tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-130857252011-11-05T11:56:54.237+11:00Somewhere on the vast net... just merging along with the entire domain...n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comBlogger791100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-71037877828679452602010-05-30T19:20:00.006+10:002010-05-30T19:32:58.423+10:00

The weapon damage weightings in Bad Company 2 have been off since day one. There have been a few tweaks here and there, but the fact that a bolt action sniper rifle doesn't necessarily kill with 1 shot is ridiculous, especially when your opponent is carrying an assault rifle. The latest problem I have seen is with the SPAS-12, although several times in the past few weeks I have fallen victim to

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-52281258701590940412010-05-28T08:35:00.006+10:002010-05-28T08:47:29.683+10:00

Not best in terms of kill/death ratio or score... was just a really enjoyable Rush game on Arica Harbour (favourite game mode, one of my favourite maps) with a couple of clan mates. The attackers were 1 man up pretty much the whole time, with less than 20 players on the whole time which was nice - the right amount of players for a good game. We managed to successfully defend mcom station B on

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-19227886633326809382010-05-17T04:14:00.009+10:002010-05-17T06:56:56.738+10:00

One of the things that has blown up in the past few years is Cloud computing, and specifically Amazon Web Services. One of the other things that has blown up has been the invasion of privacy, particularly with regards to the Internet. So here's how you can send a big "fuck you" to any peeping tom governments, corporations, or individuals. The post will take you through the process of setting up

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-82801895519626117432010-05-16T23:10:00.004+10:002010-05-16T23:19:13.454+10:00

How ironic that my last post was about making the switch to Linux... and then I dropped off the face of the earth for 3 years. Well a lot has gone down since then, but no point in boring you with the details. So I'm back with the hacks that don't make me stacks, but I don't share what I know to try and make some dough... peas.

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-9640504302997630952007-05-23T22:50:00.000+10:002007-05-23T23:01:38.665+10:00

I've lost count of how many time I've heard people say "I installed Vista, but I'm back to XP now". People who know enough to be comfortable with rebuilding their own systems of course, one wonders how many of the general population would do the same if they knew how.I'm going one step further now... today I received a free VMware Workstation 6 key (being a VCP and all), and I redeemed it for the

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-63995488543333411162007-05-09T20:54:00.000+10:002007-05-09T20:59:21.355+10:00

Yes sir, the latest major revision of VMware Workstation has finally gone gold. The revision number is not far above the RC, so I'm guessing there haven't been many changes between the RC and the final product. I found the RC to be rock solid, and was running the various betas for quite some time (and submitted my share of bugs, which were fixed over the course of the beta). Go grab it now!

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-35666550959765389312007-04-16T23:54:00.000+10:002007-04-16T23:56:41.353+10:00

Say goodbye to your precious time...Desktop Tower Defense

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-60029701775770797722007-04-15T13:52:00.000+10:002007-04-15T14:09:07.945+10:00

That's right, the Microsoft MBSM (Marketing Bull Shit Machine) is really cranking into gear, this time via Mike Neil posting on the otherwise respectable Windows Server Division blog (Ward, none of this is directed at you, you do a fine job. It's when those marketing types somehow take over your blog that things go down the toilet).Seriously Mike, do you think the ppl reading Ward's blog are

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-77133256593285635682007-03-25T10:49:00.000+10:002007-03-25T10:55:44.681+10:00

Yes that's right, build 42757 was released on the 23rd and is the first public RC of Workstation 6.0. Aside from the usual slew of bugfixes, the biggest deal for anyone using it is that debugging is finally configurable! In the betas, debugging was set to Full and there was nothing you could do about it, which is reasonable enough for a beta I guess. Now it's set to 'none' by default :-)It's also

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-62589821892829035772007-03-14T18:15:00.000+11:002007-03-14T19:54:26.193+11:00

Pick your flavour, and check out the deployment guide, a useful read if you're gonna slipstream R2 with it's 2 CD's. Here's hoping Microsoft never do that again...

