Archive for category windows
LDP: Active Directory Manangement Tool
Posted by Bloggylife in windows on April 29, 2009
This is one amazing tool! So I’ve been dealing with Microsoft Infrastructure for about 1.5 years now and kind of figuring out my way as I go along ;P
If you deploy LDAP directory such as Microsoft Active Directory, this GUI tool helps you navigate through your AD configuration and display details, which is quite helpful!
Especially if you need to run AD information against any programmed application/forms.
Have you ever used Microsoft Infopath to create forms and created a data connection to your AD? When inserting fields and controls, you can include AD object attributes to be fetched or compared. Which is automatically retrieved and you just have to select your choice but what if you want to configure non-Microsoft product or an in-house developed application that integrates with your LDAP directory.
If the management tool is installed on your Domain Controller that runs your AD services, go to Start -> Run -> LDP
One more thing, you can only run this shortcut, if the path where LDP.exe is stored is included in the PATH environment variable, to check you can go to:
Right click My Computer -> Properties -> Advanced tab -> Environment Variables -> In the System Variables scroll down to Path and include the path where ldp.exe is installed (ex. C:\Program Files\Support Tools) if it’s not there.
After running the tool, Connect to your server running AD and then bind using user with enough administrative privileges.
To view the detailed tree of your AD, go to View -> Tree and fill out your BaseDN and click OK. All the details will be displayed on the left pane, click on any result and it’s details and attributes will be displayed on the right pane.
from the details, you can get the object’s attributes, see below image
There is ALOT more you can do with this tool, this is just to get you going 
Check Out More: link
Microsoft Log Parser
Posted by Bloggylife in technology, troubleshooting, windows on March 6, 2009
I had to give up my log monitoring server, truth to be told, I had it up and running before I went on vacation and so I haven’t been using it much. Anway, gave up the powerful server for some application.
I needed to go over some audit logs that I enabled over specific folders, tens of thousands of entries, I tried filtering them in excel and it took me as far as it could and decided a small code will do the trick, then today I came across this.
Log parser is a powerful, versatile tool that provides universal query access to text-based data such as log files, XML files and CSV files, as well as key data sources on the Windows operating system such as the Event Log, the Registry, the file system, and Active Directory. You tell Log Parser what information you need and how you want it processed. The results of your query can be custom-formatted in text based output, or they can be persisted to more specialty targets like SQL, SYSLOG, or a chart. Most software is designed to accomplish a limited number of specific tasks. Log Parser is different… the number of ways it can be used is limited only by the needs and imagination of the user.
You can run queries which are similar to SQL, I run -h with any command or go through the help file, to come up with the right query. You can specify the input files example (csv, textfile, event logs) and the output, as far as I’ve discovered, can be in textfile, csv, charts, etc.
I had problems, figuring out the correct field names, which can be retried by a simple query or added at the top of your csv file and within the query retrieve the header. I got a bit mixed up whether to use (like, not like, =, ==, <>, !=) and if to include (‘, “). Ya3nee, my memory just needed refreshing.
All is left is to produce a report with my logs analysis and I’m done.
Who wants to bet, that the logs report next week won’t be needed 
Download Microsoft Log Parser here
Exchange 2003: Manage Distribution Group
Posted by Bloggylife in troubleshooting, windows on March 1, 2009
How to restrict modifications to group members?
Distribution groups contain members with common purposes, same department, same functionality.
If security setting is not configured properly, users within the domain can modify the members by add/delete members and changes will be reflected in the Global Address List (GAL), that will be propagated to all users.
The user doesn’t do that necessarily on purpose, they might edit a distribution group thinking it’s only on their outlook address book.
To limit permissions:
- Open Active Directory Users and Computers console
- Go to View -> Advanced features
- Double click the group you want to configure
- Click on security tab
- Locate and select the user/group and check permission in the second window below. Authenticated Users group, are all the domain users, make sure of its permissions
- Remove write permission from the specific user/group to prevent them from modifying group members
IE8
Posted by Bloggylife in technology, windows on January 4, 2009
I just downloaded IE8 beta version link
It didn’t change much, squared tabs and added icons in drop down menus.
They are adopting what web 3.0 is about, personalizing user experience, but I turned this off!
New features I’m curious about web slices, accelerator and smartscreen filter.
