
I am quite positive that there are as many solutions (both paid and unpaid) for handling Win32 Syslogs as there are SysAdmins out there. On my *NIX machines syslogs are a simple thing, configure Syslog-ng and move on. My Windows Syslogs are a whole different story.
First off, shame on you Microsoft for not providing built in syslogd integration capabilities. With the volume of BSD code in Windows there is just no acceptable reason for this.
But that doesn’t help me. The long term goal is of course to get a central Syslog server set up that will handle and archive log entries from all of my machines (*NIX and Win32), but that is going to take two things:
- Time I don’t have.
- Money I don’t have.
I need a solution for archiving my Windows event logs right now, in a central location, until I can get the central Syslog server set up. As I mentioned, most of the solutions for doing this on Windows machines (the ones I feel comfortable entrusting my event logs to anyway) cost somewhere in the neighborhood of an arm, a leg, and most of an ear, so those are not viable options. Now what do you do?
Well if you’re me, you roll your own solution. I’ve got several WS2003 servers that I need to log the event data from, because, well to be quite honest, because this network was built by someone that is more of a *NIX SysAdmin, and didn’t set up the Windows side correctly, so there are quite a few odd bugs in this network that will take quite a while to work out.
Now I could go through and manually export the event logs to a file once a month, but that is way too much work. I decided to script the solution to this problem using VBScript (as it is available on all of the Servers I need event log info from).
I give you logArchive.vbs:
More >
Ask The Admin’s knock-out Father’s Day deal you just can’t miss!
Jun 5th
Hey kiddies,
Commodore 64 back again to bring you another absolutely INSANE deal of a bargain. Over the years, Ask The Admin has striven to bring you , our faithful readers, only the best in tech wheels and deals.
In recent months we have seen the emergence of the almighty Netbook. We’ve also been lucky enough to see the inevitable forces of Moore’s Law take their hold on the Netbook world and gave us some prices that are awesomely affordable. However, at Ask The Admin, we have access to some Moore’s Law action that is still pretty unreachable to most people. Moore’s Law states that as time goes by, computers, and their respective components, get stronger, faster and cheaper. We’ve taken it upon ourselves to make it our mission to take advantage of this trending and bring the savings straight to you.
Enter the Pearl White Asus EEE 900 Netbook PC. This ultra-portable little bad-boy touts a 8.9″ 1024×600 display, a 16GB SSD solid state drive, 1GB of RAM, a built-in 1.3MP web camera, and Windows XP Home pre-installed. It has everything you need to make all the connections you need to make while on the go. And it’s ultra-light, thin profile will make it a cinch to carry around. Best of all this exclusive, ATA only deal gets you FREE Shipping and $150 off the sticker price of $349 = you only pay $199! Click here to get in on this EXCLUSIVE Buy.com offer brought to you by AskTheAdmin.com.
Commodore 64 – The one you used to play Bruce Lee on ,8,1
SpiceWorks 4.0 Beta – now available.
Jun 3rd
It is no secret that your trusty neighborhood admin uses Spiceworks to keep his networks under control. I have heard from a lot of you out there in AdminLand that are using it as well.
Michele from Spiceworks just gave me a shout that the new version is officially in Beta. We wanted you to be one of the first to know that Spiceworks version 4.0 Beta has just been released – which you can download now & play with here: 4.0 Beta Group
You can check out the new bells and whistles in this video here: http://spiceworks.com/tv/?cat=previews&video=40-Preview-1
SOME COOL NEW 4.0 HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:
- Network Map – Allows you to see and graphically navigate the details of your network as well as determine the connections that exist between your devices.
- Events Collaboration – You can now see the most common events, collaborate with others and find out the best way to troubleshoot the issue (all decided by Spiceworks users – yet another way that Spiceworks is making IT ‘social’)
- New Customizable End User Portal – Now you can have a custom intranet up and running in no time! Create the “face” of your IT organization by adding new pages and content areas, changing color schemes, even re-arrange the page layouts. Learn More
- Updated UI – Our fresh new UI helps you speed through your day! In addition to faster load times, the inventory "icon view" now shows more items (plus has a new handy drop down menu of common useful actions) and the tabs on the left-side navigation panel have been moved to the top for better accessibility. Read More
- Help Desk Now Supports Collaboration - One of the most requested help desk features! Collaboration allows you to cc: your boss or someone else on a ticket….and keep them informed as you work on the ticket. Learn More
- Tickets Anywhere – Now, you can work your tickets from any email client simply by including special commands in the body of the email. You can create, work, assign, and even close a ticket from anywhere! Learn How
For more details on the new 4.0 features visit the 4.0 Beta Group
And of course we want to support the awesome free software from Spiceworks so here is a little link love for them…
Free Network Monitoring Software for Network Management
If you download and try it out let us know how it goes for you!
