If for any reason there is a sudden rash of user accounts locking the following tools might be useful. The AD console allows you to right click on a User and view the properties of the account. Under the 'Account' tab there is a checkbox that says "Account is locked." If it is checked, the account is locked. Simply uncheck the box to unlock the account. lockoutstatus.exe is … [Read more...]
DStools – Active Directory scripting
You can use some tools to add Active Directory interaction into your batch scripts. DS tools come with the admin pack from Microsoft for Windows XP or Windows Server 2003. You can use dsquery to retrieve information from the AD or use dsmod to adjust settings related to an OU, user, or computer account. Additionally, there is: dsadd dsget dsmove dsrm I use dsmod to change the … [Read more...]
XAMPP – Easy Windows web server
In a matter of minutes, a package can be installed and convert your desktop machine to a web server. Using XAMPP, the ability to create a web server is very easy. It works for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, and Solaris. It installs Apache, MySQL, and PHP. After that, start the service and you're ready to go. Simply copy a file to C:xampphtdocs and it's available on the web. With … [Read more...]
Remote Administration – Troubleshooting without leaving your chair
Remote Desktop - Windows Server 2003 allows you to connect with multiple sessions so you can use Remote Desktop (available from Windows 2000-Vista) to work in the background to perform installs or other routine maintenance. Other operating systems have limitations on the multiple session aspect, so if you connect to a Windows XP machine, you would have to disconnect a local … [Read more...]
USB port not displaying jump drive under My Computer
A USB flash drive inserted into one USB port stopped being fully recognized by the computer. A second later, it would work perfectly fine in the port right next to the non-working one. The jump drive was not working by the following terms: It did not show up as a drive under My Computer. The disk management tool under the Microsoft Management Console did not show any file … [Read more...]