Shutdown your computer in one click
Actually I lied. Actually a double-click. But that doesn't sound like a good title...so there :=-
It is really simple, and this will work under Windows XP, and 2003 - not sure if it will work under Vista, but I would imagine the UAC prompt would ruin the whole experience.
Open notepad and put in the following text:
shutdown.exe -s -t 00
Save it on the desktop as "Shutdown.bat"
Now if you double click on the icon "Shutdown" your system will shutdown immediately with no questions asked.
Posted By:
Steve Wiseman on Sunday, September 30, 2007
Check out our utilities for windows
Set Multiple home pages for IE 7 from the command line
After creating the IE 7 Tweaking tool we seem to get loads of questions about IE 7. One of the latest was about setting multiple home pages in IE 7 from the command line. Hmm. Before someone asked I never had thought about it.
If you look into the settings of IE 7, you can easily add more than one home page. One URL for each line. When you open IE, these will all be launched in their own tab.
I added some websites, and then I dug into the registry to see what was changed. Here is a snapshot:
That there are actually two parts to the home page setting. They are both under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main
The first website to be displayed is stored under the string value named:
Start Page
The rest of the websites displayed are stored in a string array value named:
Secondary Start Pages
The first string is very easy to script and change.
The second is not as simple. This is because it is an array of strings separated by NULL characters, and terminated with two NULL characters.
There are a few ways to do this. One way would be to update one machine with all of your desired settings...and create an exported reg key. You could then use regedit in silent mode to import the settings on other machines.
This has its downfalls - if not done right you could accidentally pull in other values you don't want thrown around to every machine.
Another way would be to use VB Script. I wanted something cleaner, and an excuse to start using our new internal API for writing cross-compilable software (64 and 32 bit). I came up with this little command line program named IESetHomeTabs.exe
Here is how you call it from the command line:
C:>IESetHomeTabs.exe "[URL1]" "[URL2]" "[URL3]"
So if I wanted http://www.intelliadmin.com, http://www.slashdot.org, and http://www.technet.com as my 3 tabs I could call it like this:
C:>IESetHomeTabs.exe "http://www.intelliadmin.com" "http://www.slashdot.org" "http://www.technet.com"
Here are the links for downloading:
i386 Version
AMD 64 Bit Version
We have been looking for a place to order an IA64 machine without seeing the $CALL. I suspect there is a commissioned based sales person on the other side. If anyone knows of a HP or Dell IA64 machine that can be easily ordered...please let me know, and we will then be able to provide an IA64 version of the utility too.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Friday, September 28, 2007
Check out our utilities for windows
Defragment system files
I stumbled across a cool utility provided by Microsoft. It is actually a Sysinternals tool created by Mark Russinovich. If you are the type that likes to get every sliver of performance out of your system - then this is for you.
It is called PageDefrag
It essentially allows you to defragment the page file, and all of the registry files that are normally in use while your system is running.
You can set it to run once on the next boot, or run every time the system boots up.
It works quite well, and once you set it to run each time at boot it works quickly. The best part is you are given the option to cancel it if you are in a hurry.
Get your free copy from Microsoft
Update 9/27/2007 (9:30 AM) - I received a note from Ivan at http://www.cybermag.com:
I have one comment about Page Defrag, if you attempt to defrag a Pagefile it might take a very long time, especially if the system has lots of RAM, one example, I have some PCs with 1.5 GB of RAM and even with only 2 fragments the process will take forever, of course the less memory the system has the pagefile will be smaller, the way I circunvent this is by deleting the pagefile (booting to command prompt), it doesn't matter how defragmented the registry is (I've seen some horror show registries) the utility runs thru like nothing, the most I've waited is 1 minute.
Just my 2 cents.
This is a very good point. I have not had this happen to me yet, but I would imagine on a system that has a page file that has been around for a while would take a long time to defrag.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Check out our utilities for windows
Redirect the favorites folder
I was upgrading my home network over the weekend, and one of the changes I wanted to make was the location of the favorites folder.
