Bits the I have to fix using Windows / Microsoft, could incompass any of the Microsoft OS’s but typically Windows 2000 server, 2003 server 2008 server, active directory, Exchange server, RIS etc.. etc..
Probably the largest section given that Windows seems to be more problematic than Linux.
Posted by admin on December 11th, 2009 |
0 comments
Every once in a while I need to extract the content of a .msi file in order to customize a deployment for a particular network environment. Sometimes initializing the .msi installer will temporarily extract the files into C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Temp, but those files are removed once the installer exits.
To extract files from a .msi file at the command line, type:
msiexec /a PathToMSIFile /qb TARGETDIR=DirectoryToExtractTo
For example, to extract files from c:\installer.msi into c:\install you would type:
msiexec /a c:\installer.msi /qb TARGETDIR=c:\install
The destination directory does not need to exist prior to running this command.
If this doesnt work, a crude way is to rename the msi file to a rar file, winrar will then allow you to extract all the files – however… it doesnt name them properly, so I used a combination of LesMsierables a .net file which allows you to view msi files and compared the size to find the specific file I wanted..
Posted by admin on October 30th, 2009 |
0 commentsWhilst really this is just horrible, there are times that you may need (hopefully) internal boxes to automatically logon with a specific set of credentials – perhaps to launch an application that cannot be installed as a service etc..
Here are the steps to do this (at your own risk! this means anyone with access to the registry will have your username and password)
1: Open regedit
2: Navigate to the below registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
3: Create value DefaultUserName as a REG_SZ and enter the username you want to auto logon.
4: Create value DefaultPassword as a REG_SZ and enter the password for the user above.
5: Create value AutoAdminLogon as a REG_SZ and set it to 1
6: If applicable create DefaultDomainName as a REG_SZ and set it to the required domain.
Close regedit, reboot and it should now automagically log you on with the above details.
Did I mention this is horrible? 
Posted by admin on July 9th, 2009 |
0 commentsAfter installing Windows 7, and being very happy with it, I started to notice that my graphics were really struggling. I’m not running anything particularly powerfull, so was starting to think it was just that I needed a better graphics card. When I was moving between windows and using remote desktop the refresh was really painfull and causing the laptop to really work hard.
However, perhaps I was just stupid and didnt think of this, but after my install I switched on the rotating background groups to give me a different background picture every so many minutes. What I hadn’t realised is that this switched a load of Aero features on, and it was this that was causing all the graphics issues for me. I switched back to Windows 7 Basic and everything is lovely and fast again.
Wahoo… go windows 7 yeah!