Google Search Gadget

After I got my new PC, the first thing I wanted to do was replace some of the functionality of my dynamic desktop. Primarily this meant a useful Google Search box. My search found 3 gadgets already in play, but to my dismay, they all link to adwords sponsored websites.

So, using Darren's example, I found that gadgets are really just little tiny websites. Hmm, I can code websites. Even really tiny ones.

I would like to present, my basic Google Search Gadget. No encoded text, no adwords, no fancy graphics, or crazy cool search technology. It simply provides a form to start searchs.

Future revisions:

• Adding a Google logo?
• Search History?
• Configuration page
• Better background image = transparent background!

Better Warcraft Gear through Powershell Recurrsion

My warlock has reached 80. He has just about all the regular quest rewards that one can get through soloing the area. Now comes the long haul of playing the more advanced group areas of the game, except even my best quested gear wasn't cutting it for some of the lowest heroic dungeons.

So, using a combination of MaxDPS and the Gear Wishlist, I determined that the best tailored outfit would be the Ebonweave Robe. This tailored purple item would be a great step up in the current item I have equipped.

Unfortunately for one of my guilde tailors to make this for me is going to require some serious materials "mats". Just exactly what it would require, I wasn't so sure. So, knowing this is possible via a script, I developed the following. It reads a simple list of ingredients from a CSV (attached below). It then takes the ingredients of those ingredients (Bolt of Imbued Frostweave = requires infinite dust and a bolt of frostweave, etc.). It then creates a list of the raw ingredients to make this robe.

In case your are curious, they are:
Raw materials for Ebonweave Robe

• Frostweave x 60
• Infinite Dust x 12
• Frostweave x 80
• Infinite Dust x 16
• Eternal Shadow x 16
• Eternium Thread x 1
• Frozen Orb x 1

WoW Wallpaper Grabber Version 2

This updated version of the code will pull down the latest image from WorldofWarcraft.com from either their Blizzard images or the new Fan Art section randomly.

Recent Updates to code:

• July 9, 2010 - Added code to randomly pull from any image on page.
• July 22, 2010 - Added code to check what images were available last time it checked the Blizzard images, then download the newest if one is available. No changes - randomly between all Blizz images.Removing code and placing into ZIP attachment. Code appears to be causing formatting issues on later pages.

Dynamic Interesting Desktops

One of my first contract jobs was for a small IT company in the area. I worked with them for about 4 months before a permanent, salaried position came along. (Sorry, I like having someone else pay for the benifits) One of the most memorable things the owner shown me was his background.

Now, he was a very private person, so I don't mean his personal background. I mean the 'desktop' image that he had on his computer. It consisted of virtually hundreds of links to websites and resources that he used regularly. Over the last few years, I have attempted various methods to recreate it. It's a really easy concept, create a webpage, add links to it, and set it as your background.

That brings me to my latest script. First it reads the contents of a special folder, containing several desktop sized images. I have been enjoying the art by this artist. (These are especially great because he has one specific to my widescreen monitor resolution 1680x1050. ) The script randomly picks one for the background. Next it reads a short CSV file on my local computer containing URLs and titles for various resources I connect to regularly. The script creates links to these resources in the HTML. (They can be several layers deep if you want too! Personally, I put similar resources on the same line (gmail, yahoo mail, etc.) The final step overwrites an existing HTML file on my computer. I run the script as part of my logoff routine, so it's available next time I logon.

Variants of this background file have included live feeds from web cameras, weather maps and even graphs of system performance. I have also added portions to this script to have it set the background to the newly created HTML file, but since it never changes, it isn't quite necessary. Since I am still using a table to layout the page, the latest revision of this script defines the left and right columns using the screen's actual width, not percentages.

Have Fun!

My (Fixed - term) Mortgage Calculator

My wife and I were recently considering the purchase of a new home in our area. We went through a million what-if scenarios about the new home, laying out the pros and cons of the house, or current place and all the financial concerns involved.

While running all the numbers, I was constantly faced with numerous calculations. Going out to a mortgage calculator wasn't always the favorable solution. That is why I worked up this Excel spreadsheet to calculate various scenarios (what if our house sold of 10% more? What if we qualified for a 45year fixed loan? what if we paid off the car? )

The attached spreadsheet is the result of that process. You will need to populate the various 'yellow' fields with:

• The price of your new home
• A comparable price you can sell your existing home for
• How much you still owe on it
• Interest rates and terms for your market
• Appropriate taxes and fees for your new neighborhood (like Mello Roos).

Our final deal-breaker on this house was a suggestion from a Realtor that we trust. She suggested waiting for the local market to improve so that our house would sell for a bit more. That would help us put down a larger down payment on the new place and lower the monthly bills.

Outlook Trick for Easy Mailbox Management

One thing every corporate employee has to deal with is email. Go on vacation, and you get tons of it. Stay home with a sick kid, and you get a ton more. The work does not stop, even if you can't go. In turn, we either don't take time off, even when needed, or we read our email all the time (Curse you Blackberry!).

As an IT administrator, I would get alerts. Lots of them. Backup alerts, server alerts, email slowness alerts, spam filter alerts, and even alerts that the alerts didn't work! To combat this ever growing corporate 'spam', I created a simple set of rules in Outlook to manage them.

Using Outlook's own auto-archiving functionality to clean-up messages, I was able to maintain a mailbox well within the corporate standards. The attached PDF document details how to duplicate these settings.

Note: A good portion of performance of Outlook in an Exchange environment depends on the local configuration and settings of the Outlook client. Check out this wonderful document created by a former co-worker regarding various settings Microsoft Support recommended.
It can be found here.