Unless you are using roaming profiles, your favorites folder will always be on your local hard drive. This means that if you login to more than one computer you will have a different set of favorites each time.
I wanted to set my favorites folder to a network share, but keep other shell folders like the desktop - local. I thought it would be easy enough...did a search of the registry and found this key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders
Under it you can easily see we have a list of shell folders and their locations:
I changed it, and nothing happened. Actually something did happen. It changed back to the old folder every time I refreshed it. I was convinced it was some group policy I had set way back when...and I was searching through my domain controller for quite some time.
Until I accidentally searched twice for "Favorites"
I found this key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders
Argg! The first key is some type of cached copy or mirror of the second. As soon as I modified the location of Favorites under the second key Internet Explorer was accepting the change...and that first key automatically updated!
Now I had exactly what I wanted. I simply updated all of my machines with this new key, and I had a common list of favorites that I could see on every machine. At the same time my other shell folders were still local and not stored on the network.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Check out our utilities for windows
Restore the RUN command in Vista
One of my major hangups with vista is the 'Search Bar'. When I first started using Vista I felt that Microsoft had done a great thing - They made it so I could launch my favorite program with one click instead of two.
I was quickly disappointed to find that when you type a word into the search bar it is nothing like the old Start->Run command bar window. It starts searching for the words you type in, and many times you need to wait...and wait...and wait some more.
Additionally if you are like me...and have an old habit of clicking start, then run, then type c:\ to open up your hard drive...you are in for lots of fun with the search bar. Depending on what it finds it will almost never open your hard drive in explorer.
I found a few quick ways to ease the pain. First of all you can simply hold the windows key + R to bring up the command line window. That is the easiest.
You can also get the run command back on the start menu. This can be done by right clicking on the start button, go to properties.
Move over to the "Start Menu" Tab and click customize.
Now scroll down. Find the option that says "Run Command" Make sure it is checked, and click OK.
Now the run command will be added as an extra button to the bottom of the start menu:
Now I can get to back to my familiar old 'run' command line.
Posted By:
Steve Wiseman on Monday, September 24, 2007
Check out our utilities for windows
AutoRun for the Command Prompt
When I was looking at the documentation for the registry and keys associated with the command processor I came across this:
Hmm. For the fun of it I opened up the key and put 'notepad.exe' in the AutoRun value.(To see how this actually worked)
Any time I opened a console application, or a command prompt window notepad would launch - and the command processor would not start until it was closed. This includes the users login script.
So. This means whatever program I put in this key will execute, and the command processor will wait for it to finish before continuing.
This is perfect for something I was trying to do a few months back. I wanted to dynamically set a few environment variables - and have them available to any console based application. I tried putting it in the logon script, but that didn't work since the environment variables only lasted for that session.
I ended up using the CALL command within each batch file I had. This was difficult because the batch files were part of an aging third party application - There were hundreds of them. Also some of them were automatically generated from time to time by the application, so the solution was not perfect.
I went back and setup my "set environment variables" batch file in the AutoRun key of the registry (Side note - make sure you put quotes around the full path of the filename in this key...or it will get lost on the first space it sees).
Then I removed my added call commands. Now when I ran any command prompt my custom environment variable script executed dutifully.
Better yet, since it is a registry key I was able to write a quick login script that updated all the clients on the network with the new setting.
I am not sure how often most administrators will need to use this registry key, since usually a login script will work for what you need. Still - the AutoRun key for the command prompt has its purpose. Now that you know it is there you have the option to use it when needed.
Posted By:
Steve Wiseman on Sunday, September 23, 2007
Check out our utilities for windows
Elevate processes from the command prompt in Vista
One of the things I do all the time in XP, 2000, and 2003 is use the RunAs command. It comes in handy when you are running as a limited user, and need to fire up a process as an administrator.