As you open the browser and type in the address bar, it’s segmented into parts, auto complete which you can jump to directly by (shift+enter) kinda like (ctrl+enter) that appends (www&com) before and after what you typed in the address bar –I love shortcuts-, the other parts are history and favorites
Some features I noticed
InPrivate under Safety menu, prevents the browser from storing your browsing experience
There is more to check, but still I only use IE when I have to! We’ll see if IE8 changes that.
More info: link
Retrieve Deleted Items from Public Folders
Posted by Bloggylife in troubleshooting, windows on December 24, 2008
Public folders in Exchange 2003 are shared by several users each with set of permissions. So this user calls and requests to restore emails that have been deleted by “unknown”.
I thought I had to pull it out of our backups and a long process but luckily all went smoothly.
In the exchange server -> run Exchange System Manager -> navigate to your Public Folder Store -> Right click -> Properties, you should be able to see the below configuration under the limits tab.
You should have proper permission to retrieve items, and since I’m the owner I had no trouble ;P
In your outlook, select the public folder -> go to tools ->recover deleted items -> select the items from the list and retrieve.
Good thing we keep deleted items, that really made the job a hell lot easier. Talk about anticipating ahead
Source: Link
Centralizing Server Logs
Posted by Bloggylife in technology, windows, work on December 14, 2008
I came across this event management software EventTracker
It’s a solution to centralize all logs which I got from this article
There was another article, talking about utilizing Linux box to do the job
I’m not sure how to go about this, having zero knowledge about Linux. OK, does this OS come with an application that sorts out all the servers logs and events and manage them into a nice interface and reports! I’ll have to discover that
For now, I installed EventTracker on win2003 OS. You can add servers from the domain, it’s installs agents to retrieve the logs, you can configure it as agent-less but of course you won’t have all the features, I guess it’ll go with what SNMP provides which isn’t the whole purpose of my aim! Or maybe another approach, I’m still going through it.
Also, I have to enable more logging on the servers I added, not just user login/logoff events ;P that sort of thing. For example, on the file level, files added/modified/deleted.
You would thing there are many options out there, but I’ve searched a lot and the amount of info I’m collecting is very scarce, how are others centralizing their logs ???
And this product is quiet expensive! Need to explore more … we’ll see about the Linux thing
LOL, I found this in the second article, it’s pretty funny and well true 
“But the truth is that admins typically don’t log routers and switches. When a problem occurs, we just reboot them or restart an interface, and then chalk it up to a hardware glitch.”
To be continued …
Exchange 2003: Message Auto-Reply
Posted by Bloggylife in technology, troubleshooting, windows on October 16, 2008
How do I set up an email auto-reply message?
If you have a distribution group like “customer service” and when someone sends to this group, a reply is sent “Thank you for contacting us, we’ll look into this matter soon”, how is this done??
Sounds simple enough … NO … I looked it up and since we setup a distribution group, there was something about associating the group with a public folder (see link), when following the procedure some weird error kept popping up when trying to save the auto-reply template:
“Changes to the Rule could not be saved.”
From the error, you automatically think “permission problem”, but that didn’t solve the problem and even the procedures to solve this problem didn’t work!
I had to find another way. So this is what we did
1. Create an email account (sales@company.com), because we want to associate rules and with distribution group you can’t because it doesn’t have an email box in exchange
2. Login using that account and configure office outlook as exchange mail
3. Go to tools -> rules and alerts
4. Under “Start from a blank rule” select “Check messages when they arrive” -> next –you can’t do it through OWA-
5. Click Next again and you will get a message “This rule will be applied to every message ….”, click Yes
6. In the next window choose the following actions
a. Have server reply using a specific message
b. Redirect it to people or distribution
c. delete
7. In (a), you’ll get an email message box, write the subject and email body
8. In (b), instead of adding individual users to receive a copy of all emails sent to sales account. Create a distribution group (salesGroup@company.com), add the group in the redirect field. Then add users to the distribution group. This way it is easier to modify the recipients’ list instead of logging everytime and adding or deleting users
9. In (c), I think step (b) automatically deletes the emails in sales account after redirecting them. Nevertheless, this rule to ensure all emails goes to the delete box. This is emptied after specific days. This ensures sales email account size never fills
10. Click Finish
And that’s that If anyone has a better solution, PLEEEAZZZEEE share …
Don’t make the alternative solution too easy, because it took me whole day to get this ;P
Microsoft Way
Posted by Bloggylife in technology, windows on October 14, 2008
These days, I have no energy, maybe because I am fasting. Anyway, to run from dealing with the real issues, like upgrading to exchange 2007, I poke around other stuff!
