I received an email from Jennifer this week:

“Howdy Steve. I want to thank you for all the tips and ideas. I ran across this small utility that I think your readers might like. It is called Share Watch. It lets you keep track of what files and folders are being accessed by remote users”

She is right. This little utility is great.

Yes, Windows has a built in share monitoring service:

But, it is kind of clunky and limited. It really has not changed much since Windows 2000.

What is nice about Share Monitor is that it puts all of the information in one spot:

Plus, unlike the windows share monitor…you can watch a bunch of computers at the same time:

It has easy access to information about the computers connecting to a share:

And the files that are currently open across a share:

Plus, like a lot of our utilities – No install is required. It is one small exe.

Best of all, it is free for personal or commercial use.

Get it from the Share Watch website:

http://stevemiller.net/ShareWatch/

PS: If you run it under Vista, or Windows 7…make sure you right click and run it as administrator or you will get access denied.

I got a question from Mike this week:

“Hi steve. Hope all is well. I am the IT manager at a small bank in Texas. We have lots of patch management tools…so I am not looking for that. Before an audit I would like to quickly force all of my machines to download and install the latest security patches from MS. Is there any way to force Windows to do this from the command line? And I mean like right now! Not next Tuesday. Thanks!”

I came across a script right on Microsoft’s website that can do something close to what you want:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa387102(v=vs.85).aspx

It has a few issues. First, it tries to install all patches. Like the latest version of Internet Explorer, major service packs, and that ridiculous Windows Search 4.0. These require user intervention, and might even break things.

Another issue with the script is that it does not let you know when it failed because the network is down.

We took that script changed it to only include security updates. That way it gets to the core of the issue – getting the latest security patches, without any extra stuff.

With our new version of the script we created a plugin for Network Administrator. This will allow you to remotely install the latest security patches across your network:

If the computer already is up to date, it will say: “This computer is up to date”

You can tell it to just download, or download and install. There is even an option to reboot when the install is complete:

The free version allows you to work with three computers at a time. You can get it from our download page:

http://www.intelliadmin.com/index.php/downloads/

What about that script? If you want to do it yourself without Network Administrator, here is the updated version:

http://www.intelliadmin.com/ForceAU.dat

Just rename it to ForceAU.vbs, and call it like this from the command line:

cscript.exe ForceAU.vbs

Once it starts, it will zoom through and install the latest security patches:

The script, and the plugin work with Windows XP, 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 2008.

It does require administrator access, so if your users have a limited account you will need to either use the task scheduler, group policy, or Network Administrator.

One other thing to note, is that it does not install service packs – So keep that in mind when using the plugin, or the script.

This week we have a question from Vladimir:

“Hello Steve,
Happy New year to you and all the best in the new 2012.

I’m battling here with fragmentation disk problems and I’m wondering;
Is there a way to run a defragmentation process during night hours when all machines are idling? Can it be scripted so you can add it to a scheduler task?”

Yes…we could just go through the manual steps of creating this scheduled task, but Vladimir wants to know if we can easily script it.

The answer is a definite yes. In fact, it is easier to script this than to suffer through all of the windows and settings of the task scheduler.

To add a scheduled task, you just need to call it like this from the command line:

schtasks /create

Now, of course that needs some more options.

We want it to run only when the computer is idle, and since we want it to run after hours, we want to rule out lunch…so lets tell it to only run after two hours of inactivity.

Here are the options we will need:

/tr = The path to the application to run
/tn = The name of the task
/ru = User to run the task as
/sc = When to run the task
/i = The number of idle minutes to wait

This is what our command to add the task would look like:

schtasks /create /ru system /sc onidle /i 120 /tn Defrag /tr "%systemroot%\system32\defrag.exe c:"

This command line can be translated to:

Create a task named ‘Defrag’ that will run the defrag program under the system account – only when the computer has been idle for 120 minutes

After you run the task, it will add it:

You can verify by browsing over to scheduled tasks:

That is all there is to it. Now when the system is idle for more than two hours, it will start a defrag of the c drive. This syntax works on Windows XP through Windows 7 / 2008.

Got a question from Enrico,

“Good morning Steve, and Happy New Year!…I would like that when the user has a wired NIC up and running, the wireless NIC is automatically disabled, and as soon as the wired NIC disconnects, the wireless NIC activates.

This prevents the user to have both NICs up and running at the same time and above all prevents wireless access points to collapse for too many unneeded simultaneous connections.”

Awesome question Enrico.

