Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Group Policy ADM - Hide TightVNC tray icon

Save the following using a text editor as "vnctrayicon.adm" :

;Policy to hide tightvnc system tray icon on computer
;VALUE 0 = ICON VISIBLE
;VALUE 1 = ICON HIDDEN

CLASS MACHINE

CATEGORY "VNC Tray Icon"

KEYNAME "SOFTWARE\ORL\WinVNC3"
POLICY "Hide VNC Tray Icon"
EXPLAIN "Hides TightVNC Tray Icon"
VALUENAME "DisableTrayIcon"
VALUEON NUMERIC "1"

END POLICY
END CATEGORY
Import into your GPO (it applies to the machine not user) and run:
"gpupdate /force /boot"
on the client.

The setting only applies after rebooting the client and can be verified by checking that the following registry entry has been created/modified:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\ORL\WinVNC3\DisableTrayIcon REG_DWORD 1


Monday, May 11, 2009

Kubuntu Jaunty - Amarok 2 stops playing mp3's

New upgrade to Jaunty: Amarok 2 worked fine for while and then refused to play with mp3's (flac, ogg etc still OK). Fix was to close Amarok and type the following into konsole:

mv ~/.xine ~/.xine.bak

.xine is recreated next time you start Amarok and hey presto mp3's play again.

Don't even get me started on the ati open/propriatory 3d drivers :(

Time to buy a Nvidia and ditch my dual X1950 Pro Crossfire combo....

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Favourite Firefox Plugins/Add-ons

Adblock Plus - stop download of most unwanted advertising (Also block your own requests).

Download Helper - Download any streaming media from a website

DownThemAll
- download manager which allows resuming

Image Zoom
- enlarge or shrink images

NoScript
- say goodbye to malicious web code but still allow trusted websites

GMail Notifier - googlemail notifier for bottom of window

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Exchange 2007 bulk import

Here is my script to create new users and mailboxes from a csv file containing FirstName,LastName,Alias,Displayname,Password.

Other account properties such as homefolder, group membership, roaming profile etc were set with ADmodify.net.

Homefolders were created and shared with a script.

Save the following as import.ps1 and call from powershell.

## My Import Script 01/09/2008
## Section 1
## Define Database for new mailboxes
$db="exchangeserver\database"

## Define User Principal name
$upndom="mydomain.local"

## Define OU for new users
$ou="mydomain.LOCAL/ou/ou etc"

## Define CSV File with user information
$csvFile="my csv.csv"

## Section 2
## Import csv file into variable $users
$users = import-csv $csvFile

## Section 3
## Function to convert Password string to secure string
function SecurePassword([string]$plainPassword)
{
$secPassword = new-object System.Security.SecureString

Foreach($char in $plainPassword.ToCharArray())
{
$secPassword.AppendChar($char)
}

$secPassword
}

## Section 4
## Create new mailboxes and users
foreach ($i in $users)
{
$sp = SecurePassword $i.password
$upn = $i.Alias + "@" + $upndom
$display = $i.Displayname
New-Mailbox -Password $sp -Database $db -UserPrincipalName $upn -Name $i.Alias -FirstName $i.Firstname -LastName $i.Lastname -SamAccountName $i.alias -DisplayName $display -Alias $i.Alias -OrganizationalUnit $OU
}

Can't print from Powerpoint!!!!

Having installed new HP PCL 5 drivers (over Jetdirect tcp ports) and shared the printers from a server i was able to print a testpage from clients, also word documents but not powerpoint.

The answer was to change the defaults in the "Print Processor" within the driver settings.

Initially it was set to "HPCPP5r1" with "NT EMF 1.007" data type changing it to "Winprint" and "Raw" solved all problems

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Create shares script

Automate the sharing of all folders in the current directory as hidden shares ($) with the share permissions of "Domain Admins" Full Control and the "user account associated with the folder" Change (Assuming the folder is named the same as the user name).

Copy the following into notepad and save as Create Shares.cmd:

@echo off
TITLE Creating shares
DIR /A:D /B >Folderlist.txt
FOR /F %%1 IN (Folderlist.txt) DO NET SHARE "%%1$" = "current local path\%%1" /GRANT: "Domain Admins",FULL /GRANT:"%%1",CHANGE
PAUSE

Monday, June 9, 2008

Backup Exec 12 and ISA 2004

If you need to install the remote agent and then backup an ISA2004 server you need to do the following for communication harmony:

Create user-defined protocol:

Bexec 1025-65535TCP outbound

Create rule for Backup Exec using protocol above plus both RPC protocols from and to both Backup Server and ISA for all users/custom group.

This could still be "tweaked" further by narrowing the port range down to the commonly used ports (check your ISA log). Beware though as these ports are dynamic and could change - hence the range.

Also worth checking the "Backup Exec Remote Agent for Windows Systems" service is running. It should be set to automatic but if you are having problems start it manually.

If your ISA box is picky, also create a protocol "Bexec 10000TCP outbound" to see if this facilitates communications. Also try restarting all the Bexec services on your Backup Server.