Scripting the installations
by thomas.radosh on Dec.23, 2009, under Management
Hi
So following my previous script here is my next experience with scripting.
So we got all working on one device but that had to be applied to all other devices as well as to any future builds that might take place. In order to get that achieved I created install.bat file that did all configuration and installation for me. you can find that file below and I’m going to discuss all the solutions that I put in place.
You can know it’s part of the script as it’s going to be written in that font 
Scripting from up close
by thomas.radosh on Dec.23, 2009, under Management
I was recently asked to create an installation for our customer’s devices that would work with ad-hoc attached Wireless printers. On the beginning all looked really nice and easy but as usual it was illusion
So starting from top what would be the issues:
1. By Default Windows won’t let you reattached the Ad-Hoc Wireless network upon restart you have to do that manually
2. The Default Printer doesn’t get transferred into all users on the machine and need to be manually setup
So what is the solution? After few minutes digging online I found the following ideas. First of all the Windows have a great inbuilt tool from to manage networks: netsh. Using that command I was able to connect to the network from command line. The command you need to use is:
netsh wlan connect name=name
So to explain: wlan is for the wireless network. Connect is to do action and name is the name you given to the wireless network (doesn’t have to be the SSID) after running that command you get connect and all is fine.
So the printer part:
I found that there are .vbs scripts from Microsoft that allow you to manipulate printers based on the set preferences. You can find them located in: C:\Windows\system32\Printing_Admin_Scripts\en-US\ the one you need to use to manipulate is: prntmngr.vbs.
To make your life easier you need to copy that file to: C:\windows\system32 and then you can call that from command line without need for anything else. So the use for that command is as follow:
cscript (script engine to run the script) prnmngr.vbs -p "name" –t
The –p switch determine the printer name that you can find using the Printers window. The –t switch set the printer as default.
Now in order to make sure all is working I had to create a .bat file and add that to the local logon script for the specific user. That was I was able to achieve the best result.
Issues with .chm and other files in Windows
by thomas.radosh on Oct.13, 2009, under Security
I have come across very strange but extremely annoying issues, when you try to open especially .chm files (Microsoft Compiled HTML help) you get an error with: Can’t open the website. And you can’t do anything with that.
it looks like a security issue and to open the file you have to perform “Unlock” to do that you have to right click on the file and click properties that will provide you with unlock button on the bottom of the screen. After clicking on that you are now able to safely open the files.
Exchange 2007 CCR
by thomas.radosh on Oct.07, 2009, under Management, Networks
I’m working at the moment on getting Exchange 2007 CCR Mailbox server setup, and wanted to share few issues and solutions for them.
1. first of all the you need to build a Failover Cluster between 2 Windows systems, I won’t be going into details but on Windows 2008 options to use are: Node and File Share Majority, with a share available to both systems on 3rd server (best option is the Client Access, Hub server)
2. There is a very strange error with Exchange 2007 installation on Windows 2008 R2, be prepared for error about access rights and number 355……. The only solution here is to use inbuilt compatibility mode, and run the installation in Windows Vista SP2/SP1 mode.
Those are the two initial errors that are unfortunately very annoying and taking loads of time to get addressed so I hope you find that useful.
Remote Desktop dies without any error….
by thomas.radosh on Oct.07, 2009, under Management, Registry
The other day I had to remote to a machine and come across a very strange error, as soon as you click connect it would flash but than go back to initial screen. That was happening even though I tried to remotely run gpupdate (about that in another post) and restart the system (from command prompt: shutdown /i or shutdown /r /m \\computername /t xx). After digging on the internet I found the reason for that behaviour. The reason is behind amount of memory that is available for session image space. To edit that you have to go to registry and edit the following:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
create dword key: "SessionImageSize" with value 00000020 hex.
after that restart the system and voila you are in