Outlook: Create Search Folders to find Read Receipts

I had an interesting request. A user wanted to search their mailbox for all read/not read/delivery/non-delivery receipts in their mailbox. You would think that it should be as easy as searching for "READ:" in the subject line. Unfortunately, Outlook does a wild-card type search on what you enter. This means you may get read:, bread: and read:s.

What about using forms? Based on my previous Outlook-form-coding experience, I knew that Outlook used different standard forms for the various types of messages. IPM.Note for email messages, IPM.Contact for (well, gee) contacts, etc.. As long as the message didn't traffic the Internet, the default form should be used. So, what is the default form for Read Receipts??

What form? Opening up a read receipt, I checked the properties tab. Here I found that the message type was report. Cool, now I went back to my query and tried to search on the form type of "report", but when you add the form type "report" to your search query, it returns NONE as the options. Now I know that this means there are no readable fields on this form.

Final solution: Doing a quick Google search on Message Class, I determined that this was the field I needed. Common message classes are IPM.Note and IPM.Contact. So, I created a query for all messages, where the message class contains report.

1. From inside Outlook, right click Search Folders and create a new search folder
2. Choose the type Custom Search Order
3. Give it a name, then click the Criteria button
4. From the Advanced tab, click the Field button, select All Mail Fields then Message Class
5. Type report into the Value field and click Add to List
6. Click OK to accept, then OK to close the Custom Search folder configuration screen.

My search folder returned several read receipts and an undeliverable response in my Inbox. I have not tested it with other response type messages, but believe it will find all message responses. Meeting responses will probably require a slightly different query.

Have fun!

Script to Simplify life

During my work day, I probably send a 20-30 email messages. Each time I typically look up someone's email address, copy it to the (keyboard) buffer (CTRL+C), click on a shortcut I have to open a new email, then paste the email address into the new message. I thought, what if my new email shortcut, would test the keyboard buffer and then automatically paste the address for me?

Save the following VBS to your local computer. Drag it into your quick launch bar, then change the icon to something useful (like Outlook's new message icon)! One click new emails that will be pre-populated with the last email address you copied.

Set Default Outlook Address Book via Script

The default Outlook Address Book is saved in the Windows registry. I've created this script to be used to push down a new Address Book view at logon for a large group of users. The script will read the current default Outlook profile for the currently logged on user, then push down the address book view you specify.

To configure the script:

1. Set your Outlook Address Book to the view you want to set on the remote workstation. (Tools - Address Book - Tools - Options - Set show this address list first).
2. Export the registry key for this Outlook profile.
   
    
   [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\(your default Outlook profile)\9207f3e0a3b11019908b08002b2a56c2]
3. Open the .REG file and copy the HEX code for "01023d06". For example:
    00,00,00,00,dc,a7,40,c8,c0,42,10,1a,b4,b9,08,00,2b,2f,e1,82,01
4. Edit the Set-DefaultABView.VBS file (see attached) line to use your hex code. Make sure to leave in the double-quotes.
    Const DestABUsers =  "00,00,00,00,dc,a7,40,c8,c0,42,10,1a,b4,b9,08,00,2b,2f,e1,82,01"
5. Save, and test drive.

Now, you can push it out as part of your logon scripts?? or add it to the RunOnce settings on your Windows image.

:)

Have Fun!

My Home Disaster Recovery Plan

I was just reading through another news article about the fires in Southern California. The article was discussing the displaced families that were returning home for the first time. The focus family found that they had unfortunately returned to a burnt out shell of a home.

Among the possessions the a 56-year-old photographer lost were his transparencies, melted inside a fire-resistant box, and a photograph of his father.

"I've lost my history," Sanders said. "All the work I've done for the past 30 years, it's all destroyed."
- Yahoo News

This got me thinking. First, my computer has every digital picture (over 5 years and 20gb) ever taken of my kids on the hard drive. Secondly, a fire-safe box is not going to protect a stack of DVDs. What if my house burnt down while I was at work. I have visions of heroically racing into the den, grabbing my PC and running out of the house, but it is unlikely that my house will be burning while I am at home. "Hey, what's that burnning smell and why are the fire alarms going off? I am not cooking..."

Digital Disaster Recovery for the Home. With this, I have been implementing a backup methodology similar to those implemented in a corporate environment. This includes backing up all my digital files to removable media then shipping them to relatives. I currently have two stacks of 8 DVDs with 4GB of pictures and videos on each. Approximately every 2 months, I create 2 new DVDs containing the new pictures taken (one for me, one for off-site).

Next steps? A digital inventory of the house. As I stated earlier, digital images are virtually free to take and easy to keep. I plan to start taking pictures of household items, and their serials. I plan on starting with the electronic items (like the TV, TiVo, and digital camera). Then take pictures of the kitchen table and chairs (all wood), the bedroom set (also wood), the sofa and love seat, and well just about everything.

Insurance will cover replacing the material items. I can buy myself a new computer, stock full of all the applications I use. Unfortunately, there is no amount of money that can replace the happy moments we've recorded.

Assign Secondary Account Permissions to Distribution Lists in Exchange 2003

The company I am working for has a slightly different security model than I've seen before. It is probably because the largest Exchange server I've supported previously only had 3,000 mailboxes. This one supports 10x that number, with plans to grow to over 100,000 mailboxes by this time next year.

With that, they use a seperate "security" domain for logon and authentication than the "resource" domain where their mailboxes reside. This means that the account you logon to your computer, may not be the same account you read your email from. That account will need to be granted secondary permissions to that mailbox, aka "Associated Exernal Account".

