Enable Windows 7 admin shares for local accounts (c$, etc)

If you are frustrated by the lack of access to admin shares in Vista or Windows 7 here is a reg hack to re-enable those shares. This will allow local accounts (On the host machine) to access admin shares. By changing this registry setting you are DISABLING UAC remote restrictions!

Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Key: Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System Name: LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy Data Type: REG_DWORD
Value: 1

Please be aware that this is a security hole if your systems are not patched (Not to mention zero day attacks). Use with discretion and without blame (Me that is).

From Microsoft:

How UAC remote restrictions work 

To better protect those users who are members of the local Administrators group, we implement UAC restrictions on the network. This mechanism helps prevent against "loopback" attacks. This mechanism also helps prevent local malicious software from running remotely with administrative rights.

Source: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951016/
Other Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_share

Check to see if a VBS script has Admin rights

Came across a problem today where we were running a VBS script that was obviously designed expecting UAC to be turned off.  In looking for a way to elevate the script to Admin before running, I found some code to force the script to run as administrator without having to reghack each PC.  It took a combination of sites to get the code, but here it is.

key = CreateObject("WScript.Shell").RegRead("HKEY_USERS\s-1-5-19\")
If err.number <> 0 Then
 Set objShell = CreateObject("Shell.Application")
 objShell.ShellExecute "wscript.exe", Chr(34) & _
 WScript.ScriptFullName & Chr(34), "", "runas", 1
End If


If you insert that code at the beginning of your script it will first check to see if the script has Administrative rights (Either through UAC, or XP admin) and if it doesn't it will relaunch the script using runas administrator.

Warning: I haven't tested this in Windows XP.  I know that the Check part will work, but don't know about the relaunch.


Reghack to get Run As Administrator in the context menu for .VBS files:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/152967-run-administrator-add-vbs-file-context-menu.html

UAC elevation code:
http://www.winhelponline.com/articles/185/1/VBScripts-and-UAC-elevation.html

Check for Admin rights code:
http://csi-windows.com/toolkit/csi-isadmin

Driver Backup

If you have ever had to reload a Windows system and dreaded looking for CD's or figuring out what drivers to use, then this is the program for you!

DriverBackup! backs up all of your drivers and gives you a nice .bat file to run to install everything when you reinstall is complete. Haven't tried it yet but next chance I get I will definitely be using this. Oh and it's FREE.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/drvback/

Came across another tool that looks promising.

http://www.slimdrivers.com/

VNC Server for CE 5.0 and up

If you have ever needed a VNC server on a CE 5 or greater device then efonvnc is for you. It's a basic VNC server with a few basic functions. It has worked well for me and it's free!

http://sourceforge.net/projects/efonvnc/

Fix WinXP Explorer settings not being saved

Today I came across a problem where the users explorer settings were not being saved on reboot. Settings like Screen resolution, monitor setup, and icon placement. I first made sure he wasn't using a temporary profile. Then I deleted the following registry keys:

HKCU_ software\microsoft\windows\shellnoroam\bagmru

And

HKCU _software\microsoft\windows\shellnoroam\bags

That will force windows to recreate them and should fix any corruption that would have been causing this problem. It would be smart to make sure that the local user has read/write access to those registry keys, but you will find that out when you try to delete the keys :)

Source:
http://www.techsupportforum.com/microsoft-support/windows-xp-support/10283-windows-explorer-settings-not-being-saved.html

Use any webpage as your screen saver FREE

Looking for free screen savers is a virtual !MINE*FIELD@
Screen Saver sites in general tend to be full of "free" (Shareware != free) and spyware laden screen savers for download. So when I started looking for a free screen saver that would display a webpage, I cringed a little. I did some Google searching and found someone posted the following site on Digg (Yes it is useful once in awhile). This screen saver is FREE and as far as I can tell doesn't include any spyware. I haven't fully tested it, but it seems like a nice simple screen saver that allows you to display any website or anything that can be displayed in IE. Check it out and let me know what you think.

HTML Screensaver:
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/djmclean/htmlscreensaver.html

Side note: I wanted to display a nice full screen weather map while in screen saver mode. http://www.wunderground.com/auto/wxmap/

Boot to any device even if the BIOS doesn't like it

PLoP is a boot manager that can be installed or booted to via just about any boot device, and allows you in turn to boot from any other boot device.

What does that do for you?
Well you can use a boot floppy with PLoP to boot to a USB on an old computer that normal can't boot to USB. You can also boot PLoP off a CD or install it as a boot menu for windows or linux.

It might come in useful if you are wanting to try out the new chrome OS on USB, or maybe just trying to boot from CD on an old computer that can only boot from floppy.


http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html

Thanks Steve for finding this and sending it on!