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-85242213037769268262007-03-06T22:28:00.000+11:002007-03-06T23:38:46.669+11:00

First of all was VMware's dummy spit regarding Microsoft's so called 'anti-competitive' behaviour (in a product that doesn't even exist yet), now Microsoft are starting to crank up the marketing machine for their upcoming virtualisation product. Seriously, when are these companies ever going to learn that you do not win the hearts and minds of the tech community with this kind of tripe?VMware

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-73533289498987610582007-03-02T22:49:00.000+11:002007-03-03T12:13:08.814+11:00

With the aging of the population, and more people who were brought up with consoles and PC's in the household moving into positions of influence and amassing majority in the academic and media circles, I am sure studies like this will start showing up more and more.Let's just hope each successive generation doesn't fall into the same traps as the last. You'd think the baby boomers who were raised

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-49665252668262678912007-02-18T12:49:00.000+11:002007-02-18T12:52:36.512+11:00

Build 6001-16461-070209-1510 (yowza!) is out now... I'm guessing this is not a milestone release, but will probably grab the bits anyway and waste some time seeing if I can install IIS 7 on 2003 and trying to find a mention of the final product name!

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-56247051956622703332007-02-09T14:49:00.000+11:002007-01-23T12:54:50.189+11:00

Build 39849 of the Workstation 6.0 beta is out... and boy am I loving this product. It's so good, even the free price tag of Virtual PC 2007 is not worth it in comparison.Go get it now!

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-19452537365375477872007-01-19T22:35:00.000+11:002007-01-23T12:54:50.310+11:00

Mike Laverick over at RTFM (link in my linkage section) has made a post regarding a Dell whitepaper that has just been released, that purports to compare "2 socket vs 4 socket hardware", specifically the Dell 2950 vs the HP DL585 G2. As a longtime reader of Mike's blog and someone with enormous respect for his opinions and contribution to the VMware community, Mike - I'm severely disappointed in

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-18353313114601982622007-01-14T20:31:00.000+11:002007-01-14T21:13:46.779+11:00

I've made the switch to the Workstation 6.0 beta on my main desktop now... it's totally awesome. Although I did find a few bugs, they are mostly minor or cosmetic (except for one really huge, massive one which I'll describe shortly). And sure the full debugging mode might have a little impact on performance, but not enough to make me care. The fact that I can use VNC to connect to VM's now (just

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-78778559498508469982007-01-13T20:46:00.000+11:002007-01-13T21:00:58.557+11:00

WSS 3.0 totally rocks, and to facilitate faster dev environment provisioning, I whipped up a quick unattended install that y'all might be interested in.It assumes you have already install IIS and .NET Framework 2.0, and enabled the ASP.NET 2.0 web extension (aspnet_regiis -i -enable). So for the rest, I have an ISO with 2 directories, NETFX30 and WSS30. Then I have the following in a batchfile

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-65251236132684334602007-01-12T23:33:00.000+11:002007-01-12T23:44:08.401+11:00

One of the things that has always really annoyed me is the systray clock... so easy to turn on in the UI, oh so hard to do in an SOE! Well not anymore... this command will do it:REG ADD "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StuckRects2" /v Settings /t REG_BINARY /d"28000000ffffffff02000000030000006b00000020000000feffffffe20300000205000002040000" /F*NOTE* All that should

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-71965389703773937012007-01-01T08:29:00.000+11:002007-01-01T08:39:19.232+11:00

That last year seemed to go fast when I look back at the blog entries, but when I think about the year I feel a mild sense of accomplishment which is cool. Hopefully this time next year I'll have a great sense of accomplishment... got some stuff planned for this year, here's hoping it all works out for me, and for everyone. Happy New Year!

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-68068022157043891662006-12-24T16:03:00.000+11:002006-12-24T16:20:11.459+11:00

The VMware Workstation 6.0 beta has finally gone public, and looks to have some great new features. I'll be running it up in my Vista x64 build to shake out the bugs... looks like there are some great new features, although disappointly the VIX API isn't compatible with the VI3 SDK... it would've been great if the VIX API at least supported C# but from what I can see it's a C only affair, or

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-69543303366383459782006-12-24T14:56:00.000+11:002007-01-01T08:28:53.886+11:00

Funnily enough WSS 3 was already out when I last posted (gee, has it been that long!)... you can download it here. XNA Game Studio Express also went GA, which is pretty cool... I hope to find some time to mess with that.In other news I've installed Vista (x64) courtesy of a new MSDN subscription, however after the initial build I must admit I still haven't used it much... there's just something I