Along that same strain, you can no longer simply assign permissions to a user via the Managed By tab. Their mailbox is assigned permissions, but you need to grant their security account permissions also if the group owner wants to add/remove members.

That's why I developed this script. This script will assign Manager permissions to a distribution list. It assigns the selected name rights on the Managed By tab, then assigns the "Send As" and "Write Members" permissions on the Security tab to the selected user's Associated External Account.

There are a few limitations/warnings:

1. It doesn't work with DLs that contain commas in their display name. It will present this groups in a popup box when you query the OUs. This may be resolved as of my latest release.
2. If you attempt to query all DLs in an OU, it may return only a portion of them. Use the Contains functionality to filter the results. It works similar to a SQL LIKE command, in that it will return DLs that contain the phrase anywhere in it. (no wild cards) Found it was having issues with punctuation, like back slashes in names.
3. It does not remove the old owner's permissions from the security tab. Heck, this could be useful when assigning additional owners to a single DL.
4. I have not tested the script yet against a new owner without an associated external account. It will attempt to assign to the NT_DOMAIN\SELF account of the user.

I've cleaned up the code, so it no longer asks for a specific OU. It will query your entire domain for the specified DL. To run, double-click on the downloaded HTA and have fun!

Note: I have recently (3/26) updated this script to filter on the entries, instead of search each one. This makes the overall process rather quick.

Update (6/6/2008): I have added code to allow you to remove people from the security settings on a DL also. Currently working on an issue that generates an error when dealing with an apostrophe in the distinguished name (for example ldap://cn=Eric's Big List,ou=groups,ou=ericwoodford,ou=local). VBScript is taking it as the end of string and breaking..

Changing the Exchange Organization after Installation.

Today I had the honor of working with a company after a catastrophic failure of their Exchange server. One day their hardware was working just fine, the next the server will no longer boot and Exchange is down.

As part of the repair, I installed Exchange 2000 on a new server, and attempted to mount the databases from the mirrored drive. After a few manual uninstalls of Exchange and the the typical passes with ESEUTIL to repair the dirty shutdown the database was coming up clean, but still would not mount.

Checking the Application event log, I found that the server was built in the wrong Exchange Organization. Ugh! As Microsoft states repeatedly, to change the Org, one must reinstall Exchange. In Exchange 5.5 it was so bad, that we would worry about the case of the Organization name when adding new servers to an Exchange site.

That was COMPANY and not Company for the Organization name, right??

In 2000 and 2003, I've always understood that this had not changed. Plan ahead and do it right the first time. So, I started an uninstall of Exchange 2000 off this client's server while scouring Technet and Google for a better solution. Of course, as soon as I started the uninstall, I found that Exchange will NOT uninstall because it sees mailboxes are still on the server. Despite not successfully mounting, it must have partially mounted the database and Exchange now thinks they are on the server.

Using the Manual uninstall procedure again, I remove Exchange one more time, do another reinstall, but this time it also fails. Exchange never asked me to change the Organization as it is still registered in AD. Oh well. That's when I found this tool. LegacyDN.

Like RegEdit, this tool has tons of disclaimers:

Never use [name of tool] on a production database, never use unless you have backups, never use on unless you have PSS on hold on the phone and we tell you to run it..

So, I closed my eyes, crossed my fingers and double clicked on it. By default it comes up in read-only mode. I immediately see that it found the First Administrative Group on the server. Clicking on the fields do nothing, but I can see I have hope. So I close it, and reopen it in /FORCEWRITE mode. Click and the Organization field populates. I replace the text with the correct entry, click Update, wait 30 seconds and "The Organization has been updated successfully.". I imagine that my 30 second wait was in part to only having 8 mailboxes in this information store. If this had been a store with a couple hundred or thousand mailboxes, this process may have taken much longer.

Now the database mounted successfully and all is happy. The users can send and receive email without issue. Next, migrate them to Exchange 2003...

Some useful references.

• Top 10 Database Mounting issues.
• What to do when your database won't mount?

DST: Get DN for Exchange Calendar Update tool

When running through the latest version of the Exchange calendar update process, it has you assign permissions to all mailboxes on the server. To modify all the mailboxes, you need to provide a list of distinguished names (DN) for each mailbox. Unfortunately this is not simply the DistiguishedName field that you would query from AD, but the LegacyDN entry. You need to query the Exchange environment to get this information.

The following script, I pulled from various sources (primarily my Advanced VBScript book off my desk). It echos the DN to the screen, and also creates a CSV file in the folder it was run from. I did have to run it from the Exchange server, but it may also run from a workstation running the Exchange system admin tools.

Find an email address in your environment

In my environment, I am always looking up a user's email address, or trying to find out what Exchange server their mailbox is on. That's why I developed the attached script.

It will do a wild-card search against your currently logged on domain to find any account with those values. It searches the Displayname, proxyaddresses and mail fields.

Lookup email addresses from CSV in AD

Scenario: I was given a list of 15,000 email addresses and asked if they were still valid in our Exchange environment.

Easy method: I ran a simple VBScript that does an LDAP query against each email address. This worked great, except that it took close to 5 seconds per email address to query our environment. (~20 hrs!) The over-all run time was going to be too extreme.

Next method: Read all entries into a datalist using the tricks from Microsoft Scripting Guys. The script would read each object (primary;proxy) into seperate records, then search each one. This ran for 2 hours before the server logged me off. Even if I deleted entries that I found, it still took too long.

Final method: Read each email address and append it to a string for each letter (for example "administrator@example.com;author@example.com" went in A) accessible via an array. Now I have a 50ish (a..z,0..9,!#$%^) row array containing unsorted lists. The script just needs to find the correct row, and see if the email address exists there.

