Blogging on Realtime Vista will be going on hiatus. We hope that the site has offered a great number of tips and solutions to help users get better acquainted with Microsoft's Windows Vista. Though comments and blogging will discontinue, we do hope that this site continues to be a source of instruction for all involved with using Vista.

Please feel free to stop over at Realtime Nexus Digital Library where several eBooks covering Vista Migration, Windows Server, Windows security, and many other topics important to the IT community are available at no charge.

Digg it!

Sphere it!

Del.icio.us

Reddit!

Newsvine

Posted by | General |

There are a number of patch management solutions out there that check in with Microsoft to determine any applicable updates that may be available. Microsoft’s own WSUS (Windows Software Update Services) provides this free, but the same information is leveraged by a host of other third-party solutions that can provide more robust features. This is because Microsoft shares this information in a format designed for implementation by such products.
You can be notified of updates yourself via email by taking advantage of Microsoft’s security bulletin email notification service. You can register for this and other Microsoft newsletters at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/secnews/default.mspx.

Microsoft isn’t the only organization to send out security bulletins. Another good source for this sort of information is from the SANS Institute. You can subscribe to SANS newsletters at www.sans.org/newsletters. OVAL is yet another provider of security information that is used by many sites and management applications. In their own words, “OVAL is an international, information security, community standard to promote open and publicly available security content, and to standardize the transfer of this information across the entire spectrum of security tools and services”. Read more at http://oval.mitre.org.

Digg it!

Sphere it!

Del.icio.us

Reddit!

Newsvine

Posted by Bob Kelly | Administration |

WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) offers a ton of data about a Windows computer. It is a open database of information that Microsoft and others populate with virtually all details regarding your system. While management software can (and often does) take advantage of this data collection, it is also very easy to get at this information from scripts.

There are a number of WMI script generators out there including Microsoft’s Script-O-Matic and other copycat tools. One worth mentioning is provided as the “WMI Wizard” in the “Admin Script Editor” (www.adminscripteditor.com) tool. A couple of unique things it does includes generating script code in PowerShell, VBScript, KiXtart or AutoIt scripting languages and showing sample values for selected properties. The latter is important because while you may see something that looks like just what you want when browsing about, all too often the value is either unpopulated or unfriendly (unreadable that is). The feature is fully functional in the 45 day trial available for download.

You can control WMI from the WMI Control snap-in in the MMC.

1) Hit the “Start” button, type MMC and hit enter
2) If you have UAC enabled, you’ll have to answer the prompt that this is okay to run
3) Under file click “Add/Remove Snapin…” and then choose the WMI Control snapin at the bottom of the list provided.
4) You’ll be given the option to manage this on your local system or a remote one (I choose local)
5) Unlike many MMC snapins this is actually a separate dialog so all you get in the tree is a single node with no child nodes. Right click it and choose “Properties” to get at its settings.

The general tab shows you some basic information pulled from WMI regarding your system. Probably nothing you didn’t know here. The Backup/Restore tab lets you do as you’d expect. With the Security tab we finally get to something interesting. Here you can specify security on any level similar to how you would on most other items such as files and folders. Finally, there is an “Advanced” tab which has but one setting and that is to allow for you to specify the default namespace for purposes of scripting. This is set to root\cimv2 by default and is not something you would normally change as this is where most of the classes exist that pertains to your system. With this set, you need not specify the full path to the namespace when referencing a class as in the example below.

 
Continue reading WMI Control in Vista...

Digg it!

Sphere it!

Del.icio.us

Reddit!

Newsvine

Posted by Bob Kelly | Administration |

While there is no elevation command in Vista so that your tools will run with administrative privileges, there is the Elevate Command PowerToy which can get the job done. It was written by Michael Murgolo, a consultant with Microsoft Consulting Services

The tool is discussed here:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues/2007/06/UtilitySpotlight/default.aspx.

