Disable Adobe Automatic Updates

Posted by Steve Wiseman on November 30, 2007 with 0 Comments

I received a note from a reader yesterday:

I saw your post (below), but didn’t see a way to make this screen appear. Can you tell me how to access that screen?

He is talking about this post:

http://www.intelliadmin.com/blog/2006/12/adobe-releases-acrobat-reader-8.html

I went back and read the article and realized that this settings page is very difficult to find within Acrobat Reader 8.

Here is how you can get to these settings. Open up Acrobat Reader, and click on Help then “Check for updates”

Disable Adobe Automatic Updates

You will have to wait through at least one attempt at an annoying update.

Disable Adobe Update

Now when it sees that there are updates, or it fails you will get a page that allows you to download the updates – or change your update preferences. Click on the link that says “Preferences”

Disable Adobe Update Preferences

Now you will see the settings page for updates.

Adobe Automatic Update Preferences

You can set it for a more reasonable update cycle, or disable it all together. Remember that the updates are important since there have been numerous security flaws in adobe over the past two years. Any one of them could allow an attacker to install software on your computer by simply viewing a carefully crafted PDF file.

Considering the security problems, and the fact that Adobe is going to make PDF files even more annoying by adding advertisements (I am not joking). I suggest downloading an alternative PDF viewer. My personal favorite is FoxIt.

Filed Under: Windows

Convert physical machines to virtual machines – FREE

Posted by Steve Wiseman on November 29, 2007 with 0 Comments

VMWare has actually had this tool for quite some time now. The VMWare converter for Windows was released in January of 2007. I just had a chance to use it, and it works great.

VMWare converter

You can convert a physical machine to a VM while it is running. Thats right – no downtime to convert a system. This is perfect when you need to test something on a live production server…but don’t want to risk it.

A few things to watch out for when using it:

-If you have Windows 2003, XP, or Vista the switch to the Virtual machine will trigger product activation. If you don’t have an OEM license this can be a problem…and may prevent you from completing your task.

-You can’t run the converter on the same machine you are converting. You need to run it over the network, or create a boot disk. A boot disk would be bad since this would cause a significant chunk of downtime.

Obligatory features and benefits from VMWare:

-Quickly and reliably convert local and remote physical machines into virtual machines without any disruption or downtime.

-Complete multiple conversions simultaneously with a centralized management console and an intuitive conversion wizard.

-Convert other virtual machine formats such as Microsoft Virtual PC and Microsoft Virtual Server or backup images of physical machines such as Symantec Backup Exec LiveState Recovery or Ghost 9 to VMware virtual machines.

-Restore VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) images of virtual machines to running virtual machines.

All in all I like this tool, and it has been a great help when testing or trying to isolate an issue without impacting users.

Get your free copy from here

Filed Under: Windows

Find old user accounts across your network

Posted by Steve Wiseman on November 28, 2007 with 0 Comments

I was doing some house cleaning on one of my systems and I noticed a few test accounts that had been sitting around for over a year. I don’t like having dormant accounts laying around since it creates a higher possibility that someone could use them to get in.

List Old Accounts

I wanted an easy way to list all accounts that have not been accessed within the last 60 days…on every computer on my network.

To start out I wrote a script that would output a list of dormant accounts on a single remote computer.

Here is my first crack at it:

‘Minimum age of account we want to report (In Days)
iDays = 60

Sub ReportUnusedAccounts(sComputer)
‘Get a connection to the remote computer
Set poComputer = GetObject(“WinNT://” & sComputer)
‘Used as a flag to see if we could see any accounts on the remote computer
bFoundAccount=FALSE
‘Loop through each account and see how old it is
For Each poItem in poComputer
 if poItem.Class=”User” then
  ’Update our counter so we know we found at least one account
  bFoundAccount=TRUE
  ’Get the number of days since the last login
  iDuration=DateDiff(“D”,poItem.LastLogin,Date)
  ’If greater than our trigger, then report
  if (iDuration > iDays) then
   sOutput = sOutput & sComputer & “, ‘” & poItem.Name & “‘, ‘” & poItem.LastLogin & “‘,’” & iDuration & “‘” & vbLF
  end if
 end if
next
‘If we saw no accounts, then we had a problem connecting
if (bFoundAccount=FALSE) then
 Wscript.Echo sComputer & “, ‘Could not connect, or access denied’”
else
 WScript.Echo (sOutput)
end if
end sub

When I call the function in the script, it comes back with a comma delimited list of accounts that have not been accessed for more than 60 days.

