ajbritton

@free4440273: You CANNOT do everything that Ranger can do with AD and GPOs. Tell me how you do the following (with just AD and GPO mind, no scripts/add-ons)... (NB - taken from Ranger web site) - Prevent specific dialog boxes from appearing - Prevent applications by time of day - Log all user activity and attempted security violations to server's management system - Start ad-hoc applications on clients - Produce graphs of network/application usage - Enforce license control of applications across the network - Get an instant visual indication of applications in use - Simplified account management (inc. bulk creation) - Application packaging (before/after snapshot method) - List attempted security violations Personally, I don't use Ranger because most of my work is in primary schools who could not afford it. BUT THIS DOES NOT MEAN IT'S FOR MORONS AND OF NO VALUE. I do not see how reading this sort of comment helps out a user who is trying to find management solutions for their network. If all you are going to do is post hyperbole and think jump on the back of other peoples comments to say 'oh yes, that's what I meant', then please don't bother. My apologies to other users if this seems like a personal crusade. As I said, I don't use Ranger but I can see that it might be of use to some. (In fact, an ex-colleage of mine who went to become network manager of a large secondary school regarded it as invaluable. He was certainly no moron but Ranger made his life easier.) Maybe we could start a WiKi in which Ranger users could accurately list the useful features and we could then assess how easily these might be replaced with scripts/open source/3rd party solutions.

At the risk of being shot down/deleted, I believe Ranger can monitor software usage (as well as provide other security functions). It's a while since I looked at it, and other board members feelings are quite strong about it. However, if you're moving up from WinSuite, it might be worth looking at.

Latest version of UltraVNC no longer conflicts with windows terminal services. This means you can enable both on XP PCs and have the choice of RDP and VNC.

I was going to suggest Ranger (which can spot and kill any dialog box enabling you to defeat different installers), but I'm sure I'll be shot down by the raw AD & GPO crowd (don't get me wrong, I'm raw AD & GPO myself!) but here's a thought. You could do the same thing using AutoIt. It's possible to write an AutoIt script which sits on the system waiting for certain windows to appear and killing them automatically. I use the technique for automating nasty software installations which pop up dialogs mid-install. AutoIt is clever enough not to hog the CPU. The only tricky bit would be constructing the mechanism to distribute a central list of 'windows to kill'. If anyone is interested in this idea (or can see a reason why it wouldn't work), post here to let me know. Maybe I'll write the script...

Not bad. In a recent test (forget which mag), the Corsair came out on top Corsair Flash

Quick and dirty file copying script. NB - THIS IS SUPPLIED WITH MINIMAL TESTING (BUT IT DID WORK, HONEST!), PLEASE TEST CAREFULLY BEFORE USING IN PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENT. 1 - Create (or use an existing) GPO 2 - Edit the GPO and go to Computer Config\Windows Settings\Scripts (Startup/Shutdown) 3 - Double click Startup 4 - Click Show Files... 5 - Make a folder 'CopyShortcuts' and extract the content of the CopyShortcuts.zip file into it. 6 - Copy any shortcuts into the sub-folders (AllUsersDesktop, AllUsersStartMenu etc.) 7 - Close the explorer window to return to the Startup Properties dialog box 8 - Click Add then Browse, CopyShortcuts (folder), CopyShortcuts.cmd, Open, OK 9 - OK to close Startup Properties 10 - Close GP Editor 11 - Link to GPO to an OU containing computer accounts you want to apply the script to. If anyone uses this, let me know if it works/crashes. Thanks again to Geoff for headsup on %0 copyshortcuts.zip

Thanks Geoff. It seems I should have used %~0 which removes the " marks.

@Geoff: That's interesting. Can you tell me any more about this? I've never had any problems (at least none that I've noticed)!

@Ric_: I think you may have misread the original post. I believe what tosca is aksing for is a script which copies shortcuts to the 'All Users' desktop and 'All Users' Start Menu as opposed to all users' desktops & start menus. When I get a chance (I'm on a training course this week), I will write a script which can be used to copy data to any location on PCs. I'll write it on the basis that the data will be included in the GPO (and should therefore be limited to shortcuts/links to keep it tight). It should be quiet simple, along the lines of; xcopy "%0\..\AllUsersDesktop\*.*" "%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Desktop" /s /y xcopy "%0\..\AllUsersStartMenu\*.*" "%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Start Menu" /s /y etc. Sit the script at the top level of a directory structure as follows; .\ - Script goes here .\AllUsersDesktop - Links for All Users desktop .\AllUsersStartMenu - Links for All Users Start Menus etc. This should run fine as a startup script, provided the environment variables exist (if not, it will have to be in VB Script). The script (and associated dir structure) could be used on any GPO. PS - Ric_: Which is easiest for your USERS (you know, the people who you SERVICE), for you to write a script, or for them to recreate all their profiles and associated data?