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-11079185237321155592006-11-28T20:01:00.000+11:002006-11-28T20:35:25.575+11:00

Here's a VERY interesting read from the legendary Ed Skoudis and Tom Liston, about some recent observations in attack code. Basically, code is surfacing that detects whether the machine is 'real' or virtual. The authors offer an explanation to the effect of "attackers perceive that a lot of honeypots are running as VM's, therefore their code doesn't execute on VM's in an effort to avoid detection

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-80647655394182229042006-11-28T19:49:00.000+11:002006-11-28T19:58:16.245+11:00

Here's a bunch of very handy articles from the Patterns and Practices group at Microsoft... they will go a long way towards helping infrastructure engineers work with application developers to ensure secure application architecture and deployment. I don't know how many arguments I've had with developers who had no idea about what they were actually proposing to deploy from an infrastructure

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-14405005370599438292006-11-25T10:10:00.000+11:002006-11-25T10:14:45.724+11:00

I'm sure this option wasn't there last time I posted... looks like the integration of Google products is finally getting momentum!

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-71154295475605218732006-11-25T10:02:00.000+11:002006-11-25T10:08:18.542+11:00

The final WAIK has been released, get it here. I know a ton of people have been waiting for that... finally Windows PE 2.0 is available for the masses.I'm still holding out for WSS 3.0 though. I was hoping they would have released it when Office 2007 was RTM'ed, but I guess we'll be waiting for the GA of 2003 SP2. Although from reports about the quality of the 2003 SP2 RC, I guess I could

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-5981612925600022102006-11-16T21:41:00.000+11:002006-11-16T21:49:18.981+11:00

I was on the early beta's of PowerShell (I still hate the name, although the name 'Monad' did lend itself to an unfortunate gnu-ified name), and am stoked to see it finally hit 1.0. What's also awesome is to see Jeffrey Snover's enthusiasm seems have gone viral inside Microsoft... PowerShell is up in everything. THe latest video on Channel9 shows PowerShell as applied to IIS7, as well as a few

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-79631981398724655062006-11-16T20:07:00.000+11:002006-11-16T20:17:32.178+11:00

I don't know if this move by Citrix is possibly in response to the upcoming Longhorn release, but it is certainly looooooooooooooong overdue. I've been wanting to install and mess around with PS4 for ages at home, now I finally can!Perhaps they have finally realised that putting Enterprise software in the hands of enthusiasts pays off... those kinds of people are often the ones engineering /

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-91904450953255510052006-11-09T20:38:00.000+11:002006-11-09T20:45:39.801+11:00

An as yet unidentified company is planning to release some interesting data soon surrounding performance of the various datastore options in VI3... namely local SCSI, FC, iSCSI and NFS.Without stealing too much of their thunder, apparently an NFS mounted VMFS volume is 4 times faster than an iSCSI one!!! I'll be interested to see the details when the data comes out... there are substantial

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-51685122136894273842006-11-07T21:12:00.000+11:002006-11-07T21:15:01.990+11:00

Funnily enough, .NET 3.0 has gone GA and so has the Vista SDK!.NET Framework 3.0Vista SDK (scroll to the bottom and grab the DVD ISO)w00t!

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-40407538350642824502006-11-07T18:40:00.000+11:002006-11-07T21:16:29.582+11:00

You have to go to Ginkaku-ji in Kyoto to get that second bit...Anyway, I'm decidedly 'over' Linux as a desktop... I'll be running XP into the ground and wait for the next version of Windows, which will be out before XP support ends if Microsoft stick to their "no more 5 years between OSes" mantra. Besides, all the stuff that's interesting to me in Vista / Longhorn (ie .NET 3.0) will be

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-13747913054104454132006-10-31T22:04:00.000+11:002006-10-31T22:59:40.444+11:00

Hmmm... some recent developments at my company got me thinking. Basically, the old 'x86 tender' reared it's ugly head again, as it does every few years. In the past, I have been fairly passionate about the hardware that runs the platform I have supported or developed SOE's for. I have actually turned jobs down because they didn't use HP, and resigned from others because they decided to start