Here is the typical command line sequence
c:> Runas /user:intelliadmin\administrator notepad.exe
Enter the password for intelliadmin\administrator: *********
Attempting to start notepad.exe for user intelliadmin\administrator
Then notepad launches under my administrator account, instead of the current user.
This works great under those operating systems. I can run as a limited user, and when I want I can launch a command line window, or any other program as an administrator.
Unfortunately it doesn't work the same in Vista. Yes - the RunAs command works perfectly fine. But because of the way UAC works it does not give me full administrative access. Why? Because when I launch another process as an administrator it still needs to be elevated.
If you have not used Vista yet I will explain. All users by default (Even administrators) run as a limited user. When windows detects that you need a higher level of access you are prompted like this:
That way you know, and have a choice when an application has administrative access - even when running as an administrator. The problem is that this prompt will only show if the program is Vista aware, or Vista detects that it is needed. Sometimes it is impossible for Vista to detect this. Why? How could it possibly know that you want to launch notepad so you can edit a file within the windows directory?
It can't - and I was looking for something that would let me tell Vista from the command line that I wanted to be prompted. Microsoft Technet has an excellent article, and a powertoy (at the top) that lets you do exactly that.
It is simple to use. Once downloaded you can call it like this:
Now I can easily elevate from the command line and get administrative access when I need it.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Thursday, September 20, 2007
Check out our utilities for windows
Connect Using Dialup Modem - Disabled (Why?)
I have an old friend that lives about a mile away from me. We went to elementary school together, and were best of friends until a little after high school...and we drifted as we got busy with our own lives.
Well... He still remembers me plunking away on my Commodore 64 back in the day, and figures I might know something about computers. He calls me right before my nightly walk and says he needs help getting his new computer on the Internet. Sure I say...I will walk to your house and we will get you setup in no time.
I was expecting to setup a broadband connection for him. When I arrived he had a modem in one hand, and a NetZero disk in the other. He had been working at it all night with no luck.
I sat down and started playing with it. Every time I tried to connect I would get a simple error message from NetZero saying it could not communicate with the modem.
I have my own PPP server at home with a private phone number, so I start trying to setup a connection to test with...and here is what I saw
Grr. I can't select the dial-up option and it won't tell me why. Worse yet I had no Internet connection to do research to find answers (Unless I wanted to walk a mile back to the house).
I checked the modem, and it tested out fine. It was a good old US Robotics external and it could dial out when I used it from hyperterminal with no problems.
I checked his user account...he was a full administrator.
One by one I disabled startup programs using MSConfig, with the thought that something was getting in the way of dial up networking.
Then I moved on to services. Started disabling the Anti-Virus, etc....and then...only then did I come across this service:
Yea. You see the arrow. It was disabled. I enabled it, and started the service. Didn't even bother with my test PPP connection. Launched NetZero, and it connected on the first try.
Once connected I tried to find out why someone might disable this service. It looks like the previous owner had "Optimized" his system by disabling services that he did not need. Which is perfectly fine as long as you don't need dial up networking.
As I walked back to my house I pondered this thought - My friend had told me this was the first time he had ever been on the Internet.
Posted By:
Steve Wiseman on Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Check out our utilities for windows
Set default settings for Excel 2003
I received many positive responses from my blog article about setting the default font in Microsoft Word. I received this question from a reader:
Thanks for all the intelliAdmin posts - I enjoy your blog and find it very helpful. I have a question specifically about your post about setting the default Word font. Do you have any similar things for Excel? It seems to be a lot more difficult to do for some reason.
I knew this was possible, but I have not done it for quite some time. After doing some research I discovered this can be accomplished by creating a Book.xlt file.
It is not as elegant as the Normal.dot in Microsoft Word, since it works system wide, and you cannot have different default settings for different users (If you know a way please let me know)
Lets say I have a specific font I want all new Excel documents to use. Simply open Excel, and create a new document. Set the default font.
Any changes you make to this workbook will become the default after we are done. So set it up exactly how you would like a new workbook to look.
When you are finished, click on file and then Save As...