The entire process took approximately 14-15 minutes. This inclides 12 minutes to read in all 250k email addresses from Active Directory(AD) and then sort them. Processing it creates a NEW csv containing the original line, then appends TRUE or FALSE. If it finds the email address, it puts a TRUE, otherwise it puts FALSE. It does very little clean-up of the email addresses it reads from the CSV, but that could be improved rather easily.

Modify Mailbox Alias field

We recently finished a project updating the naming standard for all our Windows AD accounts. Once completed, I found that approximately 3% of the accounts had the alias field set to this old naming standard. Googled high-and-low, I could not find a simple script to set the alias field. So...

This script reads a text file of account distinguished names, then modifies the mailbox alias (aka mailnickname) field to match the SAMAccountName field. Added protection for accounts without mailboxes associated with them. Found that by setting a mailnickname, mail-enabled the account.

Powershell Quick report - all smtp email addresses

Attending a class this week for Exchange 2007. The question came up to export all SMTP email addresses for all mailboxes. In the lab environment, I worked up this script.

I have not tested this in a production environment, so I am not sure what will display for users with other than SMTP email addresses.

Purging a list of Mailboxes from Exchange 2003

The migration process used to move a number of mailboxes created a couple hundred dead mailboxes objects in our environment. Their mailbox information needed to be cleared before their mailboxes could be migrated to the server for the final time. To fix this, I looked into a script. First I found the script at TelnetPort25, here. This script goes through the entire environment and purges all deleted and non-system mailboxes. This would work great, but querying an environment with literally thousands of mailboxes is a daunting task.

That's when I found this script that would simply dump all the deleted-not-purged mailboxes on a specific server. Running this script generates a CSV file with their displayname, and some additional information. I copied the displayname field out of Glen's script and pasted to a text file to use and re-wrote Telnet's to fit my purpose.

Note: uncomment the line ' objExchange_Mailbox.Purge when you feel the script is working correctly.

Tool to Export DL Membership

Here is a small HTA applet that I have built to export the membership of various groups in Windows Active Directory. It provides some basic filtering (owner, specific OU, name contains), plus 3 modes of export, XLS, CSV, or HTML to screen. Beware, if you have office 2007, XLS is XLSX format.

To run this in your environment, it will need to be modified:
line 27 & 28

line 55 & 56

CSV mode gives the best detail as XLS has a 255 character limit on single fields.

Just fixed issue where it required you to pick a subOU in order to continue.

Using a Batch to Exmerge a Recovery Storage Group - Mailbox from Exchange 2003

I am working on a project to recover 30 individual days of email from a clients mailbox. This requires me to restore 30 days worth of backups to the Recovery Storage Group(RSG) on a specific server. I have quickly grown tired of selecting the name from the giant Exmerge list and worked out how to use a batch file to run Exmerge against the RSG.

Part 1: Exmerge.ini

Part 2: database.txt

Part 3: mailboxes.txt

Part 4: the Batch file (exportMbx.bat)

I've now put a shortcut to the bat file on my desktop and double-click it after the restore completes. If I could only find a script that would then dismount the database, mark it for overwrite and start a new restore from the server, I'd be done! Unfortunately, I've been told by Microsoft you can't script against the RSG, so still got a bunch of clicks for each day.

Back to work...

VBScript- Create Distribution Groups (DL) from CSV

I needed a quick script to create a series of distribution lists on an Exchange environment. I thought, "Cool, a chance to flex my PowerShell muscles!" From that I found new-qadgroup from the quest tools set and new-distributiongroup from the Exchange tools. After quite a bit of muddling around, I was never able to recreate my script.

Requirements I was trying to meet:

1. Read all data from a CSV file (easy import-csv)
2. Create a new DL from each line in the CSV (| %{new-distributiongroup -name $_.name}
3. Populate each list with memers found in the members column (this was semi-colon seperated).
4. Populate ExtensionAttribute3 with a common value 'FINANCE DLs'. This is used by our Dynamic Address Book views.
5. Set limit of max message size sent to DL
6. Set who was able to send to this DL (groups and people)
7. Set SMTP and Proxy SMTP email addresses.

Unfortunately, after working on the first 3-4 items, I was stumped. VBScript failed me on a number of these, just in the fact that it's not widely published and a few answers varied. So, here is what I developed. The script fails when adding more than 1 additional proxy address, otherwise it worked for all my other tests.

(Sorry for the wrappage..)

Query AD for Printer info

Expanding on my code to query single printer information, I found I could pull all networked printers from Active Directory(AD). This will help in cleaning up the naming standard for all our printers. Hopefully making DNS cleaner by using a single standard for host(A) records. Final file is written to c:\printer-info.csv. The attached script will return the following:

• Printer name
• Server name - where hosted
• Port - name of printer port (local or network)
• Share name
• Host address (what the port points to) - requires Windows 2003 or XP print server
• Protocol (RAW or LPT) - requires Windows 2003 or XP print server
• RAW Port (if using RAW) - requires Windows 2003 or XP print server
• SNMP Community (if enabled) - requires Windows 2003 or XP print server
• Host Name - as pulled from DNS - requires IP Address, captured in Host Address field Windows 2003 or XP print server

To get the script to run, you will need to modify this line (#19) to match your current environment.

Sources: Microsoft, Microsoft, and Geek Speak

iPodder/Juice Script Cleanup ID3 tags

As you may already know, I use my MP3 player simply to play audio-books (aka podcasts) while commuting to work.