There are other reasons for wanting this too. If you have both connections running, things like file transfers, or anything that needs the extra speed of Ethernet…might end up going through the wireless instead.

For this question, I have created a VB Script that will receive the names of the two network cards in its command line parameters.

For example, if you look at your network connections:

See the descriptions for them? That is what you will use to identify them.

If you wanted to watch the “Local Area Connection” adapter…and then switch the “Wireless Connection” Adapter, you would call the script like this:

The program will not display anything, but run in the background looking for the change. It will continue to run until the user logs out.

If the Local Area Connection is no longer connected, it will automatically enable the Wireless connection.

The reverse is true…if Local Area Connection becomes available, it will automatically disable the wireless connection.

The best place to run the script would be from a group policy computer configuration logon script (Not a user configuration) because it will run as local system and have the proper permission to enable and disable network cards.

You can get the script from here:

For 2003, Vista, Windows 7, and 2008:
NetSwitch.dat

For Windows XP:

NetSwitchXP.dat

Just rename to NetSwitch.vbs after downloading.

This week we have a question from Melissa:

“Hi Steve. Got a really quick question. Previously you had an article that showed how to burn an ISO from the command line. My question is, what about a folder? I want to simply burn a folders contents to a DVD once a week. Any simple way to do this?”

Good question Melissa. I too have been looking for something like this.

Most of the DVD/CD burning software is not free.

That is not a big problem…but I would think that the simple process of copying a folder to a DVD or CD shouldn’t cost me $49!

So what to do? Have the IntelliAdmin team make one for you!

This first version we wanted to be as simple as possible, so it only does one thing: Burn a folder to a disk.

-You specify a drive, and a folder.

-It burns it and closes the session on the drive

-If it fails, the program will return 1

-If it succeeds the program will return 0

This means you can create conditional statements in a batch file too.

How do you use it?

Once you grab it from our downloads page you can call it like this from the command line:

BurnDisk.exe E: C:\Backup

Where ‘E:’ is the DVD/CD drive letter, and C:\Backup is the folder you want to back up.

It will automatically set the volume name to the current date. It will then zip through your specified folder and burn the contents to the CD or DVD:

You can use the ERRORLEVEL value for conditional statements in your batch file (Like send you an email if it fails)

Here is an example bat file that checks the result of the BurnDisk.exe output:

@ECHO OFF

:COMPLETE


This is version 1.0 so it is quite simple – but for many situations I think it will work perfect.

Let us know what “Must Have” features you want to see in 1.1

It has been tested on Windows Vista, 2008, and 7. It should work on 2003 and XP (With the latest patches) but we have not had a chance to try it on those platforms yet.

Get it from our downloads page

I am not sure if you are aware of it, but starting next year Microsoft is changing their Internet Explorer upgrade policy.

Specifically, they will be putting IE updates into the standard automatic update cycle. This means if you have an older version of IE, it will automatically get upgraded.

Many organizations have piles of Web applications that cannot work on anything but a specific version of Internet Explorer.

I would not want to come into the office one morning to find out a few hundred computers now have IE 7, when a critical web app requires IE 6.

How can you prevent this from happening?

Thankfully Microsoft has provided three registry keys that will prevent the automatic install.

There is one for each version of IE (IE 7, IE 8, IE 9)

These are the keys:

For IE 9

Key:
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Setup\9.0\
Value
DoNotAllowIE90 1 = Block Install, 0 = Allow Install

For IE 8

Key:
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Setup\8.0\
Value
DoNotAllowIE80 1 = Block Install, 0 = Allow Install

For IE 7

Key:
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Setup\7.0\
Value
DoNotAllowIE70 1 = Block Install, 0 = Allow Install

A quick and easy way to make these changes is to use our tool, Network Administrator.

We added a plugin that will make it easy to block the automatic install:

You can even pick and choose what version of Internet Explorer you want to block:

It is free for personal and commercial use (up to three computers at a time).

You can find it on our downloads page:

http://www.intelliadmin.com/index.php/downloads/

I got a question from Lewis this week:

“I hope this email finds you well. I have a plotter here at my company, and the driver is really temperamental. At least twice a week the driver crashes, and then all of the jobs get stuck in the spooler. To fix it I need to stop the spooler service, delete all the jobs and start the service again. Is there any easy way to do this remotely with a script? Have a Merry Christmas Steve, and thanks for all the tips”

Good question. A script in this case won’t always work. This is because with Vista, Windows 7, and 2008 the print spooler folder is restricted. Only the system account can access it.

