Tag: Windows

Hardware

Find the Dell Service Tag Remotely

Windows with VNC/RDP

If you can login to the computer over VNC or RDP, you can use wmic to find the service tag:
start > run > cmd
On the command line, enter:
wmic bios get serialnumber

Windows without VNC/RDP

If you cannot login to the computer over VNC or RDP, you can still use wmic to find the service tag:
start > run > cmd
On the command line, enter:
wmic /node:computer-name-here bios get serialnumber
You may need to use /user:yourusername and /password:yourpassword to get access to the remote computer. Running wmic /? gives a pretty good manual on what wmic can do.

Other uses of wmic

wmic is a very useful tool for a lot of stuff. For instance wmic csproduct can tell you exactly what model the computer is and wmic nic list shows useful information about your network.

Linux

Under Linux, you can run dmidecode -s system-serial-number to get the serial number. This can be done locally or over ssh.

© GeekLabInfo Find the Dell Service Tag Remotely is a post from GeekLab.info. You are free to copy materials from GeekLab.info, but you are required to link back to http://www.geeklab.info

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IT

Run a batch file invisibly

Save this one line of text as c:\windows\quiet.vbs
CreateObject("Wscript.Shell").Run """" & WScript.Arguments(0) & """", 0, False
To run a batch file invisibly, start it using the following command:
wscript.exe "C:\windows\quiet.vbs" "C:\path\file.bat"

© GeekLabInfo Run a batch file invisibly is a post from GeekLab.info. You are free to copy materials from GeekLab.info, but you are required to link back to http://www.geeklab.info

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IT

Error 1913: Setup cannot update file C:\windows\win.ini

Installing Microsoft Office 2010 using the preinstalled "out of the box" function, I got this error:
Error 1913: Setup cannot update file C:\windows\win.ini

Permissions were right. I could rename the file, so that means it was not in use by some other program... but apparently it was Trend Micro blocking the installation.

Using services.msc I disabled all Trend Micro stuff, finished the install and rebooted to get all services running as normal.

© GeekLabInfo Error 1913: Setup cannot update file C:\windows\win.ini is a post from GeekLab.info. You are free to copy materials from GeekLab.info, but you are required to link back to http://www.geeklab.info

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IT

List user creation date for Active Directory users

On my SBS 2003 server, I wanted to know when a user was created. This info is extracted with ldifde

ldifde -d OU=SBSUsers,OU=Users,OU=MyBusiness,DC=xxx,DC=yyy -l whencreated -r "(ObjectCategory=user)" -f usercreationdate.txt

A file usercreationdate.txt is now created with the requested report.

© GeekLabInfo List user creation date for Active Directory users is a post from GeekLab.info. You are free to copy materials from GeekLab.info, but you are required to link back to http://www.geeklab.info

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IT

Remove “standby” from shutdown window

I recently discovered that one of my most annoying users has found another way to frustrate the WSUS update process: First, she simply didn't shutdown the computer when she went home. Now I've installed a psshutdown script on the SBS Server that forces a shutdown every evening, she found out that she could put the computer in hibernation mode. Which of course isn't a bad idea to shutdown the computer in the lunch break, but is terrible for the administrative processes if you do it every night, day after day.

The solution

I removed the hibernation option from the shutdown window. This can be done by adding a parameter to the ACPI section of the registry:
Key: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ACPI\Parameters
Attribute name: Attributes
Attribute value: 0x70

You can change this parameter on the command line:
reg add "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ACPI\Parameters" /v Attributes /t REG_DWORD /d 0x70 /f

To use this in a GPO, you'll need to create a .adm file... or simply run above command as a startup/shutdown script.

© GeekLabInfo Remove "standby" from shutdown window is a post from GeekLab.info. You are free to copy materials from GeekLab.info, but you are required to link back to http://www.geeklab.info

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IT

Backup your WSUS database

"c:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\binn\SQLCMD.EXE" -E -S np:\\.\pipe\MSSQL$MICROSOFT##SSEE\sql\query -Q "BACKUP DATABASE [SUSDB] TO DISK = N'C:\backups\SUSDB.BAK' WITH NOFORMAT, INIT, NAME = N'WSUS Database Backup', SKIP,NOREWIND, NOUNLOAD, STATS = 10"

c:\backups must be writable by the user that is running the database. In my case, I believe this is user "NETWORK SERVICE".

© GeekLabInfo Backup your WSUS database is a post from GeekLab.info. You are free to copy materials from GeekLab.info, but you are required to link back to http://www.geeklab.info

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