I use Juice (fka iPodder) to capture these files. It does an excellent job of downloading content and placing it on my machine. Once downloaded, I drag and drop the files to my MP3 player.

Unfortunately, my cheap ($5) MP3 player (Sansa 100?) sorts files using an odd technique. It appears to sort them by track number, then title. So if I have 2 active stories on my player, it will play track 1 - story 1, then track 1 - story 2, track 2 - story 1, etc. I think this is because sometimes the track number is a 'string' value?? To fix this, I cleanup the ID3 tags values.

This script utilizes the CDDBControl (from Roxio) to get access to the ID3 tags. If you have a Roxio product installed, you may already have this file. Otherwise, I've downloaded it from here. Register it like you would any new DLL on your computer.

Inside Juice, I setup an advanced option to call this script when a download finished. Cool? Go into Juice, select File, then Preferences, and click on the Advanced tab. Click the checkbox for Run this command after each download, then put in a fully qualified path to the script. Mine is:

You see a short popup each time a file finished downloading and the script runs. The Title name changes to the first two characters of the name(track number) - Full name of podcast.

For example (for the Max Quick Part 2):
Title before = PB-Max Quick 2: Two Travelers - Episode 1
Title after = MA01-Max Quick 2: Two Travelers

Using LogParser to query Exchange 5.5 SMTP traffic

We are working to decommission our existing Exchange 5.5 environment and looking to migrate all services to Exchange 2003. As part of the decom, we need to re-direct the Internal SMTP traffic off our Exchange 5.5 bridgeheads. This meant, determining which servers were connecting to the server. First we changed all MX records in our DNS to point to the new server. Then we watched the Application logs on the server for MSExchangeIMC - ID: 2000 events.
This provided some 2,000 hits on our server. Ouch! Using LogParser from Microsoft, I was able to generate a quick query to pull the information.

With this data, I was able to contact the server owners and have them change their relay information.

1. What fields I want
   This section determines which fields are pulled out. Strings is a Application Log field. The query pulls out the server name from this field, then counts each entry in the value HITS.
   
   trim(substr(strings,0,index_of(strings,'|'))) as Server, count(*) as hits
2. Where to/from
   Put the results in the specified log file when pulling from this server's app log. Putting commas between the different servers, you can list several there. (\\server1\application, \\server2\application).
   
   into LogFile.csv from \\ExchangeServer\application
3. Give me only what's relevant:
   Give me all MSExchangeIMC events where the ID = 2000 and in the last 2 days. The long line for 'timegenerated' is the long date difference field.
   
    
   Sourcename like 'MSExchangeIMC' and
   eventid=2000 and TimeGenerated >= SUB(TO_LOCALTIME(SYSTEM_TIMESTAMP()), TIMESTAMP('0000-01-02 00:00:00', 'yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss'))
4. Make it pretty
   This summarizes the data and combines on the SERVER field. Then it sorts the group by HITS in descending order.
   
    
   group by server order by hits DESC

This query runs in about 20 seconds on 2 servers with 3 days of data. Putting this into a BATCH file, I was able to make the script rather user friendly.

Microsoft Auto-Accept Agent Accepts Anything!

Microsoft has an Auto-Accept Agent (or AAA) that can be used on Exchange 2003 servers to process incoming meeting requests to resource mailboxes. Simply send the resource an invitation and within 10-30 seconds, the room will respond back with an acceptance or denial of your request.

For the last 2 months we've been using this script to process the 61 various resources in the environment (conference rooms, laptops and LCD projectors). Combine that with my own home-brewed calendar export script, the company has a complete resource tool for virtually all items in the environment. Unfortunately over the last few weeks, we've had new issues.

Corrupted CDO Free/Busy Cache: First we had users reporting getting declined responses when the calendar shown free, and canceled meetings were still showing as busy. Why? My best results were pulled from a technical article (kb886760). Now, if you read this article VERY closely, pay attention to:

Hotfix installation information
After users apply this hotfix, they may have to wait until the end of the month before they stop experiencing the symptoms that are described in the ""Symptoms"" section. This is because the EXCDO component keeps free/busy information cached until the last day of the month. The free/busy cache is rebuilt on the first day of the month.

GREAT!! So end-users will need to wait until the end of the month to view the correct free/busy information on our resource calendars as the CDO free/busy cache is only completely rebuilt once a month. There has to be a better way...

After talking with Microsoft PS Support, I got this answer..

1. Set the CalendarRecovery registry value to 1 on the Exchange 2003 computer. To do this, follow these steps:
   • Click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then click OK.
   • Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
     
       HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\EXCDO\Parameters<br />
   • On the Edit menu, click Add Key, type EXCDO, and then press ENTER.
   • On the Edit menu, click Add Key, type Parameters, and then press ENTER.
   • On the Edit menu, point to New, click DWORD Value, type CalendarRecovery, and then press ENTER.
   • Double-click CalendarRecovery, type 1 in the Value data box, click Decimal, and then click OK.
   • Quit Registry Editor.
2. Start Outlook on a client computer and log on by using the resource mailbox profile.
3. Right-click the Calendar folder, and then click Properties.
4. Click the General tab, type CleanupExpansionCachesInTheCalendarFolder in the Description box, and then click OK.

Notes

• If the Description box already includes CleanupExpansionCachesInTheCalendarFolder, clear the Description box, click Apply, type CleanupExpansionCachesInTheCalendarFolder in the Description box, and then click OK.
• After you complete steps 1 through 4, you may have to run Outlook with the /CleanFreeBusy command-line switch. This will update the free/busy information. To do this, click Start, click Run, type Outlook.exe /cleanfreebusy , and then click OK.

