Author: Computing Staff

Quite often when writing a batch file, you will come across a FOR loop. It might look something like this: FOR /f “tokens=* delims= ” %%a IN (MyFile) DO ECHO %%a I am constantly hearing people asking “What do tokens and delims mean?”. Well, here you are. What are Batch Tokens & Batch Delimiters? Tokens basically tell the batch file where to look to set the variable (%a). Delimiters are what separate each token. It’s a little difficult to explain, so here’s an example. A file, called MyFile, contains this: Hello World! How are you doing today? Now, let’s pretend…

Read More

Today I’ll be going over how to use Powershell to Get permissions on folders and subfolders, as well as NTFS permission report in an output file. The PowerShell Get-ACL available in the Microsoft.PowerShell.Security module allows you to get permissions on folders (directories) and subfolders. Windows Operating Systems store info related to files, folders (directories), and subfolders permission in the Access Control List (ACL). Lucky for us, PowerShell provides the Get-ACL cmdlet that provides the access control list for the given resource. The ACL contains the Users & Users group permissions to access the resource. To view and parse the permissions…

Read More

Today we’ll be going over How to use Powershell to Force gpupdate on all domain computers within your network. Every 90 minutes, client PCs refresh Group Policies. In this article, I use a PowerShell command to remotely execute gupdate on every client pc inside an organizational unit within our Domain. Command for PowerShell to Force GpUpdate on all Domain Computers Execute the command below on a Domain Controller – Our computing.net domain to administer gpupdate on every client pc of the organization unit workstations: Get-ADComputer -Filter * -SearchBase “OU=Workstations,DC=computing,DC=com” | Foreach-Object {Invoke-GPUpdate -Computer $_.name -Force -RandomDelayInMinutes 0} Taking a short…

Read More

I though I would write a how to about using variables in batch. I have learned many things from people on this site and though I would try and help out. How to set a variable set var=value var is the variable name and value is what you are setting it too. It is good to keep variable names short and meaningful. Just numbering or lettering them could make it hard to read your script later. ————————— How to have the user input a Value set /p var= This will stop the program and wait for something to be entered…

Read More

When you installed Virtual PC 2007, I know everyone installed their favorite operating system but that is a mistake. The first thing you should do is prepare your host operating system. The Minimal Host for Virtual PC 2007 should have. 256mb ram a P3 processor (P4 or newer recommended) 200gig hard drive or larger with at least 100gigs of free space. Windows XP pro sp3 or newer Windows My Host System with Virtual PC 2007 512mb of ram P4 3.06ghz 500gig Hard Drive With 400gigs of free space Windows XP Pro sp3 A low end host System for Virtual PC…

Read More

How to make windows 7 boot a little faster and some performance increase tips. Start up programs and bloatware (unwanted free trials and software preloaded on a computer by the manufacturer) can make windows 7 boot slower as trials will pop up when you first start up your computer or laptop, you can uninstall the programs you don’t want by using the control panel, this is the proper way of uninstalling programs. To uninstall a program Step 1. Go to the control panel (on the right underneath computer)  via the start menu. Step 2. Go to programs and then go on uninstall…

Read More

Today we’re going to learn how to Shutdown your computer from a desktop icon. We’ll be outlining the steps needed to create an Icon, then setup command-line commands to either: Shutdown Logoff or Restart We’ll be using Rundll32.exe for this along with commands for the listed items above. How to Shutdown your computer from a desktop icon Note: This procedure does not work with Windows NT or 95. Step 1. Right-click on your desktop for context window and select New; then click on Shortcut. Step 2. Type the following line in the Command line space: To Shut Down: C:\WINDOWS\RUNDLL32.EXE shell32,SHExitWindowsEx…

Read More

Alot of people browse the web opening and visiting any site without knowing if the site is good or bad? In this day and age, it makes no sense to browse this way. The WOT Web Of Trust addon will let you know on the suggestions pages, of your search engine. If a site is good or bad. Before you visit the site stopping infections. Step 1. Goto the MyWOT website: www.mywot.com Step 2. Select Downloads. Step 3. Go down the page until you can see the selection of browsers. Click the browser you wan’t to add the tool to.…