@Ric_: Why will he have to do anything with his roaming profiles? He does not want to change them, only to affect the content of the All Users profile on his PCs. and STOP SLAGGING OFF ROAMING PROFILES. @tosca: You can run a startup script which copies anything from a network location to anywhere you like on the local computer. The only requirement is that you give the 'domain computers' group at least Read/List permissions to the share/files you will be copying from. Another solution is to include the files you are copying in the GPO scripts folder (the same place as the script is stored).

There is no such command as DATE. It's only accessible from within one of the command processors (e.g. COMMAND.COM or CMD.EXE). You could try constructing a command line something like this... CMD.EXE /C DATE dd/mm/yyyy

Pear, Not sure what you mean by waiting. The uninstall will run the next time the PC is restarted. If you need to cause the restart in a hurry, use shutdown.exe or PSSHUTDOWN. As for logging, I maintain a hidden share on a server for logging. As long as permissions are set correctly, you should be able to redirect output using UNC path e.g. \\(servername)\(log share)\(process name)\%COMPUTERNAME%.LOG This would give you a log for each PC. If you create your log in CSV format then you can import all the logs into Access or similar to compare results.

Why not run the uninstall script as a computer startup script. That way it would execute when nobody was logged on.

@ChrisH: But surely the script would execute under the context of the remote user if executed by PSTOOLS, which would mean that UserName would return a non-null value....?

@SYSMAK_MK Yep, it's very handy. It's just a pity the GPMC integration isn't a bit better. It would be great if all the settings appeared there as well as GP Editor.

To sort the Start Menu, you need to DELETE the following registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ MenuOrder\Start Menu The way that I do this in AD is by using the PolicyMaker Registry Extension, which is a freely downloadable GP client side extension (Desktop Standard PolicyMaker Registry Extension). This lets you make registry changes via GP. Alternatively, create a simple logon script which does the following (NB - NOT TESTED) REG DELETE "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MenuOrder\Start Menu" /f and add it to a group policy which affects user accounts. You can also sort the Favourites list by deleting HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ MenuOrder\Favorites

D:\TEMP\UnxUtils\usr\local\wbin>mkdir touchtest D:\TEMP\UnxUtils\usr\local\wbin>dir touchtes* Volume in drive D is Data Volume Serial Number is 1891-F909 Directory of D:\TEMP\UnxUtils\usr\local\wbin 15/11/2005 21:15 touchtest 0 File(s) 0 bytes 1 Dir(s) 7,943,389,184 bytes free D:\TEMP\UnxUtils\usr\local\wbin>touch -a touchtest touch: touchtest: Permission denied D:\TEMP\UnxUtils\usr\local\wbin> What am I doing wrong? Incidentally, I tried TOUCHing a file, and sure enough, the 'Modified' and 'Accessed' dates change, but the 'Created' date does not.

Thanks Geoff, I'll give that a go...

@free448345878789327932: If you think that W2K3 server & AD can do everything that Ranger can do then I guess you never figured out how to use Ranger. I suggest you try reading the Ranger manual or look at the website. Maybe you could go on a course.

OK, can you give me the syntax to use touch to change the date on a folder?

Touch only updates the access / modification times, not the created time.

I need to write a script to change the 'creation date' on a folder. I can do it manually using something like Attribute Changer, but I need to do it by script. It can be VBS or CMD. Help !

If the original had also been deployed using Group Policy, you could have deployed the new version and marked it as 'upgrading' the old version. The old version would then have been removed automatically. You could try the following, but I've no idea if it would work... 1 - Load the old & new version of the app onto your distribution point 2 - Allocate the old version of the app with GP 3 - Allocate the new version of the app with GP and indicate that it upgrades the older version. If you are lucky, GP might convert existing installations of the old version to 'managed' versions then upgrade them to the new versions. I would strongly suggest that you test this theory before trying it for real! Another option would be to use something like WPKG to remove the old versions prior to installing the new ones. Again, I have never tried this, but WPKG looks quite flexible. I just don't know if it could uninstall something that it did not install in the first place. Final possibility is to script it. As the installation is a Windows Installer one, it would be possible to remove it by issuing the following command; msiexec /x {product code} You can determine the product code of the old version of the app either by looking it up in the PROPERTY table of the MSI itself (use ORCA to load it), or by looking in the registry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Products again, test, test, test!

Would I be right in thinking that for a single Exchange box to work across two domains, the domains must be in the same forest? If this is not the case, I would be interested to know how users from a domain in a seperate forest can use an exchange box in another (without duplicate user accounts anyway).

PEBuilder gets my vote. Bart rules.