Cisco VPN Client PCF File

I could have sworn you exported the pcf profile (the VPN configuration file that can be imported for new installs) within the Cisco VPN IPSec Client, but I was wrong.

This little guy is actually a text file that's created as soon as you add a new connection. And it places it within the VPN client installation directory, as listed below.

C:\Program Files\Cisco Systems\VPN Client\Profiles

Once you grab your profile, you can throw it in with the installation files for the client and it will automatically be imported for use immediately upon completion (reboot is necessary, of course).

Hide Your Windows System from the Network

Should you wish to hide your Windows system from the Network Neighborhood just run the command below:

c:\net config server /hidden:yes

There's a bevy of net commands to be used to perform all sorts of tasks; truly worth investigation.

Network Printer Offline

Yesterday I was at a client site where everyone prints directly to the printers, rather than sharing via a print server. One of the PCs kept showing a printer as offline, even though everyone else was printing to it. From the PC you could ping the printer and even browse to the builtin web server to see that it was low on cyan.

After chewing on this for quite a while, I found the issue: a checkbox on the Ports tab "SNMP Status Enabled", which when checked (along with SNMP turned off on the print device) will result in the printer being listed as Offline. Once the box was unchecked, it was back online and the customer was back to printing once again.

Control Panel Applets from Command Line

One of my customers doesn't allow user accounts to be in the local Administrators group,  something I wish more companies would do. In fact over 90% of infections could be stopped by not logging in as an administrator; but I'll save that "soapbox" topic for another post.

Many times I need to change settings or install/remove software on someones PC without logging them out of the system, in which case I will go to %windir%\system32, shift+right-click CMD.exe and choose Run As...

Once I've opened a Command window with an account in the administrators group, I can start the Services MMC (services.msc), Device Manager (devmgmt.msc) or Computer Manager (compmgmt.msc), plus many more useful consoles from the command line. Often times I need to remove software or make a change to network settings which involves Control Panel Applets. These also can be run at the command-line (or Run... prompt if you're already logged in as an administrator), some of my favs are listed below.

Appwiz.cpl - Add/Remove Programs (or Programs and Features in Vista or Windows 7)
Ncpa.cpl - Network Connections (for changing IPs and DNS)
Powercfg.cpl - Power Options (perhaps for turning off Standby or enabling the Performance setting)
Sysdm.cpl - System Properties (lots to find here: Remote Desktop, Pagefile, System Restore settings, etc.)
Wscui.cpl - Security Center (change Automatic Updating, the Firewall and Malware monitoring)

Want more? Check out the Wiki page.

Three Free Utilities

Everyone carries around a USB drive these days with a variety of utilities, these three have been very useful in the recent past.

CPU-Z - A great utility to find out what kind of memory is installed in a system. This is especially useful when a system is a plain box with out a service tag or serial number.  And it's really annoying to open a box only to find the memory is without a label.

Magic Jelly Bean - This little gem has been in my toolbox for a long time. It grabs the key codes for popular software installed on a system (Adobe, VMWare, Office) including the OS. This is very useful if you have a disk, but lost your installation key or have lots of keys and don't know which ones were used on a particular system.

Wireless Key View - And finally, this tool grabs the WPA/WEP wireless key(s) from a Windows system (must be using the built-in Windows wireless utility) when you can't see the actual text or log into your wireless router.

And while you're visiting these sites, check out the other free software they have. You'll have your 32GB thumb drive filled up in no time ;)

Password Expiration Notifier

This is some really cool freeware (well, cool if you're some kind of IT geek). Anyway, Redmond Magazine recently had a review of NetWrix Password Expiration Notifier. In a nutshell, it e-mails users when their Active Directory password is about to expire. This is huge for companies with remote users who only use webmail, local users that don't logout for weeks at a time or Mac and Linux users that need Windows resources. The price is perfect for the base model and for more bells and whistles, prices start at $350 and climb upwards with the number of users.

Ps. Check out NetWrix's array of Freeware.

Emergency Patch Today!

A critical flaw in Internet Explorer (some say Exploder) has been found and patched today.

This is a very critical update due to the fact your system can be affected by just visiting a website.

Go to Windows Update and patch your system!

Critical Windows Patch

This doesn't happen often for Microsoft, a patch outside the usual second Tuesday routine. Apparently a Critical patch for the server service that affects earlier versions of Windows (2000/XP/Server 2003 (they don't mention the expired NT4)) and an Important fix for the latest versions (Vista/ Server 2008) was needed for this vulnerability that they just couldn't wait another three weeks.

It can be downloaded via Windows Update and at the source: Microsoft.com