I needed to touch every mailbox, so it was (going to be) quite a tedious task of creating a profile and opening each mailbox. Luckily, I do have a script also for that.

Alright, that problem solved. On to the next one..

Faulty Replication: At the same time the free/busy information was not replicating, users were reporting other issues with the calendars. This fix was applied 891509.

Unplanned for behavior: OK, patched and meetings are processing. Now meetings are booking, and the calendars look really good. What do we find out? That the, wait, really, you won't believe it. Meeting requests booked on the calendar as FREE, are actually booked on the calendar as FREE. Hu? What? Users can successfully book the conference room, get an acceptance back from the room and still be booked over by other requesters who book the room as "tentative", "BUSY" or "Out of Office".

According to our Microsoft TAM, this functionality is by design.

A customer requested functionality to send a 'free' request to resources to get a accepted/denied response back, then the end-user would use other means to officially book the room.

So, now we are in the uncomfortable place of telling our users that the conference rooms will accept your meeting request marked "FREE" and very likely you will get booked over. (Don't change it to FREE later on either, it has the same effect.) I still wish we went with SWINC's product Exchange Resource Manager or ERM as it was fully configurable. it would have accepted those "FREE" requests and converted them to "BUSY" with a simple click of a check box.

So much for saving $$!

Saving More Daylight!!

Thanks to a recent change, Americans will soon be getting more daylight. Yes, we will start saving daylight approximately 3 weeks earlier this year. Previously, Daylight Savings started the first Sunday in April, now it will be the second Sunday in March!

What does that mean for IT? Nothing, and a bunch. First Outlook bases DST calculations on the local operating systems settings. So, if you book a meeting at 10AM PST after March 11th, 2007, it will actually be an hour off. Why? The calendar stores it stores it in Greenwhich Mean Time (GMT). (10AM + 8hrs for GMT = 6PM). When in actuallity (because it's after DST starts), that meeting should be on the calendar for 5PM GMT. In addition, all applications that use straight CDO will have issues (like my script and Blackberry servers).

Nicely, Microsoft has provideed a web page specifically addressing these issues. (see here)

To fix my HTML Generating Script, search for these two functions Function GetDSTStartDate(llevel) and Function GetDSTEndDate(llevel) and replace it with this code:

Hopefully, we all get to enjoy a bit more of this saved up daylight by playing outside. I declare from this date forward that 3PM is beginning of recess. Now just need to decide what time zone that's in....

Create mailboxes from a CSV file

Takes a CSV file, reads headers and creates mailbox based on values.
Requires two columns in CSV, UserPrincipalname and Name. The UPN can be the SAMAccount value renamed. It will append the variable $UPNDomain to end.

Also requires both Quest ActiveRoles PowerShell tools (to create AD Account) and Exchange 2007 Management tools to set mailbox quota limits.

Find All Mailboxes with Mixed up Quota settings

Invariably, when you let your local admins create mailboxes using a web interface, you will get some odd settings.

One of things that I've noticed, when running PowerShelll queries, is all the mailboxes with incorrect quota settings. Users with Send Receive limits lower than the Notification settings. Tired of these alerts, I created the following to dump those mailboxes to a CSV.

I am hoping that someone might be able to develop a better filter statement. When I tried to use:

Now.. Send the CSV to my remote admins, and ask them to help out their users.

:)

Import Remote IP Range into Exchange 2007 EDGE servers

We maintain an Exchange EDGE server on our perimeter as SMTP relay. Application servers can use this server to relay email out (to internal recipients or the Internet). To keep this server from being an open relay, we maintain a list of valid IP addresses that can relay through this server. To update the the relay, we run my script below to import the IPs. On our first attempt, we found that MS Edge 2007 - Receive Connectors have a limit on allowed RemoteIPRanges values. After approximately 1100 individual IPs, it would quit accepting any additional IP addresses. Unfortunately, we have over 1300 current application servers running currently.

Dealing with Receive Connector limits. This field accepts 3 different formats: straight IP, IP Range (0.0.0.0 - 0.0.0.1) and CIDR format (0.0.0.0/24). Since I am working from a list of allowed IP addresses, the first option is easy. CIDR format requires a bit of fiddling, as you want valid ranges and using defining a valid subnet mask is complicated. So, why not use ranges.

What my script does:

1. Reads a text file of IP addresses and CIDR IPs.
2. Breaks apart octets and sorts IP addresses (numerically not alphabetically)
3. Parses IP addresses and consolidate's IP ranges with no skips
• 10.0.0.1, 10.0.0.2, 10.0.0.3, 10.0.0.4 -> 10.0.0.1 - 10.0.0.4
4. Updates local Receive Connector - RemoteIPRAnges value on local host.

Drawback is that if someone manually adds an IP directly to the server, it will be lost. Currently the script deletes any values already there.

PowerShell Power Story

I hadn't fully realized the power and simplicty of PowerShell until recently. My manager had asked if a script could be written that would take a CSV file of mailbox names, and hide them or unhide them. My co-worker, well-versed in VBScript, generated a 220 line solution that did just that. When I got into the office, I took that as an invitation to flex the PowerShell

Here is my code:

Some nifty points:

1. The value $_.emailAddress refers the the column in the CSV file of the same name.
2. It's really easy to hide versus unhide a mailbox; simply change the $true to $false.

Note: This script utilizes the Exchange 2007 Management Shell, so you'll need to run this from a box with Exchange 2007 System Management tools on it. It does work with Exch2003 mailboxes.

