Bohack

Let me start off by saying I hate Real Player and discourage it’s use. Having said that an alternative is using VLC Media Player or Video LAN Player (same). It was once said that VLC could play a database file if you opened it up, so it definitely supports a simple RTSP Real Time Streaming Protocol URL. However for the end user it’s a little complicated, so to make it easier we can register RTSP:// with Internet Explorer and anytime the user comes across an RTSP link; it’ll just work!

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On most of my Windows boxes I have multiple DVD-RW or CDROM drives. Telling them apart by the letter is always an issue, because I always put the blank CD or DVD in to the wrong drive. The problem is that you can’t right click and go to properties to change the CDROM/DVD-RW label, like you can on a local disk.
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Recently I had to work with Bentley Microstation V8i from a network admin aspect. I needed to adjust certain preferences of the software. Microstation is a CAD application for 2D and 3D work, so this is not a normal blog post for me.

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Window 7 is far more secure than prior Windows operating systems. The Windows directory is secured down with permissions so even an Administrator cannot circumvent security. Some security features are good other not so much, the security on fonts is a good example. I will explain how to allow normal non-privileged users access to install their own fonts without the UAC prompt.

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Windows Advanced Firewall and Security is an excellent “feature add” to the Windows Operating System. In Windows XP Service Pack 2 the Firewall was introduced and was only able to block inbound and was just annoying outbound. In Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 it was revamped to be bidirectional and included IPSEC and Connection Rules. Windows 7 also inherited the revamped and improved firewall as well as Windows Server 2008 R2.

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I had just completed a successful upgrade of my domain controllers at work to Windows Server 2008 R2. After the upgrade we found that anyone that used the proxy and relied in automatic settings could no longer receive the proxy address. This is in “Automatically detect settings” in the “LAN settings” of Internet Explorer options.

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As I finish up my migration from Windows 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 for my companie’s domain controllers; I run thru my check list of settings. The migration from 2003 to 2008 R2 was flawless, however many of the pain points from when I upgraded to 2000 were revisited.

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Sysprep is very useful in preparing an image for cloning / imaging by stripping all specialization from the installation like: drives, SID, PNP enumeration, name and more. During the next reboot PNP is initiated and the Out Of Box Experience is run; this is similar to a preloaded laptop or computer from the factory starting up for the first time.
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When setting up a secure server farm you always want to filter egress traffic. This means that all outbound traffic is blocked by default, including the web traffic from the servers. When surfing is required for drivers and downloads, this is usually handled by setting the proxy in the Internet Explorer options.  However if you want certain processes / services like Windows Update to automatically retrieve updates and wait for manual approval, the next time you login. You need to set a proxy server up and force the Local Machine to use it. The setting in the IE properties page is for the Current User only.

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When you purchase a Dell server you can purchase the Open Manage software, so they ship you media. OpenManage is the software that installs the maintenance partition and the automated install of the operating system as well as firmware updates. However if you did not get media with your server or want the latest version of software; you might run into a problem if you download the software with Internet Explorer and never read the instructions.

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