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-41382344123605037422006-10-21T11:36:00.000+10:002006-10-21T22:47:13.184+10:00

One of the security blogs I read often is that of Jeff Jones from Microsoft. He has recently completed the most accurate 'apples vs apples' comparison of Linux (Red Hat and Ubuntu) desktops vs Windows XP.This is something that has been long overdue. A by-the-numbers analysis of vulnerabilities, using vendor supplied security bulletins and accepted standards body methodology and definitions. [

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-273392551709901522006-09-20T21:14:00.000+10:002006-09-20T21:18:59.349+10:00

Ahhh, performance thresholds... it's the kind of information you always know the approximate answer to, but rarely remember exactly what the recommendations are. Here's a link that covers the biggies.

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-79592135181633926142006-09-13T17:30:00.000+10:002006-09-13T17:53:18.096+10:00

While putting together some documentation surrounding physical to virtual migrations, I recalled the following handy formula for approximating Intel MHz from AMD MHz. It's basically a reverse engineered derivation of the formula used by AMD for the Athlon64 'Processor Rating' numbers. Now admittedly, that was part marketing BS, to make them more appealing to Joe User who had been brainwashed by

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-41264604972401496852006-09-12T20:01:00.000+10:002006-09-12T20:03:33.655+10:00

With all the beta madness going on, I thought I might as well move the blog to the Blogger beta, which is integrated with Google (in terms of authentication). Doesn't seem to be a whole lot of changes... as long as my shit doesn't get deleted somehow, I guess all will be well!UPDATE: The new navbar up the top is something I have been hoping for! Finally I can sign in directly from my blog,

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1157765918930519162006-09-09T10:54:00.000+10:002006-09-09T11:42:24.123+10:00

It would seem the initial excitement of Vista has worn off... I'm starting to get angry at things that pop up in the OS.Like the Soundbuzz icon on the Windows Media Player toolbar. I can't get rid of it. I can't imagine how much they must be paying (or is this company owned by Microsoft) to have it imbedded there, but FFS Microsoft - you already earn billions of dollars a year in profits, you

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1157705394379008002006-09-08T18:47:00.000+10:002006-09-09T10:37:56.350+10:00

Longhorn build 5600.16834 is out now!!! Not sure if it will be labelled 'RC1', but I'll let y'all know in a few hours.You read it here first :-DUPDATE: Well I can't see the words 'RC1' anywhere, but it's certainly a signifcant step forward compared to Beta 2.

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1157545405719244592006-09-06T22:19:00.000+10:002006-09-06T22:24:55.916+10:00

Wow that didn't take long... after attempting in vain to try and disable the wallpaper in the VM for about 15 minutes (the change wallpaper applet crashed everytime), I'm ditching Vista on Virtual Server. Even with 1Gb of RAM, a 16Gb vhd (sitting on a sata2 disk) and the VMAdditions for Vista Beta2, it was completely unusable. It had the CPU pegged at near 100% the whole time - there were no

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1157542007462893022006-09-06T21:19:00.000+10:002006-09-06T22:19:21.813+10:00

As if there wasn't enough going on with Vista RC1 and Longhorn build 5600, the IronPython team decided to release 1.0 final! Go grab it here. I've been thinking about having a look at Python for a little while now, so I'll probably have a bit of a look. It may well turn out to be a tough choice for the administrative scripter looking to ditch VBscript - use something like IronPython, or learn C#

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1157374514982979952006-09-04T22:38:00.000+10:002006-09-04T23:14:02.466+10:00

It's definitely an RC... still quite a few little annoyances and bugs, but it's definitely out of Beta. Beta 2 was so unusable I installed it, used it for a few hours, then promptly blew it away. All while taking Bill's name in vain, and convincing myself that Microsoft was about to lose massive market share on the desktop front. But Vista Build 5600 is going the extra mile on my machine. On

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1157197807093695232006-09-02T21:24:00.000+10:002006-09-02T21:53:32.040+10:00

With the Vista RC1 bits flowing through the tubes to my pc as I write this, I'm wondering how much effort I'll put into getting everything working on it... when I could probably get most stuff working on Linux with the same effort (and feel a little bit better about it).After a string of pretty woeful beta releases, I am hoping build 5600 is all Vista is cracked up to be, otherwise I'm switching

