• Windows Server,  Windows XP

    Net Stats & Windows Server

    Windows Server tracks the sessions that have been authenticated into the system, those that have been timed out, those that have errored, kb sent/received, response time, errors, permission problems, password problems, files opened, print job spooling and buffers quickly and easily. Simply use the net command we’ve all been using for 20 years, followed by stats or statistics: net statistics When prompted choose server or workstation. In this case, we’ll use Server. net statistics Server Here’s the output from a new server: And if you’re trying to troubleshoot client/server communications, keep in mind that you can look at much of this on the workstation side as well, but from the…

  • Windows XP

    Windows 7 Themed XP

    Seven Remix XP is a theme for Windows XP that will make it look eerily like Windows 7. So if you’re not yet ready to jump into running full on beta software but you want to get used to the look and feel of Windows 7 you can download Seven Remix XP at this site.

  • Mac OS X,  Unix,  Windows XP

    SMB: Name Mangling

    Windows 3.x and earlier used what was known as an 8.3 naming scheme, meaning that files had eight places for a name, three for an extension and a dot in the middle.  Name decorating is programatically how Windows 3.x and DOS clients interact with files that have more than 8 characters followed by a dot and then three characters for a file extension.  Those of us who can remember doing mass migrations of data from Windows 3.x to Windows 9x and/or NT will remember well the naming changes that had to happen to maintain backwards compatibility during this trying time.  Especially if we had been using *nix boxen to store…

  • Windows XP

    Windows XP: Reset Product Key

    Microsoft is getting more and more picky about that product key and the Genuine Advantage program.  So if you’re finding that the warnings and annoy-ware are getting to be too much to handle then reset it.  To do so, first edit the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindowsNTCurrent VersionWPAEventsODBETimer registry key to be some number or letter.  This will overwrite your existing product key and allow you to enter a new one.  Next, click on Start and then Run and enter the following command (assuming Windows is installed in the c:Windows directory): C:Windowssystem32oobemsoobe /a This will bring up the Activate Windows wizard.  Here, select to update using a telephone service representative.  Here, select a location and…

  • Windows XP

    Windows XP: Another Six Months

    Windows XP is a 7 year old operating system.  Microsoft ads on TV tell us that we should move to Vista.  They put a deadline in place.  According to Devil Mountain Software and a few others, more than one third of Windows systems are still being downgraded to XP though.  What more can Microsoft do?  Well, the deadline of January 31st to stop allowing OEM manufacturers to sell XP has been extended.  You will now be able to purchase Vista and then have a downgrade option through to July of 2009, at which point XP will be well over 8 years old.  Pundits say Vista sales are up, but really…

  • Mac OS X Server,  Windows XP

    Mac OS X Server: Cached Logon and Windows PDC Clients

    When using Mac OS X Server as a PDC you may find that you need to tell a Windows system to cache login (aka logon) information for longer than the Windows system allows by default. In an Active Directory environment it is fairly straight forward to deploy this type of setting through a GPO; however, the policy settings for an NT4 style PDC environment (aka – via SMB) won’t necessarily allow you to perform this task. To do so you might need to fire up the registry (or script an event in the login script to do so) and edit the following key with a Value (in terms of login…

  • Mac OS X Server

    Mac OS X Server: Setting up Admin Users of Windows XP through Open Directory PDC

    If you want the “admin” group to map to the NT “Directory Admins” group, the best way is to use dscl(1) to set the SMBSID or SMBRID attributes on the “admin” group record to 500.  If there is no SMBRID attribute then open the appropriate group, enable inspector and create an attribute called SMBRID.  You can give it a value that corresponds to the table below: http://www.afp548.com/article.php?story=200608252114039&query=PDC%2Bgroups PS – Thanks Joel!