ben.hamilton.id.au

Had an issue yesterday where we wanted to remove some entires from Outlooks location list.

Huh? When you book an appointment in Microsoft Outlooks calendar you can specify a location. If ACT! by Sage has a Resource that is designated as a location, when ACT! sync’s with Outlook that location list gets filled in.

So, we wanted to edit that list in Outlook. Well, you can’t.

But you can clear the list completely, which for our purpose suited us fine, it’ll get repopulated with the correct values.

Thus, without further ado, here is how you do this:

Open up Regedit and remove the value from this key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Preferences\LocationMRU

Note that you will need to replace the version number for your version of Microsoft Office (14.0 = MSO2010, 12.0 = MSO2007).

Hat tip to superuser.com.

So you’re working on a Microsoft Server machine, merrily getting stuff done, when you get a message saying that it can’t continue because files are open. Sound familiar? It happens to me often.

Here is how I find out which files are open and who has them open:

If you’re working on a Microsoft Server 2008, Start | Administrative Tools | Share and Storage Management | Manage Open Files…

If you’re working on a Microsoft Server 2003, Start | right click My Computer | Manage | Computer management (local) | System Tools | Shared Folders | Open Files

Makes it a great deal easier, now you know which file needs closing, and who you need ask to do it.

Hope that helps you. Anything you’ve found helpful? Let me know in the comments.

I’ve just come across a terminal server that wouldn’t let me log on. Turns out the maximum number of users the terminal server is licensed for has been exceeded.

Thusly, from another machine on the network, we open a command prompt and type qwinsta /server:<servername>

This will give a list of the terminal server sessions on that server, note the ID number (aka sessionid) as we use them in the following commands.

We can reset a session by using rwinsta <sessionid> /server:<servername>

or we can disconnect the session with tsdiscon <sessionid> /server:<servername>

or we can logoff a session with logoff <sessionid> /server:<servername>

Dan Rigsby has more info as does Scott Forsyth.

Just had need of this article, method #2 describes how to turn of Microsoft Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration.

Quick tip on getting the Network Connections control panel applet, do one of the following:

• WIN+R, ncpa.cpl<enter>
• CTRL-SHIFT-ESC, Applications, File, New Task, ncpa.cpl <enter>

This will give you quick access to changing network settings, useful if you have no mouse… as per a workstation I’m working on right now.

A client has a SharePoint installation that has died, with all their project files and data in it.

In the course of searching for how to resurrect it, I’ve found the following that seem to be things that others may well benefit from:

• An article on the Official SBS Blog, pointing to an unofficial tool:

  During disaster recovery, if no backups other than the database files exist, we may manually extract the files from the database as a “belt and suspenders” approach to disaster recovery.

• A script from Mark Jen at Plaxo that restores files from SharePoint SQL DB with their directory structure
• An article from Ed Walters on how to backup SharePoint

Possibly the biggest lesson here is to ensure that if your using SharePoint, make sure you back it up PROPERLY, ALL OF IT.

It is now two weeks in to my new digs at Evolution Marketing – and it sure is fun.

Primarily I’ve been learning how to drive ACT!, software to take care of your contact management. Yesterday and today I’ve been playing with custom tables in the ACT! MS-SQL database. While ACT! looks after contacts and tasks, meetings & calls to do with your contacts really well, some clients would like to be able to do even more, like handle job sheets etc. Which is the reason for the custom tables. These allow us to track all sorts of other information and connect them to contacts & companies.

I’ve also setup a Blackberry Bold simulator and a Windows Mobile 6 Emulator, this allows me to experience the same things as our clients, notably HandHeldContact, which allows you to sync multiple calenders, notes, histories etc to your phone – loads more than MS Exchange alone allows.

To paraphrase the paragraphs above, I’m having fun learning new stuff!

The other staff at Evolution are great to work with, the coffee is good and all the tech toys I’ve asked for have been delivered, with the exception of the telephone headset, but it is on the way so they’re forgiven ;-). Woot!

Update 20th Oct: Got the telephone headset on Friday afternoon. Cool.

If like me you need to test if network traffic is getting through a firewall then this tool will be of use to you as well.

You run it on the target/client system, specify which port you want it to listen on, a response message and click on listen. Able to listen on multiple ports even.

Get listen from here.

Sometimes while supporting products, it is very useful to know just what version/s of .NET are installed.

Found this tool just now shows you just that: Free DotNet VersionCheck Utility

If you’ve ever wanted a quick way to find out which versions and service packs of the .NET runtime are installed on a machine, or if you’re trying to resolve a ‘missing mscoree.dll’ error, then DotNET Version Checker is for you. VersionCheck itself does not depend on the .NET runtime. VersionCheck will also tell you whether you have the required Windows components to run .NET applications, and will prompt you with download locations if not.

Update: this page at Microsoft lists the downloads for .NET in the left menu bar.

Spotted this great list of open source tools for system administrators: 24 Great Open Source Apps for Admins & Technicians.

I can personally vouch for a number of these:

• Angry IP Scanner
• PuTTY
• DBAN
• DeltaCopy

For some tools that are not open source but free, you can’t go past live.sysinternals.com (details here) – now owned by Microsoft themselves these tools make a Windows Sysadmin job much easier.