Change the "Save as type" to Template(*.xlt)
Change the name to Book.xlt
Save it in this folder:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\XLStart(Side note - I have not tested it, but I would imagine other versions of Excel support this. You would simply need to change Office11 to Office12 for Excel 2007)Save the file, and close Excel.
Now when you open Excel it has the default settings - just as you saved them.
This can be a simple update to deploy across your network. You could create a Book.xlt, and have it copy to the local XLStart folder on login.
Posted By:
Steve Wiseman on Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Check out our utilities for windows
Update the Windows Path Completion feature
The windows path completion is a great feature. It has been in variants of Unix forever.
Here is how it works. You start typing a path at the command line:
Then hit the Tab key and it finds the first folder that matches. Keep hitting tab and it will cycle through all of the matches. (Hold shift while tapping tab and it will go in reverse)
I find myself on Windows 2000 workstations more often than I would like to admit, and get annoyed because this feature is not available.
I was convinced it was an XP only feature. I was looking through the registry on a 2000 Workstation for something totally different - and I came across this key:
If you change CompletionChar and PathCompletionChar to 9, then it will work under Windows 2000 too.
While writing this article I did some research and came across some information that indicates that this feature was enabled in later distributions of Windows 2000, and disabled in earlier releases of XP. It creates a situation where the feature randomly seems to work across different machines. Either way - updating these registry keys will turn it on (From 2000 and up), and it will work as advertised.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Monday, September 17, 2007
Check out our utilities for windows
Set the default font in Microsoft Word XP, 2003, and 2007
Recently I received an email from a reader asking:
Steve - found your blog and tool for ms word 2007 compatibility. Do you have any suggestions for changing the default font that is used? The calibri font is the default in 2007, and it does not come with 2003. This can cause issues when a document is saved from 2007 in 2003 format and then shared with someone who does not have the office 2007 compatibility pack installed and thus does not have the calibri font.
I started searching through the registry to see if there was a location that Microsoft stored this...and actually it is not stored in the registry at all. The default settings for a documents font, and many other settings are pulled from a file called normal.dot
If you open the Normal.dot. Well first you have to find it. It is located in the users current profile. It can be found here:
c:\Documents and Settings\[user]\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates
Where [user] is the current users name.
Back to where we were at...open it with word:
And it looks like a blank document. Simply make your changes. *Any* changes. Change the font, add a header, a footer, or anything...and save it as Normal2.dot in that same folder.
Then make sure all instances of word are closed, and delete the old normal.dot (Or rename it if you want to back it up), and rename the new one (Normal2.dot) to Normal.dot.
Now when you open word it will default to the settings you have created.
Posted By:
Steve Wiseman on Monday, September 17, 2007
Check out our utilities for windows
Windows Vista User Account Control (UAC)
I have written in the past about the things I do not like about Vista, but the Windows UAC (User Account Control) prompt is not one of them.
You may be surprised about that, since most people will list this as their #1 annoyance. I don't because I know it is only temporary.
Many people mistakenly think that its purpose is to thwart Spyware, Viruses, Etc. I could tell the minute I started using Vista with UAC enabled it had nothing to do with directly (Yes it does indirectly) stopping bad programs from running on your computer.
Its primary purpose was to change the behavior of programmers. It was a way to force them to start writing their applications so they work properly in a limited user environment. I can tell you right now, as a developer I wanted to do everything I could to avoid the UAC prompt from showing when my applications ran. I can bet other developers feel the same. (Side note...we are still working on getting all of our apps to not require admin access in Vista :) )
This means that during the initial release of Vista the UAC prompt would be popping up for almost every application. Why? Because the majority of applications were written to require administrative access. Over time if applications are updated to the new model...the UAC prompts for the user will be reduced over time.
That is the second phase of this process. Once a majority of applications are updated, the number of times the UAC prompt will be shown will be very small. In this second phase is where the benefit is finally reaches the user.
When we are in that environment (Where most applications have been updated to handle a limited user account)...The user will expect that 99% of the applications will not require administrative access. If they do see the prompt, they will think long and hard before clicking that continue prompt.