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1156838775303419262006-08-29T17:54:00.000+10:002006-08-29T20:48:12.950+10:00

There seems to be a bit of conjecture around the net regarding the whole 'hypervisor' / microkernel architecture thing at the moment. And I have to agree with a lot of it. I can see most OS's splitting off into microkernel architectures, running on hypervisors.My interest was sparked by this video on Channel9... very cool. And now Microsoft going at lengths to interop with XEN makes so much more

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1155203085449344382006-08-10T19:39:00.000+10:002006-08-10T19:50:29.456+10:00

Following on from that last post, Microsoft have released Beta 1 of their VirtualCenter competitor, System Center Virtual Machine Manager (yes, crappy name). I'm downloading the bits now, and will write up something here in the next week or 2... things are going to get very interesting in the near future, especially when Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 ships with full support for Intel VT / AMD

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1153044344113638302006-07-16T19:16:00.000+10:002006-07-16T23:35:19.410+10:00

Now that VMWare's free VMWare Server product has gone gold, I thought I'd spend some time evaluating it against Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2.I took 2 identically spec'ed boxes (Athlon64 X2 3800+, 2GB RAM, 160Gb SATA2 disk for Virtual disk files and a separate 40GB IDE disk for the host OS), both running Windows Server 2003 R2 x64 Enterprise Edition. The OS was installed on one box, sysprep'd,

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1152878414609868442006-07-14T21:58:00.000+10:002006-07-14T22:03:15.810+10:00

... no I am not the guy called 'n00dles' on flickr!

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1149597717005752202006-06-06T22:35:00.000+10:002006-06-06T22:46:16.000+10:00

Here's a great way to kill a Windows Server 2003 + SP1 / R2 box...1. Create a new reg DWORD TcpTimedWaitDelay in HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters2. Give it a value of 03. RebootThe box will never come back, and give a very ambiguous STOP 0x7F bugcheck. And since it's so early in the boot process it doesn't write a dump file. I found this after reading about the new 'smart

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1149163379471338792006-06-01T21:44:00.000+10:002006-06-01T22:02:59.483+10:00

And while we're on the topic of VBScript, here is what I currently use for a standard script header:Dim objFSO,objShell,objWMI,objRegEx,strSystemRootSet objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")Set objWMI = GetObject("winmgmts:" & "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\.\root\cimv2")Set objRegEx = New RegExpobjRegEx.Global =

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1149162175926643502006-06-01T21:37:00.000+10:002006-06-01T21:42:55.936+10:00

I've been using EmEditor for at least 4 years. Initially it was for administrative scripting, but after my favourtie HTML editor (HomeSite) went on the backburner at Macromedia, I started using it for everything. ANd I've never looked back.Not sure how long the free version has been out, but it's well worth a look. Get it from http://www.emeditor.com/download.htm.Version 6 should be out soon,

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1148902849583642242006-05-29T21:25:00.000+10:002006-06-03T11:39:27.406+10:00

FreeSCO it seems does not support Virtual Server 2005... version 0.3.5 won't even boot and the developers don't seem to care. Funny thing is that even though Virtual Server uses one of the most compatible NIC chipsets around, the DEC-based Intel 21140, the drivers available for FreeSCO just won't work.After trying to get it working for an hour or so (I've previously used FreeSCO on VMWare, and it

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1147684541921812082006-05-15T19:11:00.000+10:002006-05-15T19:15:41.933+10:00

I recently switched to using the newish Consolas font from Microsoft for VS2005 / text editors. It's a nice font, and I was wondering how I could get it into the console if it was even possible. Turns out it is, with this 'unsupported' hack from MicrosoftWindows Registry Editor Version 5.00[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Console\TrueTypeFont]"00"="Consolas"KB

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1147446090560717102006-05-13T00:17:00.000+10:002006-05-13T01:03:29.260+10:00

I've always hated working with Arrays in VBScript... they're fiddly at the best of times. And if you ever have to sort the data in an array (let alone a multidimensional one), you're pretty much screwed. Enter the Disconnected DataSet.Instead of building an array and stuffing data into it, you can create an in memory database using ADO that only exists while the script executes. I'm sure from an

