Posts Tagged Microsoft
Outlook Address History
Posted by Bloggylife in troubleshooting, windows on May 7, 2009
I’ve transferred to a new machine. As my email client, I use outlook at work and I was annoyed that all my address history that I didn’t store in my contacts, aren’t displayed any more. After a quick search, I knew which file to transfer from my old machine to the new one to get this problem fixed.
C:\Documents and Settings\user name\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.NK2
Copy the .NK2 file to the exact location of your new machine, but becareful that it’ll overwrite your cached addresses on your other machine!
Of course I had my outlook closed during the whole copy paste process, then I opened it to take in the new file, it detected that the outlook wasn’t closed properly and tried to repair. After the process finished, I typed in my old address and out they come 
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
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