Until then we will be barraged by prompts while working in Vista. I wouldn't have it any other way. I would much rather be the one to make the decision to take an administrative action, instead of an unknown software vendor making that decision for me.
There is an excellent article over at Microsoft that describes what I am talking about in detail. It is worth the read:
The long term impact of user account control
Posted By:
Steve Wiseman on Friday, September 14, 2007
Check out our utilities for windows
Schedule a reboot in Windows 2003
There is always one application...yes one application that you use all the time, and can't afford to have it down for one minute during the day.
This same application is buggy and always has problems if it keeps running day after day. You need to reboot once in a while. Yes, and this means you need to stay late and wait until everyone leaves...and then reboot.
There is a simple solution to the problem...the shutdown command in windows 2003. It can shutdown or reboot your system from the command line, and will even allow you to specify reason codes for the shutdown. Here is the lowdown on its possible options:
Usage: shutdown [-i | -l | -s | -r | -a] [-f] [-m \\computername] [-t xx] [-c "comment"] [-d up:xx:yy]
No args Display this message (same as -?)
-i Display GUI interface, must be the first option
-l Log off (cannot be used with -m option)
-s Shutdown the computer
-r Shutdown and restart the computer
-a Abort a system shutdown
-m \\computername Remote computer to shutdown/restart/abort
-t xx Set timeout for shutdown to xx seconds
-c "comment" Shutdown comment (maximum of 127 characters)
-f Forces running applications to close without warning
-d [u][p]:xx:yy The reason code for the shutdown
u is the user code
p is a planned shutdown code
xx is the major reason code (positive integer less than 256)
yy is the minor reason code (positive integer less than 65536)
So, if I wanted to shutdown the machine at a specified time I could create a script with the following:
shutdown -r -f -c "Shutdown to refresh buggy program"
The -f makes sure no application can keep the shutdown from happening, and the -c allows me to add a comment in the event log. The -r tells it to reboot.
Now I have saved this as RebootDaily.bat (Under the windows folder)
Lets schedule it to run daily at 3am. Open the control panel and double click on the "Scheduled Tasks", and browse for the batch file that we just saved.
Click next, and set the time you want the reboot to start. If you have any backup jobs I would make sure the job time is far from your reboot.
Click next and set the user account that will be used for the reboot. I suggest setting up a separate account with specific permissions for this task. That way you can slightly relax your password change policy - and lock it down so it can't do much but reboot the system. Otherwise you will need to make sure you update this task each time the administrator password is changed.
Click next, and then finish. Your reboot has been scheduled. Just makes sure it works by manually running it once.
Now your buggy application can get a fresh start every day.
Posted By:
Steve Wiseman on Thursday, September 13, 2007
Check out our utilities for windows
Download free hard drive imaging software
I ran across this a few weeks ago while trying to image one of my systems. If you have a Seagate, or a Maxtor hard drive you can download a free copy of Acronis True image.
If you have not used it before. Acronis is an excellent imaging software for Windows. It blows Norton Ghost out of the water.
The two download links are here:
Seagate Imaging SoftwareMaxtor Imaging SoftwareThe software is smart, and can detect if you actually have a Maxtor, or Seagate hard drive. If you try to use it without having one of these drives you will simply get an error when trying to run the program:
The downloads are about 100MB, but well worth it if you need to image a system (Or many systems!)
Posted By:
Steve Wiseman on Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Check out our utilities for windows
Set default folder for attachments in Outlook 2003
I had a user ask me this week: "Steve, I always save my attachments in a download folder on my computer. Unfortunately Microsoft Outlook always defaults to 'My Documents', and I can't see any way to change this. Do you have any idea how to change the default download folder?"
This is correct. There is no option I can find in Outlook that will allow you to change the default download folder for attachments. This means every time you try to save an attachment you need to start browsing around your drive to find the right spot. This can be a time consuming task if you have network shares that slow down explorer.
