Since the release of Vista, you can use the command line utility slmgr for Windows activation when using a MAK (or Multiple Activation Key).

Windows Activation

1. Open a command window (as administrator)
2. And run…

slmgr -ipk xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
slmgr -ato

Office Activation

1. Open a command window (as administrator)
2. From C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14 run…

cscript ospp.vbs /inpkey:xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
cscript ospp.vbs /act

Who needs all that pointing and clicking anyway?

Here’s a short list of what’s been moved around (and yes, I’m writing this as much for me as anyone else)…

All Users:

• All Users Desktop, Favorites, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures & Videos – C:\Users\Public
• All Users Start Menu – C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu
• Documents and Settings (just for completeness sake): C:\Users
• Templates – C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Templates

User Specific:

• Cookies – C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Cookies
• Default Outlook OST/PST folder – C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook
• Quick Launch – C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch
• Send To – C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo
• Start Menu - C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu
• Temp – C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Temp
• Temporary Internet Files – C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files

The Exchange cluster was using iSCSI, thus was offline during the outage and now would not mount the databases; both the System Attendant and Information Store services would not start. After trying a reboot and examining the Failover Clustering, these error messages were found in the Event Log:

System attendant – EventID: 1005 Unexpected error The clocks on the client and server machines are skewed. ID no: 80090324 Microsoft Exchange System Attendant occurred.

MSExchangeIS – EventID: 5003 Unable to initialize the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service because the clocks on the client and on the server machine are skewed. This may be caused by a time change either in the client or the server machine, and may require a reboot of that machine. Other than that, verify that your domain is properly configured and is currently online.

I didn’t even consider the fact that the Exchange server’s system time didn’t match the domain controllers’. Both nodes were a full six minutes behind! Once the clocks were synced with the DCs, both services started, databases mounted and we were back in business.

Due to the fact we’re running a hybrid UNIX/Windows DNS network, oddities like this seem to creep up. Once I have this sorted, there will likely be a blog post about that as well.

Here is the document I created detailing our setup and configuration process (using generic server names and Contoso as the company). Please review the entire document first, should use it for reference. Please note: this document is unsupported and is meant only as a guide.

Should you post questions here, I will do my best to answer them or help point you in the correct direction. This project took place almost a year ago and I’m no longer on site to examine the configuration, so please understand if I may not be able to shed light into the darkest corners of CA voodoo.

Ps. Thanks to SL @ TM for his time and trust with this project.

Whenever you try to run an unsigned PowerShell script, you get the following message: “File C:\Custom\Test.ps1 cannot be loaded because the execution of scripts is disabled on this system. Please see “get-help about_signing” for more details.”

I certainly believe Microsoft is doing the right thing with keeping PowerShell script execution secure with the proliferation of malware and 99%+ of Windows users don’t even know about PowerShell.

Changing the PowerShell security setting is a simple affair. Open PowerShell as an Administrator and run the following: Set-ExecutionPolicy

Your choices are:
Restricted (default) – Which stops all unsigned scripts from running.
AllSigned – This allows only signed scripts to run.
RemoteSigned (my recommendation) – Allows local scripts to run, but all downloaded or remotely executed must be signed.
Unrestricted (not recommended) – This allows all scripts to execute, whether from an e-mail, website or instant message.

Syntax: Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

It’s a very nice alternative to the built-in feature in Windows Server 2008 R2 and is a drastic improvement over item recovery in earlier versions of Active Directory with a great GUI interface.

They have a couple of other interesting products in Maven, ResetPass and Action Engine, not everything is free, but it’s close.

After much searching, we found that during a reinstall some bits were left in C:\Users\Default\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Exchange Server

Once the files therein were removed, I was able to login successfully. We surmised that since the files were in the Default profile, something was stopping a new profile from being generated.

From a command line or in a script wmic bios get serialnumber will display or grab the Dell Service Tag.

Furthermore, you can use the WMI Command-line to retrieve all kinds of system data and even make configuration changes. Rob van der Woude‘s great site on scripting has a great primer and examples on using WMIC. TechNet Magazine also has a very useful article on gathering system data using WMIC in your environment.

Finally, checkout the WMI Admin Tools pack. It contains more than I want to type about here, but it gives you the ability to browse the various objects, classes and properties, plus a custom event viewer and much more. Check it out and make your (administrative) life better.

Click here for a full list of what’s available, all that is required is Silverlight for viewing.

I’m currently watching the eleven videos for Windows 7, part of my studies for an upcoming certification exam, and they’ve been pretty good so far. And of course, they’re free :)

After noticing that the pesky Acrobat Speed Launcher and other usual suspects were missing from the Run locations I ran a registry search for reader_sl.exe and with little delay was presented with the location below, which also hosted all it’s resource sapping pals as well.

HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

Note: As always, the Registry can be a dangerous place, so do a backup/export before making changes.