Remote Assistance via Command Line in Windows 7

I use to offer remote assistance using a shortcut in XP.  That no longer works with Windows 7.  Instead the easiest way I’ve found is to use the command line.

To run Remote Assistance Windows 7 uses a program called MSRA.exe.  MSRA.exe can be run from the command line.  So the easiest way to offer remote assistance to a user is to run:  msra /offerra <computername>.

I’ve put this in a script so I can just type the computer name and connect.

@echo off
set /p Name=Connect to?:
MSRA /offerra %Name%

That will work assuming RA is enabled on the other PC and it is within the same domain.  For more info on using RA see the wonderfully titled TechNet article Remote Assistance and Resulting Internet Communication in Windows 7.

Technorati Tags: Command Line, msra, remote assistance, shortcut, windows, Windows 7

Set a Trusted Site in Group Policy

I’m now in an environment where the end users don’t have access to any of the Tabs in Internet Options. So they can’t add their own Trusted Sites. Apparently this was never an problem until they needed to run software on a Bank’s Website.

I needed a way to manage their Trusted Sites for them and luckily Group Policy provides that way. In this case I edited the GPO that also denied their access to the Internet Options Tabs.

Once in the Group Policy Editor for the policy of choice:

• Browse to User Configuration/Administrative Templates/Windows Components/Internet Explorer/Internet Control Panel/Security Page/
  
• Enable the Site to Zone Assignment List
• Click Show
• Click Add to add a web site to the list
• Value Name = url (ie. https://somedomain.com)
• Value = # of zone assignment (Trusted Sites = 2)

This could be used to assign sites to any of the 4 zones.

1. Intranet Zone
2. Trusted Sites Zone
3. Internet Zone
4. Restricted Sites Zone.

I also set the Trusted Site Zone to the default Low setting.  Which is done at

• User Configuration/Administrative Templates/Windows Components/Internet Explorer/Internet Control Panel/Security Page/
• Enable Trusted Sites Zone Template
• Pick Low on the Trusted Sites drop down.
  

Technorati Tags: GPO, Group Policy, IE, Internet Explorer, Trusted Sites

Locations of Folder Redirection Related Registry Keys.

I had never had this happen before, but we could not change the location of a redirected My Documents folder after setting up a client with a new server. I’m not sure we ever figured out the whys of it, any ideas? However we did figure out a work around.

For users who existed before the server was replaced, the Group Policy to redirect their My Documents folders wasn’t applying the new location. Also you couldn’t change the Target Location in the My Document’s properties menu (it was grayed out). For newly created uses the Group Policy worked just fine.

The only way to change the target of My Documents was in the local Registry. There were two places to look:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders

As you can see from the picture my entries are just the default entries. On the machines we worked on they were pointing to the network shares on the old server. Sometimes the entry would be in User Shell Folders only, Shell Folders only, or both.

Just change the Key you need with the location you want and that should do it (ex.  \\server1\users\jdoe).

For more information also see: http://support.microsoft.com/?id=221837

Technorati Tags: folder redirection, registry keys, windows

Version 3.1 drained my 3G iPhone’s battery?

Woke up this morning to a dead iPhone. I updated to v3.1 last night, listened to an audio book for about 30 mins and woke up to my iPhone having a dead battery this morning. I was able to get it to boot up by plugging it in and holding the sleep/wake and home button together for 10 secs. I’ve seen where others have had issues with 3.1 as well. I’m recharging now. We’ll see.

UPDATE… Later that night.

So far so good.  Maybe it was just reindexing my phone or something.  Whew what a relief, I thought it was gonna be a brick for a while there.  If you have this issue let the battery run itself down completely.  Then reset the phone while it’s plugged in.  Worked for me anyway.

UPDATE… the next morning

Woke up this morning to a dead iPhone.  Not just dead but hot to the touch as well.  I plugged it in and did a reset.  The phone came up but still had 1/2 the batter life.  Is it doing something over night that would cause it to overheat.  I dunno.  What will happen tonight???

UPDATE… weeks later.

No much shutting down overnight but it does run hot.  When playing a game or running an application for a long period of time the iPhone warms up significantly.  Never used to do that before.

Technorati Tags: 3.1, 3g, iphone

Moved to Florida

Well I moved to Florida this month. What a pain. I’ll never do that again (yeah right). Anyway I’m also unemployed now, which is great. So I don’t know that I’ll have much to blog about for a while but we’ll see. I’m spending most of my days job hunting. Need a Sys Admin in Florida? Let me know.