Read More

If anyone in your organization uses Sabre for travel arrangements, you will probably need to install the sabre vpn. If you don’t want your users to be local administrators on their machines, here’s what you need to do… Sabre VPN without local Administrator Rights Step 1.  Folder permissions The sabre vpn needs to write to the hosts and lmhosts files. Give your users read/write/modify permissions on folder: C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\ Step 2.  Reinstall/Test After you make these changes and the sabre vpn should work fine. You can reinstall / test the sabre vpn here: http://installs.sabre.com/vpninstall/

Read More

Sometimes you just see random files taking up space on your hard drive. You just want to delete them! That is what I did, and I nearly ruined my Hard Drive. I’ll show you how to fix the accidental deletion of NTDLR and NTDETECT. So let’s just say you deleted those files, and you then shut down your computer. The next time you start it up, your computer says: NTDLR is missing Press Ctrl-Alt-Del To Restart -or- NTDETECT Failed (Computer Automatically Restarts) NOTE: You could also have both errors. What you need to do is insert the Windows OS startup…

Read More

Alright guys, I just fixed a computer with this problem running vista…. Step 1. Start the computer in “Safe Mode with networking” Step 2. After the thinkpoint screen loads push the command CTRL+ALT+DEL this will bring you to task manager. Find the process hotfix.exe and kill (end) the process. Step 3. At this point you will only have a blank black screen behind your task manager. you can go in ms-dos prompt and delete the hotfix.exe so if you have to reboot the screen wont happen again. To delete the hotfix.exe: Step 1. While in task manager go to File and select “run new task”. then type…

Read More

I was locked out of my windows xp because I could not re-activate windows when I tried I just got a blank blue screen and nothing, eventually I was locked out because the 3 days grace period was over  and I ended up buying windows 7, But just before loading windows 7 onto my system I gave it 1 last go and hey presto I did it. This is what I did rebooted in safe mode then into all user’s and created a new account, after that, I signed out then back with the new account this time when it…

Read More

First of all, if you follow these steps & you end up with a dead cpu or mobo, I’m not responsible. Quick&Dirty sky-lake, kaby-lake, coffee-lake / all round laptop cpu overclocking guide (overvolting & undervolting), sorry no amd experience here. Overvolting applies here to intel i3-/i5-/i7-/i9- 6xxxK, 7xxxK, 8xxxK, but may be compatible with 4xxxK, 3xxxK, 2xxxK aswell, do keep in mind I’ll be talking about ddr4 instead of ddr3. For laptop cpu’s, i would recommend undervolting using bios or XTU for better performance, since you’ll be limited by temperature. undervolting will lower temps & therefore allow for higher turbo…

Read More

Here’s a batchfile I just wrote. I tested most of the features and it seemed to work, but it’s a “beta” prototype! you may need to tinker with it, and you will need PKZIP and PKUNZIP utilities: http://pkzip.soft32.com/free-download/ (My version is OLD, so newer version you may need to tweak, especially “getname” subroutine). ::======= PASS.BAT @echo off & setlocal :: set your zipped-filename here. It has no relation to your primary text :: file name! I’m just using the batchfile name for the zipfile. :: pkzip may be found at: http://pkzip.soft32.com/free-download/ :: among others set zipfile=%~n0 set pass=%1 if not defined pass (…

Read More

As Windows XP Windows Security Updates finish on April 8, 2014, it is important to add additional security measures in order to compensate.  For any operating system that has already lost its Windows Security Updates (or is about to), it is important to add additional security measures in order to compensate.  The steps below were chosen to help keep new viruses from being able to activate in your computer system – prevention being better than cure.  For XP, running as a “limited user” is an option but this is unpopular with many users because it can be very restrictive. Drop…

Read More