I had the network monitoring application installed, it should expire by the end of the week. I’m pretty sure we’ll not go with this solution, though I like it. We’ll explore Cisco options or some other high end solution
This was supposed to be light, a brisk breeze configuration, I decided to look into Microsoft and see their Microsoft office server solutions
With Microsoft, it’s never simple! So I wanted to implement Project Server and perhaps Form Server, I just want that! See what I benefit from. But NO they talk about having infopath, sharepoint, etc. OK I know all can be integrated together, but let’s take it one step at a time! I have no idea what infopath is ??? and their site on their products, confuses me more. So I got fed up and just went ahead and shot up my VmWare machines and downloaded the stuff to test
But I am thinking of utilizing live servers, because my PC slowed down plenty and it’s killing me slowly
I’ll start with the Project Server and see where we go from there
Desperately waiting for the weekend …
ManageEngine – OpManager 7
Posted by Bloggylife in technology, windows on September 18, 2008
I was looking for a network management solution to monitor all our network devices, router, switches, servers, etc. and I came across this application OpManager
I formatted a server -hate this task- and downloaded the application. The specification of my server: Pentium III, 1.4 GHz, 1 GB RAM with win2003 installed. That I discovered after the 3 hour formatting process, I couldn’t find the CDs, found them but broken, endless issues, anyway so WTH is this machine still doing here!!!
I love bundled applications, I mean it is a web based application, I didn’t have to install IIS, it utilizes free Apache and MySQL. You have two options when installing, which is straight forward, either the free version and you can monitor upto 10 devices or the professional edition with which you can monitor unlimited devices for 30 days, I choose the later
Once installed run it access through any browser from within your network and assign devices. There is a discover devices options or you can add the devices manually. Also, to monitor more than what the ping can offer enable SNMP on all devices. On Windows OS, Go to the Services console -> SNMP Services -> right click -> properties -> Security tab and assign them the same community name, ex. “Public” and either accept packets from any host or add the network monitor server to the list. If SNMP is not installed, Go to Add/remove programs -> Add/Remove windows component -> Management and Monitoring tools -> details -> SNMP
On Cisco devices, you should see something like this: snmp-server community public RO
What I love is for every feature there is a test button. If you configure email alerts, you can test. Monitor features and thresholds. I like the fact that you can choose that your session never expires, so you don’t have to sign in again after sometime
I discovered and manually entered the devices. I categorized them in server, router, switch, etc. I set notification profiles and set email alarms. I am looking into monitoring the event logs
Still I am in the exploration phase, I got 27 days till the license expires. Whenever I am free I configure and customize it more
We tried one other application which was Netsmart which wasn’t a successful experience. No matter how good the application is, if it doesn’t have an easy to use interface and it is manageable then it’s a hard sell
xobni – Outlook Plug-in
Posted by Bloggylife in technology, windows on September 15, 2008
I use Microsoft’s outlook for my work mail. As I was reading PC World magazine, I came across this recommended outlook plug-in. I went on and installed it from xobni
After installation, the indexing process started. A total size of 1.5 GB, I am not sure how long it took, because I installed this just before leaving work and I kept it running and I left
The interface is really nice, it’s just another pane added in the view and the most thing I love is how fast the searching feature is and how neat and the information it provides. First I was a bit annoyed that I didn’t get to choose the folders I search, sometimes I just want to search the inbox, the sent items or any other sub-folder I created. I did that because it was such a hassle using the built-in search so I would narrow the search space like that but with xobni it didn’t make much of a difference because it is fast and informs you where the item was found
Another nice feature, it extracts the contacts information in a nice way from the email message itself. And provides information history about that specific contact. The files exchanged, the chain of emails, the contact’s people network and another cool feature are the information some kind of statistics, who you send emails to the most, received from, fastest response, simple funny facts, there are charts, you can take a look at all these facts when you’re bored or need a break!
Today, I saw another beta module added, where they ask questions, like a survey, today’s question was, Are you happy? didn’t answer this question of course
I’m still happy with this plug-in, it made searching a lot easier and much more faster
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