Disabling File and Printer Sharing for just Wireless Connections.

Sometimes things are so simple I wonder why I didn’t think of that.  Here is another tidbit I learn from the Security Now podcast over on the Twit Network.

I know that Vista asks you if you are connecting to a home, work or public wireless connection and adjusts its security settings accordingly.  If you are using XP and connecting to a public WiFi one easy thing to do that helps your security profile is turn off Flie and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks on just the wireless connection.

For instance, at home I plug my laptop into the router with a cable most of the time.  So on the Local Area Connection I want file and printer sharing turned on all the time.

However I often use my laptop at coffee shops where I’m on a network with a bunch of others (I believe Starbuck’s AT&T connection is this way too).   If I left my file sharing on then everyone at the coffee shop would have access to my shared files and certain malware will take advantage of this.

So to disable just file and printer sharing for your wireless connection go to your Wireless Network Connection properties and uncheck “File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks”.  The you’ll be a tad bit safer on public WiFi.

Technorati Tags: file and printer sharing, file sharing, security, wireless, xp

DHCPLOC Utility

I never new about this one but we had a reason so use it yesterday. Computers at one of the stores were being given false DNS entries by a false DHCP server. Since others may see this malware on their systems the DNS Servers it used were: 64.86.133.51 and 63.243.173.162

On one of the machines in the dealership that was acting as a DHCP server, but how to find it? The DHCP entries didn’t give any clues because they said the false DHCP server was our gateway router. Even though the gateway router could support DHCP it was not configured to do so. My first thought was to turn off our valid DHCP server, use Wireshark on a PC, intiate some DHCP request from a PC, and see where replies were coming from. Probably would’ve worked but this was even easier.

DHCPLOC is a ulitity included in Windows Support Tools. Basically you run it from a computer connected to the network and it will monitor DHCP replies. Depending on the syntax you use it can filter out responses from your valid DHCP servers or just show everything. The syntax I used was:

dhcploc /p ComputerIPAddresss ValidDHCPServerIPAddress

/p – dhcploc will not show packets from valid DHCP servers
ComputerIPAddress – ip address of the computer you are running dhcploc from
ValidDHCPServerIPAddress – ip address of valid DHCP server that /p will ignore

Anyway it worked like a charm. DHCP replies were coming from an IP that shouldn’t be responding to DHCP requests. I looked up the IP, called the store, and had them unplug it from the network till I could get out there. Problem solved.

I’ll refer you to WindowsNetworking.com for more information on using DHCPLOC since that’s were I learned about it.

Technorati Tags: dhcploc, false DHCP server, Windows Support Tools

PayPal’s Shipping Link

For whatever reason this is hard to find. Paypay.com offers delivery confirmation from USPS for 18 cents (vs. 60 cents from USPS). You just have to buy your label from PayPal.

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_ship-now&info

You’ll need to have a PayPal account and it will ask you to log in before you’ll see the shipping options.

Technorati Tags: delivery confirmation, paypal, shipping

Seeing the NTFS Security Tab in XP Home.

Maybe there is an easier way to do this, but I found myself desperately trying to change the permissions on a bunch of folders using XP Home. Turns out that unless your in Safe Mode (I haven’t tried this) you can’t see the Security tab for a given folder in XP Home Edition.

One solution for this is to install the Security Configuration Manager (made by Microsoft for Windows 2000). Then even if you are not in Safe Mode you can see the Security Tab and make changes to the NTFS permissions.

Here is the link I used to find this information with a little howto:
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_home_sectab.htm

Are you curious why I couldn’t boot in Safe Mode? I was using Crossloop to remote into the machine in question.

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Internet Explorer 8

Ok I admit it, I like IE 8. It runs good enough, looks good, InPrivate Browsing is good, and I like that one tab or window won’t crash all my IE tabs. However I won’t use it because it doesn’t have in-line spell checking.

Sure I can download a add-on to get spell checking but that’s not in-line either. As I type Firefox will underline misspelled words. With IE8, the best I can do is a spell check after I’m done typing and that’s using an add-on call ieSpell. If they can do it in MS Word why not in IE???

Technorati Tags: IE8, Internet Explorer 8, spell check