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1146372350716363382006-04-30T14:33:00.000+10:002006-05-01T20:51:01.703+10:00

It's a LOT easier than you think... forget about anything involving copying setupldr or anything else from the PE source, or using Barts peldr util. All you have to do is:1. Install the Recovery Console2. Copy BOOTSECT.DAT from the cmdcons directory to the root of C:3. Copy your PE I386 directory to the root of C:4. Rename the PE I386 directory to MININT5. Copy the winbom.ini from MININT to the

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1145968249510098422006-04-25T22:25:00.000+10:002006-04-25T22:32:13.566+10:00

It's really annoying that even after doing this...@echo offecho Moving Admin Tools Shortcuts...move /Y "%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\Administrative Tools" "%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Start Menu\Administrative Tools"echo Setting Admin Tools Shortcut location in registry...REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders" /v "Common Administrative Tools" /t REG_SZ /d "

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1145273914667887732006-04-17T21:34:00.000+10:002006-04-17T21:38:34.683+10:00

Here's how I have done it / seen it done1. Configure the local policy on one machine2. Copy the %systemroot%\System32\GroupPolicy folder to somewhere on the network / your distribution share / whatever3. On each target machine, assuming the 'master' GroupPolicy directory is located at D:\GroupPolicy, doattrib -H %systemroot%\system32\GroupPolicyxcopy D:\GroupPolicy\* %SystemRoot%\system32\

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1143206639282380032006-03-25T00:03:00.000+11:002006-03-25T13:27:28.686+11:00

Man I can't believe how difficult it was to track this down... it seems everywhere on the web has 99% of the info, but give examples for uses like DC auth and SmartCard enrollment... I finally figured it out with a bit of trial and error though, so here's how you would issue a certificate for plain old server authentication (ie SSL) with a subject alternative name. First, create a certreq.inf

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1143023184695297832006-03-22T20:57:00.000+11:002006-03-22T21:41:34.016+11:00

So anyway I decided it's about time I start installing SQL Server 2005 Express wherever I can, instead of MSDE. There are a lot of changes in the installer from MSDE. Aside from the thousands of parameters, there are some other fundamental changes like INSTANCENAME being a required parameter and 3 user accounts are required to install the core SQL_Engine component.So here is how to automate that:

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1142856556158004662006-03-20T22:55:00.000+11:002006-03-20T23:09:16.180+11:00

Funnily enough, the Altiris Deployment Server 6.5 setup is able to determine that SQL is installed on a machine, and determine the instance name, but can't determine if the correct network connectivity is present for it to actually work.So when going through the install you think all is well, until you get a "Setup was unable to run "DBinstaller.exe" to create the "express" database" and get told

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1142755642687296782006-03-19T18:51:00.000+11:002006-03-19T19:07:22.700+11:00

After finding there were no suitable Windows iSCSI products around for me to play with at home, I ended up using a Linux one and had it running in VMWare quicker than you can say 'iscsitarget.sourceforge.net'. Here's how:1. Download the free RHEL4 Virtual Machine from here.2. Add another virtual SCSI disk to the prebuilt VM.3. Follow these installation instructions to download and install iSCSI

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1142334859483092192006-03-14T21:57:00.000+11:002006-03-14T22:27:54.266+11:00

Just so it's easier for me to find, here is the technet site that covers all the Support Toolshttp://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServer/en/Library/eb0d5bd1-89c3-4ee7-975f-596b2e37e3aa1033.mspxI was going to post up some stuff about using Poolmon and Memsnap, but you might as well just read the overview, syntax and example pages for these tools from the Technet site! Just make sure you enable

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1141527732073942412006-03-05T13:51:00.000+11:002006-03-05T14:06:03.113+11:00

One of the most annoying errors IMHO is the one that you get when you change out a NIC (or remove a NIC from a VM) and try to reuse the IP address on the same machine. So to get rid of that, first set the following machine environment variable:DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES... and give it a value of 1I'll seriously consider adding this to the next SOE I work on, probably with asetx

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1133675725160015092006-02-27T20:00:00.000+11:002006-03-14T20:10:17.863+11:00