I needed to do this for every computer on my domain. So I added a script that would query the domain for a list of computers, and execute the above function on each one:

‘Make sure we got our argument from the command line
if (WScript.Arguments.Count=0) then
 Wscript.Echo “***************************************”
 WScript.Echo “* IntelliAdmin, LLC *”
 Wscript.Echo “* http://www.intelliadmin.com *”
 WScript.Echo “* (Unused Accounts Reporter) *”
 WScript.Echo “***************************************”
 WSCript.Echo “Missing Arguments. Usage shown below: “
 Wscript.Echo “UnusedAccounts.vbs “
else

‘Get domain object so we can query a list of computers
Set DomObj = GetObject(“WinNT://” & WScript.Arguments(0) )

‘Filter only computer objects
DomObj.Filter = Array(“computer”)

‘Loop through all computers and execute our ReportUnusedAccounts sub
For Each sComputer In DomObj
  ReportUnusedAccounts sComputer.Name
Next
end if

Now I can call the script (With my domain as the only argument) and it will cycle through all computers on the network. It reports the unused accounts in a nice CSV format:

Unused accounts report list
(Note: It can take up to 90 seconds for it to fail on a computer that is not available. This means the report can take some time to generate)

Execute the script like this from the command line to output it to a CSV file:

cscript.exe //nologo UnusedAccounts.vbs >> UnusedAccounts.csv

Then you could simply open the UnusedAccounts.CSV with Microsoft Excel and sort it the way you pleased.

Download the script from here

Filed Under: Windows

Final version of FastCGI released for IIS 6

Posted by Steve Wiseman on November 27, 2007 with 0 Comments

Microsoft announced last week that the final version of FastCGI has been released. FastCGI is an extension to IIS that can vastly improve the performance of CGI based applications like PHP.

Here are a few links that will get you started:

Download the FastCGI for IIS 6.0 on Windows Server 2003

FastCGI Configuration guide

The great part – FastCGI is an open standard, and is supported by a ton of webservers. More information can be found here:

http://www.fastcgi.com

Filed Under: Windows

Symantec releases software for smart phones

Posted by Steve Wiseman on November 26, 2007 with 1 Comments

Last week Symantec revealed software that provides a firewall, blocks spam, and protects against viruses for smart phones.

Phone Security

Named Norton Smartphone Security, it combines Norton AntiVirus technology, a firewall, and anti-spam for messages sent via SMS.

The software is compatible with smart phones that run Windows Mobile, and Symbian operating systems. The anti-virus feature can detect mobile viruses, and prevent users from accessing infected files. The firewall inspects all incoming and outgoing network traffic.

Similar to their desktop products, the software will run in the background and will allow users to perform all of their normal functions.

It costs about $30, and can be purchased from their online store.

I have not had a chance to try it yet…hoping it does not slow down my phone like their desktop products do. I have heard that McAfee has just released something similar. When I get a chance I will test them both and report back here

Filed Under: Windows

Test Drive Vista without installing it.

Posted by Steve Wiseman on November 19, 2007 with 0 Comments

I know many of you have heard the good and bad about Vista, but do not want to risk a machine by installing it. Microsoft feels your pain, and has a new website dedicated to giving Vista a spin without any of the trouble.

Windows Vista Ultimate Test Drive

First you have the Windows Vista Ultimate Test Drive. It has almost 20 videos that walk you through these features and functionality of Vista. Click on any of them below.

-Schedule Automatic Backups

-Restore Your Old Files

-Browse with Enhanced Security

-Better Protection From Maleware

-Built In Diagnostics

-Instantly Search and Find Information

-Document Explorer and Live Icons

-Using the Windows Sidebar and Gadgets

-Improved and Automated Help Options

-Set Up and Connect to Networks with Simplicity

-Internet Explorer 7: Printing Advances

-Easily Manage your data synchronization

-Improve your PC’s power Management

-Collaborate in Small Groups Anywhere, Anytime

-One Place to Fax and Scan your Documents

-Easy To Use, Built-In Email Application

-Manage your time with Confidence

-Organize and Share your Digital Images

In addition, Microsoft is providing a Virtual PC file with a 30 day trial of Vista Ultimate. You can find it here

And, finally the best option is the actual test drive of Vista in a web session that feels a lot like remote desktop.

You can try it out by visiting this site

Filed Under: Windows

VMWare for OSX Update Released

Posted by Steve Wiseman on November 16, 2007 with 0 Comments

VMware announced on Monday (11-12-07) the release of VMware Fusion 1.1. It is a new update to its virtualization software for Intel-based Macs. If you are not familiar with it, the software allows you to run other operating systems in a window under Mac OSX.

VM Ware for OSX 1.1

This is a free update for all current customers, and there is even a trial you can download.

I have been using VMWare Fusion 1.0 since its release on my modest Apple MacBook. And if you have been following blog, you know that is all I use to do my development. It runs Windows XP quite well in a virtual session.

The new release has made a great product even better. Here is a list of updates:

* Support for Mac OS X Leopard.
* Improved 3D graphics with experimental support for DirectX 9.0.
* Improvements to VMware Fusion’s Unity feature.
* Support for Microsoft Vista Boot Camp partitions as virtual machines.
* Support for French, German, and Japanese-speaking customers.
* Overall performance improvements.

