Dec/092
windows 7 mklink is actually useful.
Windows 7 ships with the ability to utilise NTFS’s symlinks (did vista do this too?). I have used this to get around the fact that win7 x64 refuses to index networked folders, thus stopping me from adding my media library and music (samba share) to media player.
1. Create a temp folder on your hard drive i.e. c:\shares
2. Create another folder in the above folder. i.e. c:\shares\pictures
3. Link the Library to this folder.
4. Delete the folder (c:\shares\pictures).
5. Use the mklink in an elevated command prompt (start type ‘cmd’ and press ctrl+shift+enter) to make a symbolic link. Name the link the same as the folder you created above. i.e -
mklink /d c:\shares\pictures \\server\pictures
6. Done. Now you have a non-indexed network path as a library.
Nov/091
Get quicklaunch back in windows 7
Get back the Quick Launch bar
Shamelessly stolen
Windows 7’s new taskbar functions as a program launcher as well as task switcher. As a result, the old Quick Launch bar, the area on the left side of the taskbar that contained shortcuts for frequently used programs, has been banished. However, if you really miss the little applet, you can add it back. Here’s how to do it:
1. Right-click the taskbar and choose Toolbars –> New Toolbar.
2 . You’ll be asked to select a folder for where the new toolbar should live. In the Folder text box at the bottom of the dialogue box, enter this text:
%userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch
After you do that, click Select Folder. A link for the Quick Launch bar will be added to the taskbar. It will be on the right of the taskbar, just to the left of the Notification area.
It’s not particularly useful docked all the way to the right with no application icons showing, so we’re going to have to do a bit of work on it to make it useful. Right-click the taskbar and, in the pop-up menu, remove the check next to Lock the taskbar. Now right-click Quick Launch and remove the checks next to Show Text and Show Title.
Once you’ve done that, drag the vertical triple dotted line next to the Quick Launch bar to the left until you expose its icons. To prevent further changes, right-click the taskbar and check Lock the taskbar. You can now use the Quick Launch bar as you could in Windows XP and Vista, including adding icons to it and deleting them.
Dec/080
Windows XP Hibernate and reboot
I use windows and linux on my HTPC – linux for XBMC, and windows for wintendo.
I have a python script that can be run from xbmc’s menu that (using grub’s grub-set-default ) reboots the machine into windows for game playing for one boot only. when I quit wintendo, the machine reboots into linux again, yay.
I found a completely undocumented trick recently though. If you create a new DWORD registry key in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\
named PowerPolicySimulate, and assign this key the hex value 0×1000. When you hibernate the system reboots afterwards instead of shutting down. This reduces the time to switch between OS’s dramatically.
Oct/080
Remotely enable terminal servces on a win5x or 6x box
- connect remote registry
- browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server.
- change fDenyTSConnections to 0
- reboot remote machine with shutdown -r -t 00 -m \\[computername]
- connect: mstsc /{admin or console} /v:[computername]
Oct/080
Aspell PSPELL win32 fastcgi problems
So i had fun with aspell on a win2003 IIS PHP eAccelerator fastCGI PSPELL Aspell setup today.
I was getting a 500 error from fastcgi. phpinfo() showed that pspell was loaded correctly. After pushing a test script through php.exe, and getting an error telling me that a file in the aspell data folder was in the wrong format, i tried DOS2UNIX ing the files in the progra~1\aspell\data folder and all was good!
Jul/080
Automate a Remote Login Using SSH-Agent
When it comes to remote logins, SSH is a wonderful tool. Not only is it
secure, it supports public/private key logins. Depending on public and
private keys mean even if someone gets your password, without your
private key it won’t do them any good (and vice versa).
see full article here
Jul/080
PHP 5.2.5 MSSQL 2005 on server 2003 Unable to connect to server: bug
It appears that there is a bug with the latest version of PHP (5.2.5)(nts on windows) in the ntwdblib.dll file. It ships with version 2000.2.8.0, which won’t connect to SQL 2005.
The solution is to replace the file with version 2000.80.194.0, which can be downloaded from here
Jul/080
Really nice ripping guide for windows. All rippers are not created equal!
Did you know that all CD ripping software was not created equal? Or that DVD drives were not made to make bit for bit copies of audio cd’s? Seriously. Try rippingthe same track twice with your software and see if the two PCM files have the same CRC… You may be suprised.
Anyroad, I happened over a really good ripping/burning guide for windoze boxen. it’s at xs.vc, but they don’t link to it from the front page (i think it’s part of the waffles community docs). You can see what’s on the site with google though.
Apr/080
MSSQL2005 HA. Cluster, mirror or both?
I’m looking into setting up a High Availibility (HA) MSSQL2005 cluster/mirror.
I know clustering is designed for large deployments, and mirroring can only support two mirrors, I am looking for a solution that will provide HA with the minimum fuss, for a situation where the second server will be providing redundancy only.
(Server) Clustering is more common and as such is supposed to be the least expensive in operational overhead. It enables running the same application on two or more servers providing a HA solution if one of the servers fails. Cluster software
(Cluster Service) natively handles the failover process.
Database mirroring replays transaction log records on a standby server (log shipping) and as a result can failover more rapidly in most cases than a traditional SQL cluster with no loss of committed data. A database mirroring partnership can failover automatically through the implementation of a witness server (high availability/synchronous).A witness is not a single point of failure. If one partner server thinks that there has been a problem with the other partner, the partner servers contact the witness and ask the witness what it sees. There are no specific restrictions on the network for mirroring, but the network connection between the servers is critical. The network should generally be dedicated, and be of high quality and high bandwidth. As a rough guideline, the network bandwidth should be three times the maximum log generation rate. There is a requirement to duplicate storage across the principal and mirror servers, although this requirement can be offset by a DAS or SAN
You can use clustering and mirroring at the same time:
Yes, you can mirror a database from one virtual server to another virtual server in a different cluster. You can even mirror from one virtual server to another virtual server in the same cluster. However, Microsoft does not recommend mirroring to another virtual server in the same cluster. When you use both mirroring and clustering, understand that mirroring and clustering work independently of each other. Mirroring knows nothing about clusters, and clusters know nothing about mirroring. If a node fails, mirroring will probably fail over before the clusters do. Therefore, when the other node in the cluster comes online, this node will be in the mirror role.
I have decided on Mirroring for this operation.
further reading:
http://blogs.technet.com/wbaer/archive/2007/08/15/cluster-or-mirror.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/dbmirfaq.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/dbmirror.mspx