And is available for download here:

http://www.technetmagazine.com/code07.aspx

Scroll down to : June 2007 and it is listed under “Utility Spotlight: Script Elevation PowerToys for Windows Vista” (Utility2007_06.exe)

Just give it a simple -? to view the syntax, but as you might expect it is simply:

Elevate cmd.exe

Any tool, or arguments for this such as opening a specific file or running a specific script follow just as you would normally enter them at the command line.

Digg it!

Sphere it!

Del.icio.us

Reddit!

Newsvine

Posted by Bob Kelly | Command Line Tools |

In this podcast, the new Office 2003 service pack 3 is discussed with focus on its fix for Vista Compatability issues with FrontPage 2003. The Vista Task scheduler and how it is used is also discussed closing with a tip on a File Explorer feature that lets you easilly access your favorite folders in browse dialogs (application open/save boxes).

MP3: Bob Kelly - Office 2003 SP3 and Vista Task Scheduler

Add this podcast to your iTunes

Digg it!

Sphere it!

Del.icio.us

Reddit!

Newsvine

Posted by Bob Kelly | Podcast |

You probably know about the QuickLaunch toolbar for the taskbar (the bar that starts with the "start orb" and unsually ends with the time) at the bottom of your screen. There are other toolbars at your disposal as well. One I had not noticed before is the iTunes toolbar (of course you need iTunes installed to see this):

You can select it to be shown, but the application does not display the iTunes toolbar unless you have iTunes running and minmized. When minimized, instead of seeing it as a normal minimized application, this toolbar is activated instead which lets you do very basic operations in controlling the player as well as the ability to restore the full iTunes application to view.

You may be more familiar with the Windows Media player toolbar as they have offered this feature of a while now. It works in the same way (appears when running and minimized) but it offers quite a bit more than the track skipping, pausing and volume provided by iTunes. You can also see a mini-visualization and track information (plus it reflects your chose theme/skin).

There is also an "Address" toolbar that gives you a simple web browser address bar where you can quickly enter a web address. However, this is of fairly limited value today as you can also enter a URL in the search box in the start menu in the same way (I guess it saves you one click, and that is something).

Others include links, desktop and (again if supported) and a Tablet PC Input Panel. Right click your taskbar and select "Toolbars" to have a look at what options are there for you.

Digg it!

Sphere it!

Del.icio.us

Reddit!

Newsvine

Posted by Bob Kelly | General |

Okay, so while Office 2007 is awesome and I can still "save as" Office 2003 format for all those I communicate with that have not made the jump, I still have a few systems running Office 2003 and a Service Pack is most welcome. The link below will give you the rundown on what is in there, but if you are using Office 2003 (or any product with an available service pack) it is best to upgrade.

While it does list FrontPage 2003 as a product this update applies to, none of the listed fixes mention FrontPage. So does it fix the dreaded hyperlink crash in Vista? It seems to have fixed it for me. But it could be in combination with other fixes I've tried. Anyone care to confirm?

[Description]
[Download Link]

Digg it!

Sphere it!

Del.icio.us

Reddit!

Newsvine

Posted by Bob Kelly | News |

If you have an interactive user program that needs admin permissions to run, it will not do so on startup. Instead, an icon appears in the notification area (system tray) which lets you see (and optionally start) such programs manually where you can then acknowledge the UAC prompt required to kick it off.

View image

It is a bit of a pain, but the alternative would be to present you with a UAC prompt every time you logged into the computer, and that would be much more painful. Particularly as so many people seem to hate this feature already.

It could be the program does not really need admin permissions to run, but is requiring it as a matter of sloppy programming. Okay that could be harsh, it was not such a big deal to “attempt” an action as administrator before Vista. The point being, if you have an application doing this to you, see the vendor’s website for updates as there are things that can be done programmatically to avoid this situation and with any luck the vendor has released a “more” Vista compatible release that avoids this situation.

Digg it!

Sphere it!

Del.icio.us

Reddit!

Newsvine

Posted by Bob Kelly | General |