A way around this is to use our Network Administrator tool. It will remotely execute the script in the system account context.

This is how the script would look if we wanted to stop the print spooler, delete the files, and start it again:

net stop spooler
del %systemroot%\System32\spool\printers\*.shd /q
del %systemroot%\System32\spool\printers\*.spl /q
net start spooler


.shd, and .spl files are print job files. If you delete them, it will wipe away any pending jobs.

You could put this into a bat file, and simply use the remote execute option of Network Administrator. To make it a smoother experience, we created a plugin that will handle everything for you:

You can also tell it if you want to delete all the pending jobs:

This can be quite helpful if you have a huge backlog of print jobs:

Using Network Administrator to do this is quicker than manually deleting the jobs since it does not have to talk back and forth with the printer driver to do it.

Get your free copy from our download page:

http://www.intelliadmin.com/index.php/downloads/

The free version is free for commercial and personal use. No spyware or adware – only software goodness.

I got a question from John this week:

“A few of my clients are using a broadband connection with DHCP addresses for the public interface. Do you know of a script or program that can be used to monitor the IP address and send a email if the IP address changes?”

Good question. It is possible to get IP address lists from VB Script, but we happen to have a utility we have used internally for quite some time. It is called “MyIP.exe”

MyIP.exe has two options. You can get a current list of IP addresses like this:

MyIP.exe /list

It will return a list of your current IP addresses to the command line:

C:\temp>myip /list
10.10.29.231
192.168.68.1
192.168.198.1

The second option is /wait. It will pause until it sees an IP change. When the change happens it will pause for 15 seconds to allow any DHCP addressing to settle down, and then finally return the result to the command line.

How do we set this up to email when we detect an IP change?

We can use blat. Blat is a tool for sending email from the command line.

Here is how I would structure a bat file to use both programs:

:Loop
@ECHO OFF
ECHO IP Address Change > status.log
ECHO ========================= >> status.log
ECHO The computer %COMPUTERNAME% has had an IP address change >> status.log
ECHO This is the new IP list: >> status.log
MyIP.exe /wait >> status.log
blat.exe -f support@intelliadmin.com -to support@intelliadmin.com -server mysmtp.server.com -subject "IP Change" -bodyF status.log
ECHO "Waiting for IP Change..."
goto loop

What is going on in the code above?

First we build up a file called status.log. It is filled with the body of our email. It contains everything except our list of changed IP addresses. Then MyIP.exe will wait until a change happens - when it does, those IPs are written to the end of status.log

Finally, blat sends out the text file with the subject "IP Change". When that is done, it loops back around to wait for a change all over again.

One important thing to note about SMTP - Many internet providers are blocking send from port 25 by default, except to their own email servers. So make sure you test the script out before depending on it.

MyIP.exe can be found in our downloads section:

http://www.intelliadmin.com/index.php/downloads/

Blat can be found here:

http://www.blat.net/

One final note. Most likely you want this IP address information because you need to remote into their computer from time to time. Our Enterprise Remote control has this functionality built in. It will automatically track all IP address changes on remote machines, and you only need a username to find their computer! - Might save you a lot of time and trouble:)

Sometimes the simplest tips are the best.

Normally I would not even write about this but it is such a great time saver, it is worth repeating even if only a few of you don’t know about it.

I know you have seen this before:

What is the problem here? Well, what if you want the “No to all” option?

Got to keep pressing N right?

Wrong!

Next time you see this dialog. Hold down the shift key, and then click no. That tells windows “No to all”!

All of your files will copy over, except the ones that already exist.

The sad part is I found this by accidentally holding down the shift key last week while pressing no

I got a question from Justin this week:

“Hi steve,

Have a few scripts that I use for regular admin work. I want to combine them with a simple menu. I was wondering if there was an easy way to make a menu in a batch file.”

Yes there is Justin, and it is actually quite simple.

The SET command is perfect for this. When you call SET /P from the command line it will take a line of input and set it to a variable.

So if you had three options in your batch file like this:

echo Press 1 for Option1
echo Press 2 for Option2
echo Press 3 for Option3
echo Press 4 to Exit


You could put the set command right after it:

set /P OPT=Please make a selection and press enter

This would print the text “Please make a selection..” and then store the users input after they press enter – into the %OPT% variable.

Once that happens we can use a few if statements to conditionally execute.

Here is it all together:

:EXIT


Save the file as menu.bat and run it

That is all there is to it.

Just change the echo statements to the batch commands you want to execute for each option, and you have an easy to use menu from the command line.