Recently in Microsoft Windows Category

Enterprise Edition Features
Finally an interface for desktop search and lotus notes. This works really really well. Check it out.

With Google Desktop Search, you can search the full text of your email, files, viewed web pages and chats. Specifically, you can search:

Email from Outlook, Lotus Notes, Outlook Express, Netscape Mail, Mozilla Mail and Thunderbird
All the most popular business file types on your Windows-based PC, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, MP3, image, audio and video files
Web pages you’ve viewed using Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla and Firefox
Chats from AOL and AOL Instant Messenger

293907 - How to Uninstall Internet Explorer 6

Trying to resolve issues with ie 6... firefox is of course fine.

How to Uninstall Internet Explorer 6 View products that this article applies to. This article was previously published under Q293907 SUMMARY This article describes how to uninstall Microsoft Internet Explorer version 6.0 and return to your previous version of Internet Explorer on computers that are running any of the following operating systems:

* Microsoft Windows 2000
* Microsoft Windows NT 4.0
* Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me)
* Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition
* Microsoft Windows 98
* Microsoft Windows Advanced Server Limited Edition

Smash the Windows
Spot on and very much in line with Stephenson's "in the beginning the commandline"

This is yet another reason why Windows is such a dangerous commodity. It lulls us into the pernicious illusion that we can deal with computers without adapting to their logic. By presenting us with colourful screens and buttons for us to click on, Microsoft encourages us to believe that we can force computers to adapt entirely to our preferences for visual images, without having to adapt ourselves to their preference for text.

The Google Deskbar a neat new toy from Google, allows you to run searches and browse from the desktop instead of a browser in Windows. It appears to be using some IE components, but the memory usage is less than my running IE installation. I wonder if it is lack of support for plugins like Flash that makes it smaller; for example Task Manager on Windows 2000 reported 7,464Kb memory used for a DeskBar search vs. 21,904Kb for IE and the same search. The real question should be, do they even need IE?

Google Deskbar enables you to search with Google from any application without lifting your fingers from the keyboard. Installs easily in your Windows taskbar.

EasySync Pro FAQ

I'm still looking for something that works with the Zaurus...

EasySync Pro is a personal productivity solution that provides data synchronization between your Lotus Notes desktop and handheld devices running PalmOS and Windows CE/Pocket PC operating systems. EasySync Pro enables you to work with your most critical Lotus Notes-based information anytime. Data sources that you can synchronize include your e-mail, calendar, contacts and address information, journal and to-do lists. EasySync Pro offers powerful sync features, advanced data filtering technology, and enhanced configuration options for greater flexibility and convenience.

What environment variables are available in Windows?

List of the environment variables callable in windows 2000. e.g. Open a cmd prompt and type echo %appdata% which should return the full path to your profile's Application Data directory. If calling from a batch file remember to quote the %variable% e.g.

IF EXIST "%appdata%"\workrave\historystats. (mkdir D:\AllMyFiles\Workrave.) ELSE echo Workrave. missing

Here's the list with percentage included:

SUS Server with SP1 Release Notes and Installation Instructions

I've been working with this the last two days, I found that you can create a .REG file and set clients to connect to a local server for updates. So you have more control over where / when and what your clients are installing. Until you approve an update it won't be installed on the clients machine. As long as you set up SUS like that, you have the flexibility of making it automatic as well. Gotcha's include the fact that the ScheduledInstallTime regkey is a dword and in the .REG file must be in HEX; so valid values are 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17 coresponding to 0-23 hundred hours local time.

RescheduleWaitTime is how long the machine waits to begin installation after missing the scheduled time, ie if not on when scheduled to update, next time it's turned on it would wait 4 minutes before installing new patches.

NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers means whether reboot will be automatic (=0, reboot in 5 minutes after applying patches) or not (=1 then reboot will not be forced)

AUOptions controls the level of notification the client sees, set this to 4 and approved patches are retrieved and applied automatically.

One thing I don't like is that the SUS service MUST run on a Windows server, so testing this out requires a dedicated server to test. Although the overhead seems minimal, foot print is of course all the packages you're caching. (300-400MB) for what I saw supporting a W2K environment. You can pick languages, but for some wierd reason, it grabs all the .NET service pack 1 for a dozen odd languages. Useless clutter I don't need, especially when I told it I would pick languages, and only checked English.

Microsoft Software Update Services (SUS) Server 1.0 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) addresses several customer requests and fixes several issues found in the SUS 1.0 release.

Why I Hate Microsoft - Part 1: Worms and Viruses
by Phil Karn, KA9Q

People sometimes ask me why I loathe and detest Microsoft with such a visceral passion. A major reason is the never-ending stream of viruses and worms infesting their abysmally insecure software. [...] all made possible by Microsoft's carelessness, incompetence, arrogance and the sheer contempt they display toward their captive users.

Installer Refresh First Step to Ending Patch Management Nightmare
Proof in the pudding I'm sure.

As I first reported last month in WinInfo Daily UPDATE, Microsoft is working to end the patch-management nightmare by creating a new, centralized patch-management architecture for all its products. A new generation of services, such as Microsoft Update, and tools, such as the company's Windows Installer 3.0, will use the infrastructure.
For anyone who supports Microsoft's products, what was once a dream is suddenly becoming reality. This week, the company issued its first beta of Windows Installer 3.0, one of two installer programs that Microsoft will support under the new patch-management scheme. The final product should ship in early 2004.

Virtual Dimension
I tried this out, it works on Windows 2000 Professional. So far stable. There is a slight lag in clicking one of the four virtual desktops I created that were populated with 3-7 application windows. I counted and this was approximately 2 seconds...If you can live with the lag it seems like a useful way to dived your work space up.

Welcome to Virtual Dimension: a free, fast, and feature-full virtual desktop manager for Windows platform. The main goal of this open-source project is indeed to enhance the Microsoft "Window Manager" up to the level of usual Unix Window Manager, by providing virtual desktops, as well as some additional features, like always on top, window shading...

Found on the always informative Lockergnome Windows Daily newsletter.

Windows 2000 Professional and Server Services Configuration by Black Viper

Very Very thorough info on Services in Windows 2000 and XP. Armed with this info and the desired configuration you'll have all the info to streamline your Windows environment. Cut back on anything you don't need and you should have a faster environment.:

Also see his follow up for Windows XP:
Windows XP Professional and Home Services Configuration by Black Viper

Do not deploy until you have tested SP4 on sample machines in your environment.

I installed SP4 on three domain controllers (DC), a terminal server (member server), and about 25 workstations so far (thank God I stopped there!). After the installation, the terminal server started locking up user sessions and I need to manually delete the sessions before Terminal Services clients can reconnect. I've also noticed slower logon times, and two legacy workstations that have only 64MB of memory had to be rebuilt because they were constantly producing a blue screen after the upgrade.

Readers Report on Win2K SP4