After doing a little digging I discovered that the default download location can be changed by opening regedit and drilling down to this registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Options
Create a new string value under this key (If it does not already exist) named DefaultPath, and set the value to the absolute path you would like to use as your default location.
In my case I wanted to change it to c:\downloads\ Here is what it looks like in the registry:
So now when I go to save an attachment, I don't need to fish around for the downloads folder - it automatically defaults right to it:
Posted By:
Steve Wiseman on Monday, September 10, 2007
Check out our utilities for windows
FTP Files Automatically
I have a backup log that I create every night...on three different servers. They are all separated by many miles across the Internet. I wanted to find an easy way to send them all to one central location, but at the same time I did not want to have any extra software to do it.
The key requirement of not needing additional software meant that I would need to script FTP in some way.
After playing around with it at the command line, I discovered the -s option. It allows you to feed it a file that it will use to play back ftp commands.
Lets look at what I need to do to send this file
1. Connect to the host (ftp.somesite.com)
2. Send the username and password (administrator/Password1997)
3. Send the file (c:\logs\backups.log)
4. Disconnect
In FTP commands this converts to:
open ftp.somesite.com
administrator
Password1997
bin
put c:\Logs\Backup.log
quit
the bin command makes sure that ftp does not try to do any text conversions with the file.
Save the script to a file (In my case I called it FtpScript.txt)
Now if we call it at the command line it will automatically upload the file
(ftp -s:FtpScript.txt)
Now I can schedule it to run every night, and the backup logs are uploaded automatically.
Posted By:
Steve Wiseman on Monday, September 10, 2007
Check out our utilities for windows
Install Windows 2003 Recovery Console
Not sure if you have needed it before, but if you work with lots of 2003 Server machines you will find yourself using the recovery console at least once. It essentially is a command line prompt that allows you to perform tasks on a system that cannot boot.
Getting to the recovery console is not always fun. You need to make sure you have the original installation CD for the version of windows you have. Sometimes the recovery console cannot see other Windows Installs if the versions are too far apart (Or even different service pack levels). It takes a good chunk of time too. You need to wait through the various boot procedures and gyrations that the Windows install CD likes to go through.
As I have said before...I like to help others with tough IT problems so I can gain more insight as to what life is like for our customers....so I would say that in any given year I am called out many times to help with a dead Windows 2003 server that has no backups and has some "Really important data" on it.
After spending hours working in the recovery console (This means making a change, rebooting...nope...back to recovery console) I wanted a way to install it directly on the hard drive, and not boot it from the CD.
It is actually not to hard to do...and I recommend doing this for every single Windows 2003 server install that you do (Before patching it!)
Once you have your clean install completed (*See Below), make sure the install CD is in the drive, and launch setup with this command line:
d:\i386\winnt32.exe /cmdcons'd:' is the drive letter of your CD/DVD drive.
It will ask you a few simple questions and quickly it will be installed on your system. The next time you boot you will see a new option:
Now when I get that call I can easily get to a command prompt without digging for the original installation CD.
*There is actually nothing keeping you from doing this on a current install, but many times the recovery console installer will simply refuse to run because it claims that the current version of windows is newer than the one you are trying to install.
Posted By:
Steve Wiseman on Friday, September 07, 2007
Check out our utilities for windows
Get ready for Windows 2008
I have started to collect a list of links for information about Windows 2008. If you are thinking about deploying Windows 2008 on your network these may be helpful to you.
-Windows 2008 Server Product information page:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=90853 This includes links to get access to the latest Beta of Windows 2008
-A document describing changes between Windows Server 2008, and Windows 2003 SP1
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=90854-Windows 2008 Server step by step guides:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=90856-Windows 2008 Server forums at Microsoft:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=90920-Windows 2008 Server troubleshooting:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=90857This is just a start. If you know of any other good links for Windows 2008 Server, please drop me an email and I will update this list.