One of the most pimped out features (Yes I reserve those words for only a few things I really like) is unity. Unity allows you to run Windows applications seamlessly along side your Mac applications. If you look at the shot below, you can see Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, and a command prompt running on my Mac Desktop. This feature alone makes it worth the $79.

VMWare Fusions OSX

In this release, it seems snappier, and the unity feature works much better than before. All in all I think it is a great release.

If you have a Mac, and need to work with Windows, I suggest giving it a spin.

For more info go to the product website.

And no, I don’t get anything from VMWare for this. I simply think it is a great product.

Filed Under: Windows

Windows 2008 Server Versions Announced

Posted by Steve Wiseman on November 14, 2007 with 0 Comments

The different versions of Windows 2008 were revealed yesterday by Microsoft. They are very similar to the 2003 server editions.

Here are the details:

Windows Server 2008 is available in eight versions, three of which include *Hyper-V:

•Windows Server 2008 Standard. This version has built-in, enhanced Web and virtualization capabilities, powerful tools that give customers greater control over their servers and streamline configuration and management tasks, and enhanced security features that work to harden the operating system to help protect their data and network and provide a solid, highly-dependable foundation for businesses. With Windows Server 2008 Standard edition, customers get one virtual instance per license.

•Windows Server 2008 Enterprise. It has the same features as Windows Server 2008 Standard, but with Windows Server 2008 Enterprise edition, customers get four virtual instances per license.

•Windows Server 2008 Datacenter. It delivers an enterprise-class platform for deploying business-critical applications. It helps customers improve availability and security features, and reduce infrastructure costs, by consolidating applications with virtualization licensing rights. And with Windows Server 2008 Datacenter edition, customers receive unlimited virtual instances per license.

Two versions offered without Hyper-V are targeted at specific workloads:

•Windows Web Server 2008. Designed to be used as a single-purpose Web server, Windows Web Server 2008 delivers a rock-solid foundation of Web infrastructure capabilities in the next-generation Windows Server 2008. Integrated with the newly re-architected Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0, ASP.NET, and the Microsoft .NET Framework, Windows Web Server 2008 helps enable any organization rapidly deploy Web pages, Web sites, Web applications and Web services.

•Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-based Systems. It is optimized for large databases, and line-of-business and custom applications, providing high availability and scalability up to 64 processors to meet the needs of the most demanding and mission-critical solutions. Support for Itanium-based systems will now be offered through the new Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-based Systems edition, targeted at customers using the Intel Itanium platform and designed for these specific workloads.

*If you don’t know it already Hyper-V is virtualization technology that MS is building into 2008. More info can be found here

Filed Under: Windows

Open command prompt in any folder

Posted by Steve Wiseman on November 13, 2007 with 0 Comments

I use the command prompt quite a bit, and I was looking for a way to launch it directly from a folder I am looking at in explorer.

It turns out this is not too hard to do. I found a way to add a menu item when you right click on the folder. I will walk you though the steps to do it yourself

First open regedit, and browse to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell

Drill down to the ‘directory’ key, then the ’shell’ key under that.

Command prompt in any folder

Under this create a new key named “cmd”. Once created, double click on the default value on the right

Command Prompt Folder Registry

The text you type in here will be the description on the menu. I used “Open Command Prompt Here”. This is what it will look like when we are finished:

Open command prompt window here

Under the cmd key you created, create another key named “command” Set the default value for this to

cmd.exe /k “cd %L && ver”

This is what it should look like in regedit:

Open Command Prompt Settings

Now when you right click on a folder you can launch a command prompt right in it.

Open Command Prompt Here Finished

Now here is the bonus. I created a little application that will do this all for you

Open Command Prompt Here application

Click here to download it. As always no spyware or adware – only freeware goodness.

Filed Under: Windows

Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services Webcast(s)

Posted by Steve Wiseman on November 12, 2007 with 0 Comments

As the beta cycle for 2008 is winding down, Microsoft will be having a few webcasts that talk about the new features built into Windows 2008 Terminal Services.

Windows 2008 Server Logo

I have put together a list. If you can’t make the live webcast, Microsoft will be archiving them:

TechNet Webcast: The Significance of the Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services Release to Market
Thursday, November 8, 2007
8:00 A.M.–9:30 A.M. Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services Session Broker
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
1:00 P.M.–2:30 P.M. Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Deploying Remote Programs with Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
8:00 A.M.–9:30 A.M. Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Remote Desktop Protocol as a Presentation Remoting Platform
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
1:00 P.M.–2:30 P.M. Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Terminal Services Easy Print
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
11:30 A.M.–1:00 P.M. Pacific Time

Filed Under: Windows

Please wait while we add your email address to our list

Join our Tips and Software Email List

Get free software, news, and tips
once a week by joining our email list
Enter your email address below

Just like you, we hate spam.

We promise to never sell, or spam your inbox

Thanks for joining our list, and have a great day!

Error adding address

There was an error adding your email address.
It might be because you are already on our list.
If this is not the case, please try again later. Thanks!