Microsoft Windows

Easy String Searches with the VBScript Instr function

I recently had a situation where I needed to find string inside a string to parse the larger string into usable and separate chunks of data. In writing this script, I realized I've not shared this gem of a function with you previously... and it really makes matters easier when you are...

Tip: Searching Google for solutions to a Microsoft product problem

Maybe this isn't earth shattering, and most all of you already know this trick. However, I just stumbled upon it and am willing to bet at least a few people are troubled by searching google for answers to problems and finding the needle in the haystack. Here's the scenario:\ You're looking for...

Windows Tip: Clearing Internet Explorer cached data from the command line

As a Network Administrator sometimes you need to clear the browsing history, cookies, or the like for a entire community of users. Sure, you could tell them how to do it thinking that you were being super smart by providing instructions for them. However, as you well know there will be some who...

Windows Tip: Moving a window from off screen back into view

If you've ever hooked up your laptop to a secondary monitor and then disconnected without remembering to move the windows back to the primary desktop, you've probably encounted this problem:  The application is running. You can see it in the taskbar, but you can't see it on the screen, because...

Retrieve environment variable values from a remote system with WMI

Back in October I shared with you a way to retrieve environment variables with a script titled

Searching the Windows Eventlog for specific events with WMI

On occasion as a systems administrator you have to find the proverbial needle in the haystack with respect to the events in the event logs. You know what I mean, the one event you care about and need to know when it occured as part of your troubleshooting... then throw in that you need to do it in...

Fun with the Registry: Saving ODBC Entries from a server (and moving them to a new server)

On occasion you have to rebuild servers, some are worse than others to rebuild. Much like my previous post on

Fun with the registry: Saving shares and share permissions from a server (and moving them to a new server)

On occasion you have to rebuild servers, some are worse than others to rebuild. File Servers are not that difficult to rebuild, but one of the tedious tasks in moving a file server is setting up all the shares that have been added over time all at once. you know the drill:

Point....

Using WMI’s WIN32_Process class to remotely kill a process

Recently I had a situation where I had to kill a number of processes on a number of servers in a short period of time so we could update the executable file quickly so the processes could be safely respawned. This presented a challenge because it needed to be done quickly both before users...

Getting the date and time from a remote system via WMI and the WIN32_LocalTime class

Recently, after the time change I had to log into around 30 to 40 servers to check that the date was correct. This was a real pain, since it required me to actually log onto the server via terminal services and run a command prompt to issue a date command. Unfortunately, I didn't have a script...