Microsoft Genuine Advantage – Diagnostic Site and Downloadable Utility

These diagnostic pages will help you ensure that your Mozilla Firefox Web browser (1.0.5 or later) settings are configured properly to see images and run scripts. They will also ensure that the appropriate helper applications, such as the Genuine Advantage Plug-in for Firefox, is installed.You will be walked through the troubleshooting process step by step. If your configuration settings are not correct, you will be provided with suggestions to resolve the problem. If your problem persists, you will be provided with information about where you can obtain additional assistance.

Note: Running Microsoft Genuine Advantage diagnostic process will not automatically restart the validation process. It will only help configure your computer as needed to run the validation process.
What will be checked?

* If scripting is turned on
* If images display correctly
* If the System Date and Time are relatively correct
* If cookies are enabled
* If the Microsoft Genuine Advantage plug-ins load correctly
* If the Microsoft Genuine Advantage plug-ins are able to successfully connect to the validation servers

You can also try the MGA downloadable utility.

Microsoft User Profile Hive Cleanup Service – A service to help with slow log off and unreconciled profile problems

The Microsoft User Profile Hive Cleanup service (UPHclean) helps to ensure user sessions are completely terminated when a user logs off. System processes and applications occasionally maintain connections to registry keys in the user profile after a user logs off. In those cases the user session is prevented from completely ending. This can result in problems when using Roaming User Profiles in a server environment or when using locked profiles as implemented through the Shared Computer Toolkit for Windows XP.

On Windows 2000 you can benefit from this service if the application event log shows event id 1000 where the message text indicates that the profile is not unloading and that the error is “Access is denied”. On Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 either event ids 1517 and 1524 indicate the same profile unload problem.

To accomplish this the service monitors for logged off users that still have registry hives loaded. When that happens the service determines which application have handles opened to the hives and releases them. It logs the application name and what registry keys were left open. After this the system finishes unloading the profile.

Supported Operating Systems: Windows 2000; Windows Server 2003; Windows XP

AutoPatcher is back (sort of)

You can find the updated AutoPatcher Updater here. In case you’re not familiar with AutoPatcher, it’s a wonderful program that slipstreams Microsoft patches and updates into a Windows XP distribution point or CD. I’d integrate the updates of my choice into a CD to use for my unattended Windows XP deployments.

Back in August Microsoft sent the AutoPatcher folks a cease and desist order. It seems Microsoft’s big contention was AutoPatcher was a method of circumventing Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA), their mechanism for ensuring pirated copies of their software were not able to download updates.

Ghacks.net has some nice screenshots of the AutoPatcher Updater interface.

ShareWatch – see who is connected to a computer and what files they are accessing.

Have you ever wondered why your hard drive or modem is active, but you aren’t doing anything to cause it to be active? It is possible a remote user is accessing your computer.

Have you ever had a file locked but you don’t know why? ShareWatch can tell you if a network user is using the file and allows you to disconnect them so that you can edit/delete the file.

Have you ever wanted to shutdown a computer, but don’t want to drop people using the computer? ShareWatch will show you all resources in use by remote users.

Here are some features of ShareWatch…

• Watch shares on local and remote servers.
• Shows the users and computers that are connected to each share, along with what files are open.
• Allows you to disconnect any file, user, computer, or share.
• Address book lookup to show you the details about each user connected (this feature is turned off by default)
• Computer lookup to show you both the computer name and IP address of the computers connected.
• Can be run as a tray application.
• Supports top-most and transparency.
• Works on Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista.
• Multithreaded to allow servers to be queried independently from each other while not blocking each other or the user interface.

Windows 2000 Server management tools

Windows 2000 Resource Kit Tools for administrative tasks

Windows 2000 Support Tools: DCDiag.exe Utility Update

Windows 2000 Support Tools: Netdiag.exe Update

Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 Support Tools

Don’t forget to install the Support Tools from the installation CD.  Run \Support\Tools\suptools.msi.  An Alphabetical list of support tools can be found here.

Windows Server 2003 management tools

Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools

Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools Updates

Windows Server 2003 Administration Tools Pack

Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 Administration Tools Pack

Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 32-bit Support Tools

Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 32-bit Support Tools

Windows Server 2003 R2 Administration Tools Pack (x86)

Windows Server 2003 R2 Administration Tools Pack (x64)

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Performance Advisor

don’t forget about the Windows Support Tools that ships on the installation media.  To install support tools, run \Support\Tools\suptools.msi.  You can find a list of the support tools here.