A bunch of stuff I need from time to time, but am never sure where to find it...First, some XP reg tweaks I like to use...[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security Center]"FirstRunDisabled"=dword:00000001"AntiVirusDisableNotify"=dword:00000001"FirewallDisableNotify"=dword:00000001"UpdatesDisableNotify"=dword:00000001[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1135163958535556742005-12-21T21:47:00.000+11:002005-12-22T20:07:23.960+11:00

I find it rather amusing (actually reminiscient might be more accurate) to see the flurry around AJAX. In particular, the number of companies that are springing up out of nowhere with 'AJAX desktops', 'AJAX Office' and 'AJAX messaging'. Feels like I'm back in 99. TechCrunch does a rather good job of following these developments.The delivery of 'web services' does not mean 'something delivered via

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1132619791843664642005-11-22T11:09:00.000+11:002005-11-22T11:41:30.750+11:00

I've always maintained that if Microsoft really want to take the fight to Linux, all they would need to do would be drop some prices and fix up their confusing and at times insulting corporate licensing scheme. And it looks like this may happen, if the trend in the non-enterprise space is anything to go by.Take the new Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions - all 'free for one year'. I'm still not

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1130156994742999752005-10-24T22:05:00.000+10:002005-11-07T19:52:30.720+11:00

Oooooo yes, finally working. All because I overlooked one file... see if you can guess which one from the instructions. So as I wrote previously, I had created a PE from HDD to RAM solution for cases where I was building a remote server that didn't have a virtual CDROM available but did have a virtual floppy available (for those familiar with HP server hardware, boxes with a RILOE / RILOE II).But

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1129873776194653882005-10-21T15:09:00.000+10:002005-10-23T11:47:10.476+10:00

There are several 3rd party free TFTP servers for Windows out there, but why use a 3rd party product when you already have a free TFTP server on the install CD? Lets roll!First, grab the Windows Server 2003 resource kit, and install it.Now open a shell and go to your I386 directory (CD or distribution share - doesn't matter).Run expand tftpd.ex_ %systemroot%\tftpd.exe. Note you could place the .

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1127846021476062922005-09-28T04:05:00.000+10:002005-10-12T19:13:26.460+10:00

There seems to be a *lot* of conjecture going on regarding Google extending it's reach into the home by offering some kind of client... maybe an OS. There are a lot of comments along the lines of 'the internet has matured enough now' and 'the network is the computer' etc etc. And most of all 'is this the end of Microsoft?'.Let me just say LOL! What are these people taking (and where can I get

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1125821624182924542005-09-04T17:54:00.000+10:002005-09-04T18:17:35.740+10:00

Since this was my first Tech.Ed, I don't have anything to compare it with, but I'm a little disappointed. The highlights were pretty much limited to the sessions from Steve Riley and Jesper Johanssen. But if you've been listening to them speak or reading their whitepapers / blogs and anything else over the past 2-3 years, it wasn't anything new. Especially not if you read their book before going!

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1124345903131438522005-08-18T16:14:00.000+10:002005-10-03T00:13:23.803+10:00

Contrary to most things you'll read, it actualy is possible to share disks in VMWare 5.x. So now you don't have to have 3 VM's with one being an iSCSI host to do clustering. The trick is to create your primary OS disks as IDE drives, use vdiskmanager to create a SCSI based disk for the quorum, then add the following lines to the .vmx files of the servers you want to cluster:disk.locking=FALSE

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1124261440332788072005-08-17T16:16:00.000+10:002005-08-17T16:52:42.160+10:00

Here is how it is done...Create your winpe ISO using whatever method and whatever source you like.Grab ntldr, ntdetect and ramdisk.sys from a Windows Server 2003 + SP1 source. Replace the ramdisk.sys in your PE ISO with the one from 2K3 + SP1 (if you used a different source for your PE build).In the root of the target HDD, put ntldr, ntdetect and the winpe ISO. Make sure the name of the ISO is in

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1123919204037807042005-08-13T17:43:00.000+10:002005-08-13T17:46:44.043+10:00

As I've said before, WiX pwnz. But as an admin wanting to pack a whole bunch of files into an msi that will install to wherever I want it to without any dialogs etc, I needed a script to generate the bulk of the .wxs file. That being the Component and File entries.So I wrote wxsgen.vbs. Download it here. And enjoy.