Why such a difference? PowerShell has built-in functions that complete many of the basic tasks that you commonly need to do. For example the code:

I know, the code is much more complicated than necessary for my initial project. It just goes to show how much more efficient PowerShell is for scripting. In VBScript, I would have likely done all my processing inside the file reading loop and never populated the array. My script would have been more tightly focused to that single purpose.

As I learn more about PowerShell, I become more, and more, fond of it. The versatility and simplicity are quickly winning me over and I find myself writing more PS scripts.

Query Size and Free Space of Windows Volume Mount Points

I have been tasked with writting a script to analyze our servers on a daily basis. I found this most excellent server inventory script that pulls virtually every conceivable value from a server.

Now, on our Exchange cluster, we've used Volume Mount Points for the resources. This means that a 9gb drive with eight 330gb folders (or mount points) to SAN storage. If I simply pull the drive freespace, I get ~6gb (local hard drive), even though the mount points each show over 100gb free.

So.. this script. It queries the server ($ServerName) and looks up all the mount points, then queries the volumes and returns the current size, free space, and % free for each labeled mount point.

Note (Nov 10, 2008): I cleaned up a warning in the script that popped up a false error when the folder was empty. In addition, I realized the data is more useful to me in a record format, so I have the data returned in an array instead of simple string (CSV) format. Powershell displays the data for one server like this:

Quick DL Search - All DLs that a specific person can SEND To (AcceptMessagesOnlyFrom)

This uses the Powershell filter to limit the list of ALL DLs to only those locked down to individuals. It doesn't filter on lists that the client is a member of having permissions. I specifically was looking for mail enabled contacts having permissions on my DLs.

Returns the names of all DLs.

Recurse DL Parents

I am working on a project to add members to a series of distribution lists. These lists are nested into various parent lists, sometimes 2-3 layers deep. It's never been updated, but almost all these distribution groups are Mail-enabled Global Security groups. Powershell really, really wants to work with Universal groups. You can't just convert the current DL to Universal, it's parent needs to be Universal also.

The following function recurses a DL's parents and converts them all to Universal DLs using Quest's Set-QADGroup.

Woo hoo, my first PowerShell script!

This PowerShell script replicates the basic functionality of my Exchange Mailbox export HTA script. Rather quickly, it exports the following values (for all accounts with an email address) :

• First name (givenname)
• Last name (sn)
• Distinguished name
• Primary SMTP Address (mail)
• User Logon name (userprincipalname)
• User Logon name "Pre-Windows 2000" (sAMAccountName)
• All secondary email addresses (proxyaddresses)

To run this script, you will need to download and install the latest Quest tools. If you would like to include or change the fields (GivenName, employeeID, etc.) it pulls, don't expect to pull all the user properties as defined by:

I have recently revised this script that exports a few more fields from specific OUs.

Quckie - Get Windows Service Pack Level

We had a cluster issue with one of our Exchange 2007 CCR clusters. It didn't successfully failover when the virtual server quit responding. On this, we noticed that this server was still running Windows 2008 SP1.

This quick script exports all the windows versions and service packs for all current Exchange servers in your environment.

Initial Design

The Initial Description of the project was for an online website for a Middle School teacher. She intended the site to be used to provide a communications medium to parents, a "Homework Hotline". By providing parents with regular updates, the educator hopes that it will decrease the number of regular phone calls asking for homework updates. In addition, the site would provide sick and/or vacationing students a regular site to check for assignments.

The site must:

• Be easy to create new content. - As an educator, she has little time to learn a new language, working with HTML would be out of the question. The site needs to be easy to update, easy to add new agenda items, and virtually self maintaining.
• Be easy to attach pictures and handouts. Possibly photo galleries showing students performing labs. Also would help eliminate requests from students who lose key handouts. They could simply print them out at home, the library or parents work.
• Be easy to expand. A fellow teacher may want to utilize the site to add her content to the site.

In addition, the site could:

• Provide sample tests for students
• Provide extra credit activities, via links, or polls on the site
• Provide forms for downloads. (student contract, classroom policies, etc.)
• Provide resource materials for large class projects.
• Provide forum for student discussion.

Analysis
From the intial descriptions this seemed a posible job for page or book module and Event module. Upload, image and image_gallery modules as well.

Elements of Design

When initial design of the site, I created a base site that I thought my client would like. Links to information, I thought she would use, created sample posts to populate the site and demonstrated the site to her. She hated it. Colors all wrong, layout didn't make sense and the website simply wouldn't work.

I started over with a different approach. I asked her to search for websites that contained content similar to what she wanted to post. Based on her results, we took each site she liked, and picked apart the different elements that she liked and what she did not like.

1. Bright colors, simple layout.
2. Animated graphics, portraying subject matter related items (beating heart, jumping frog, etc.)
3. Graphical buttons
4. Menu items along side (as compared to across top, or in grid along middle of site.)

Based on her client base (parents and students in low-middle income households), I made a few suggestions.

• We chose a basic 2-column layout. Looking at various Drupal Themes, I could quickly apply a theme to the basic site, which helped find a number of pre-done themes she liked. Nifty Corners screenshot had many of the elements she was looking for. Simple design, bright colors and even a large header area.
• No large or animated graphics. Considering most parents are likely still on dial-up Internet access, we don't want to add any extra bandwidth. We compromised with a larger graphic header (based on the Nifty Corners theme). We pulled colors from the graphic, to use for the various elements on the site (headers, links, mission statement, etc.).
• Graphical buttons, translated to links without the link-line. We considered removing the line, but wanted the interface to be intuitive, and left the line in place.

Once we had the look and feel of the site closer to what the client expected, we could work on how she would use the site.