Posted By:
Steve Wiseman on Thursday, September 06, 2007
Check out our utilities for windows
Vulnerability in Virtual PC
I was looking at some of the latest security updates from Microsoft and I came across this one:
MS07-049: Vulnerability in Virtual PC and Virtual Server that could allow privilege elevation
Here is an excerpt of the KB article (Emphasis is mine):
This important security update resolves one privately reported vulnerability. This is an elevation of privilege vulnerability. The vulnerability in Microsoft Virtual PC and Microsoft Virtual Server could allow a guest operating system user to run code on the host or another guest operating systems. Only guest operating system users who are granted administrative permissions to the guest operating system would be able to exploit this vulnerability. Guest operating system users not granted administrative permissions to the guest operating system would be unable to exploit this vulnerability.
Yikes! This means that it is possible my main machine could get infected, or attacked while running suspect code inside a VM. Fortunately this flaw only affects Virtual PC 2005 and earlier (2005 R2, and 2007 are not affected).
Still this is a scary issue for me since I use VMWare all the time to test out software I don't trust. I am not aware of any similar problems with VMWare, but time will only tell if a creative programmer will find a flaw there too.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Check out our utilities for windows
Backup and Restore Outlook 2003 auto complete data
If you don't know what I mean by "Auto complete" it is the feature in Outlook that finishes what you are typing. For example, when I am about to type out an address in the "To" field of an email it will show me a list of matches as I type:
Unfortuantely these addresses are not saved on the server - even when you are only using exchange as your primary email source. Why is this bad? Because a large number of users consider their auto complete an official address book.
It is surprising the number of times I have completed an upgrade of a network and suddenly get calls that all of the address books are missing. This is after I have painstakingly exported all of the old address books and moved them over properly. When I sit down with the user to see what they mean...it is simply the auto-complete that is no longer working for them.
This happened so much that I needed to find an way to backup and restore this data. After running the filemon utility from
Sysinternals I discovered that outlook stores this data in a single file
The file is placed in the users profile folder under "Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook", and always has the extension .NK2. The name of the file matches the outlook profile name.
So we can see in the above folder listing that there are a few files in this folder. We are interested in the NK2 files. Notice that there are only two. If we open up our outlook profiles in the control panel we can see that they match up to their respective names:
The trick to the restore is to make sure Outlook is closed, copy over the old NK2 file, and replace the current NK2 with the one with all of the data in it.
So lets imagine we are moving to a new machine. The old machine has an Outlook profile named Exchange. We find Exchange.nk2, copy it over to this machine.
Now we have Exchange.NK2 from the old computer. It contains all of our autocomplete data. We need Outlook to see this. We determine the name of the current profile on the new machine. In this case it is "Outlook". If we drill down to the users current NK2 folder we find an Outlook.NK2.
Make sure Outlook is closed. Delete Outlook.NK2, and copy in Exchange.NK2 and rename it Outlook.NK2. Now when you launch Outlook it will use the restored autocomplete data when typing out email addresses.
Keep in mind that this procedure is mildly complicated and it is easy to make a mistake. A few things to note about this process:
-Please make sure you backup all of your NK2 files before making any changes.
-A New profile will not have a corresponding NK2 file until you have opened Outlook once and typed out an email address at least once for the current profile.
-If there have been multiple profiles in the past with the same name then a new NK2 file will be created each time. Outlook handles this by adding a number to the end. This means you may find systems where the profile is named "Exchange", and there are NK2 files named Exchange.NK2, Exchange-2.NK2, and Exchange-3.NK2. You need to do a little investigative work to find the right one. Look at the date and time stamp to see what has the most recent update.
Finally you need to make sure you can view hidden files and folders if you want to drill down to that folder where the NK2 files are located. This can be done by opening any folder in windows, click on the tools menu, then options...scroll down and make sure the option is selected to "Show Hidden Files and Folders"
Now if we can convince users to actually use their address book...then everything would be perfect :)
Posted By:
Steve Wiseman on Monday, September 03, 2007
Check out our utilities for windows