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1123898776782142882005-08-13T11:59:00.000+10:002005-08-13T12:27:39.910+10:00

Just finished installing Longhorn server on VMWare... will report back sometime in the next 48 hours with initial thoughts...Somewhere along the way I must have lost my desktop mindset... the Windows Vista beta was so disappointing, and I wasn't even that excited about it before I saw it! But just after reading some of the beta documentation I'm excited about Longhorn server. Like the whole 'Core

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1123244040187079642005-08-05T22:08:00.000+10:002005-08-05T22:14:11.756+10:00

One thing that has always annoyed the hell outta me with VMWare Workstation, is that for some reason when you remove a Virtual Adapter, it doesn't get removed from the Virtual Network Editor summary page.It's happened in every version from 4 onwards... it might have happened in 3.x too, but I've never used that! Anyways, to get rid of these entries, fire up regedit and go to the following keyHKLM

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1123061634190071932005-08-03T19:30:00.000+10:002005-08-03T19:33:54.196+10:00

I'm completely stoked! The company is sending me to TechEd this year, on the Gold Coast (yes I'm Australian). It will actually be the first TechEd I've been to. Ever since I found out Steve Riley will be presenting, I've been itching to go. I saw him a few years back at the first Microsoft security summit in Sydney. If you ever get a chance to see this guy present, do so... he's bloody awesome!

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1121000857345220092005-07-10T23:04:00.000+10:002005-07-10T23:10:28.586+10:00

I know I'm going to need this later, so I'm posting it somewhere easy for me to find...[Component Id='AppendPath' Guid='XXX-XXX-XXX-XXX-XXX'] [Environment Id='AppendPath' Name='PATH' Action='create' System='yes' Part='last' Value='[INSTALLDIR]' /] [/Component]And that's how you would append your installation directory to the path statement of the machine your app gets installed on!

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1119238804226363092005-06-20T13:34:00.000+10:002005-06-20T13:43:14.370+10:00

I don't know if you have ever tried installing stuff via RDP and got the error 'You must be logged on as an Administrator blah blah' even though you actually are logged on with an Administrative account... here is how you fix that:Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\policies\Microsoft\windows\installer]"EnableAdminTSRemote"=dword:00000001Go forth, and install...

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1119180395278487482005-06-19T21:21:00.000+10:002005-06-27T22:14:05.890+10:00

I remember reading about WiX a while ago, back I when I was doing more packaging. Never really gave it a good look at the time though.Recently I was looking at creating a few custom installers (like an updated OpenSSH for Windows) and I immediately turned to NSIS. I started reading through the doco, and then remembered something about an xml based Windows Installer tool... WiX. A Google later I

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1119019837642979022005-06-18T00:45:00.000+10:002005-06-19T21:27:25.886+10:00

This is pretty cool... watching it by myself in the darkness of 1am made the impact greater, I am sure.It's funny how you stumble across stuff like this... I was trying to find some more info on Windows Installer internals when I came across it. But then again, that's what makes the web, the web.

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1118856181712321542005-06-16T02:56:00.000+10:002005-06-18T10:36:51.010+10:00

Alas, another sleepness night... anyway, a quick note on extending vmware disks.vmware comes with a command-line disk utility called 'vmware-vdiskmanager'. You can use this to do a number of things, but the main things are creating disks before you create a new vm, or extending existing vmdk's. I like to use it to create disks for any new vm I'm configuring, and then hitting the resulting -

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13085725.post-1118664807686650052005-06-13T22:07:00.000+10:002005-06-14T21:06:04.403+10:00

I doubt you're ever needed the CAPSLOCK key... I know I never have. But if I had a dollar for everytime I've accidentally hit it mid-password, and then wondered why the hell my authentication failed, I'd be $2 richer... $3 tops. But 2 or 3 times is enough to annoy me - hey, when was the last time you met a tolerant sys admin?So here's how you can turn it into an extra LShift.Windows Registry

n00dles -[the indelible]-http://www.blogger.com/profile/04044007223985613736noreply@blogger.com1