Complete Write-up

As part of my Master's program, I completed a detailed analysis of the site. This document includes design considerations for the site, customizations done to the site, and even basic build instructions. This should be helpful for an IT individual with experience installing Windows to build a similar site.

I am happy to say that I received an 'A' in the class and on this assignment!

The Lost Manual: BABEE - Chapter 2

Congratulations, you have now completed one full year with your BABEE unit. During the last few months, you should have noticed some drastic changes. This chapter is to cover some of the additional challenges that come with your growing BABEE.

Mobility Starting at about 9 months, your BABEE unit probably started quad appendage mobility. As your BABEE strengthens, this will convert to two legged, then full speed running. Traction control is recommended to keep up with your BABEE unit, especially in crowded areas.

Safety Along with the increased mobility, comes the increased need for unit safety. Your BABEE unit has been programmed with innate curiosity. This is to help the unit learn faster, unfortunately, it also has no limits. You may find that your BABEE is attempting to climb up on your furniture, check the contents of the silverware drawer, and taste the cleaning fluid under your sinks. It is in your best interest to protect your unit. Here are a few useful tricks:

1. Relocate toxic chemicals to a white room safety cabinet.
2. Implement biometric scanners on chemical cabinets and cutting utensils.
3. Lock down delicate computer equipment.
4. Attach earthquake bands to your large-screen television and other electronic equipment.

Interaction
With increased mobility, and if you have been working on the manual interaction method, your patience should be paying off. Somewhere around the 1 year mark, your unit should start showing signs of mimicking your language and vocal tonality.

This is a work in progress (I have a different story running through my head and can't seem to focus on this one.) ... check back for the entire document. Make sure to check out Chapter 1 of this book.

Another great use for PSExec

Tired of searching through racks and racks of servers to not find what your looking for?

Tired of having to run back to your desk to remote into that server to insert a CD?

Utilizing the power of PSExec, you can eject the CD drive remotely without having to leave your comfy desk.

Hello? Is anyone out there? If so, ping me..

When you are looking for something, like a piece of hardware, and you don't know where to start looking, it is always useful to have a good set of tools.

For example, I wanted to find what IP address that a new UPS device was using. I could not locate it in the DHCP tables and figured it must have a static IP address. The administration tools could not access it via the USB cable, so I needed to brute force search for the IP address. What I would do for an IP scanner right then? Code one!

The script below is a command-line script that uses WMI to check the pingstatus of the system at each IP address. I grabbed parts from Windows IT Pro. So far, it will only increment the last octet of the IP address. Maybe if the need arises, I will modify the code to take a start and end range.

Update:
After reviewing Scott's enormous list of his favorite tools, I found this one which appears to have a great GUI.

Pipes, not just for plumbers.

For quite some time, I have wanted to develop a batch script that I could use to automate the process of backing up my documents then email them to myself. Using my GMail account's enormous capacity, I can keep several copies of my documents accessible online without having to worry about drive space.

My requirements:

1. Compression needs to be a standard format. (ZIP, TAR, etc.) I want the option to access these files using any computer.
2. Need to be able to filter out files or include only specific files (not just the entire folder). I have a few large databases, that I wouldn't want to be sent. No matter what, I don't want this 2gb Access database sent to me.
3. Automated. I want this to happen on a regular basis, without me having to initiate it. Backups are useless if you can't rely on them.
4. Sent to me via email. As I stated, I want this to be emailed to me, instead of sitting on the computer I ran it from.

Here is the code that I came up with. I make use of DOS pipes in order to get my data.

When that is complete, I run the DOS Attrib command to turn off the attribute bit on all the files I compressed. Then I email myself the file using BLAT. Note, that I have set it to span the email into multiple 10mb attachments. You'll need to adjust this to match your outgoing SMTP server, and use an email program that can handle multipart UUEncoded attachments.

You'll need:

• Info-Zip
• BLAT

The full script is below.

Playing with PSInfo

Now that Daylight Saving Time has begun, I am constantly getting requests for help on why the calendar info is wrong. I suggest that maybe they need to install the Microsoft patch (931836). Unfortunately it is not easy to scan a computer to find a single patch. Since Service Pack 2, there has been at least 150 patches for various issues, updates, and such.

To make things easier, I found that the PSInfo will return all the patches for a specific computer. This will return all the patches on the local computer. Unfortunately, it does not appear that you can filter on a specific patch using the embedded 'filter' command of PSInfo (like you can for other components that it will return).

Great! Now I can have my Dad wade through 3 pages of hotfixes, looking for a specific number in the list. Of course, I can have him pipe it to a text file, then simply search the file in Notepad or such. Why? DOS has a great command called "FIND". This command will search an input source and return matching contents. So I have them type in:

This returns one line when it finds the patch:

and no patch info when it is not installed.

To extend this, I have considered taking advantage of the wildcard functionality in PSInfo. You could type "\\*" after the PSINFO statement and it would search all computers on the local network! Unfortunately, I've been told that this returns the number of computers with a give patch, not which ones. I'd suggest a BATCH FOR ... loop..

Thanks Mark, I love PSTools!

Using Ping to Notify when a Server Reboots v2.

Working on network workstations, I found I needed a method to tell when they came online. I wanted a script to email me so I could receive it on my PDA when the connection worked. This way I could be working in the wiring cabinet and hear it successfully connect.

The following script can easily be modified to notify when a server is up or down. I've also added an option to loop the script continuously until specific triggers are met. These triggers can be set at the command line, or hard set into the code for quick deployment. You'll just need to put your email address into the script before you run it.

Requirements: Latest version of BLAT (note the path in line 75).