The New York-based venture kicked off 2012 by launching Code Year. Sign up for the free project and you’ll receive an interactive programming lesson each week in your inbox. Nearly 200,000 people have already joined, including New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who tweeted about his plan to participate. 

“There are a lot of people who want to make New Year’s resolutions they’ll stick to,” says Codecademy co-founder Zach Sims. “This is something they can use and learn.”

The first lesson will go out to subscribers on Monday, Jan. 9. Participants will have plenty of support: The Twitter hashtag #codeyear is already buzzing.

“We’ll walk people along the path while they’re doing it,” Sims says.

After coming up with the Code Year idea in early December, the Codecademy team partnered with tech communities including Y Combinator, TechStars and HackNY to spread the word.

It’s the most ambitious project yet attempted by seven-month-old Codecademy. Launched in June, the site offers free, self-guided online courses on programming basics as well as on specific coding languages like Javascript.

Sims notes that programming skills are becoming increasingly important in the job market, and says that learning even the basics can give users a leg up.

Even Mayor Mike — whose term ends in 2013 — could score a new gig if he sticks with his pledge. “When you’re done being mayor, we’ll get you set up with an interview to join the @foursquare engineering team,” Foursquare chief engineer Harry Heymann.

A recent Microsoft update to .NET Framework 2.0 is the cause. Some of the files necessary for the .NET Framework, or the Delivery Services Console, might not have registered properly during the installation of the XenApp management consoles.

Use the procedure below to re-register the PSE.core.dll.

From a command prompt, enter the following:
C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727>regasm /codebase “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Citrix\Presentation Server – Administration Snap-in\PSE.Core.dll”
Re-launch the Citrix Delivery Services Console. The XenApp node will appear

To put the data explosion issue into perspective with respect to its impact
on tape, consider that even in last year’s tough economic times
shipped disk storage capacity grew at a remarkable rate. All of the
data being placed on that new disk capacity needs to be backed up,
and much of it must also be retained for long periods of time.

An indication of the data explosion in companies (even during the
worst economic times last year) comes from a 2009 eWEEK article.
The article reported1 on the IDC Quarterly Disk Storage Systems
Tracker, noting that in the first quarter of 2009 disk storage systems
capacity shipped reached 2,460 petabytes, an increase of 27.3
percent over the same quarter a year earlier. That trend continued

throughout the year. In the third quarter of 2009, total disk storage
systems capacity shipped reached 2,661 petabytes, growing 21 percent year over year, according
to IDC.2 If disk volumes are growing at these rates, data stored on tape must also be experiencing
double-digit growth since the data needs to be backed up and much of it must be archived.

So how should an organization best protect that data? Many companies are using disk-based
systems for short-term backup and tape for long-term retention. For example, it is quite common
to stage recently generated data on a disk system for fast retrieval if a file gets deleted or becomes
corrupted. Such systems also provide for quick access to backed-up data.

However, tape is the critical element in ensuring that data is preserved longer-term.

In many cases, companies use a tiered storage approach where data is progressively migrated to
appropriate price/performance storage devices. And even when a tier is used for disk-based backup,
companies backup that data to tape for long-term retention, archiving, and offsite safety.

In addition to its use for backup and retrieval, offsite storage of data on tape is the primary element
in most disaster recovery and business contingency plans. To put the value of offsite storage and the
need for adequate disaster recovery into perspective, a 2009 Wall Street Journal article3 noted that
while about 25 percent of businesses do not reopen after a major disaster, the percentage doubles
for companies that lack a continuity plan.

There are specific regulatory mandates such as Securities and Exchange Commission regulations
that require certain financial documents to be retained for seven years. And businesses must
keep certain financial and tax records for comparable periods to satisfy the IRS or Sarbanes-Oxley
regulations in the event of an audit. There are also industry-specific regulations, such as the Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Payment Card Industry Data Security
Standard (PCI DSS) that govern data privacy.

Tape keeps pace

New tapes and drives based on the generation-five specifications for the LTO-5 program offer the high
capacity and performance needed to match the growing data storage challenge faced in most companies.

In all applications – backup, archiving, disaster recovery, and data retention – the ability to store
more data on a single tape cartridge keeps costs down, while helping make tape management easier.
To put the potential savings into perspective, consider that a single LTO-5 tape can store 3 TB of
data (2:1 data compression). That’s twice the capacity of LTO-4 tapes and four times the capacity
of LTO-3 tapes. So, significantly fewer tapes are needed to back-up the same volume of data. This
saves on the cost of media and on tape management time put in by the IT staff.

Naturally, as data volumes grow, the time it takes to perform a backup or archiving operation grows as
well. To address this issue, LTO-5 offers help in two areas. First, LTO-5 technology supports higher data
throughputs. Specifically, LTO-5 delivers 280 MB/s throughput (2:1 data compression). That’s 40 MB/s
faster than LTO-4 and 120 MB/s faster than LTO-3 (2:1 data compression). Faster throughput allows
companies to complete backup and archiving jobs faster, which is important as data growth increases.

A second performance enhancement in LTO-5 is an interface that supports 8 Gb Fibre Channel (FC)
connections. This allows LTO-5 to be deployed into an 8 Gb FC network, making it easier to stream
data from high-performance storage disk drive systems to tape backup. In such deployments, the

Additionally, LTO-5 technology is read-and write-compatible with LTO-4
cartridges and backward-read compatible with LTO-3, which protects a
company’s investments and simplifies data migration projects.

In the future, an additional benefit will come when applications leverage
another feature introduced in LTO-5 technology. That feature is the capability
to partition LTO-5 media, providing enhanced file control and data
indexing. This can enable near-line applications to index data on tape, facilitating data access and archiving on tape.

New pressures, additional benefits

LTO-5’s higher capacity and performance clearly helps in addressing the data explosion. And it also
can help with the data management and protection challenges businesses face today.

Most companies are trying to rein in operational costs. One area of focus for IT operations is cutting
back on the use of electricity. Additionally, some companies are embracing sustainability and green
initiatives that seek to reduce the amount of energy used.

This focus on reduced power consumption is driving revived interest in tape. The reason: spinning
disks need electricity for power and cooling. A 2009 blog4 by the early-stage venture capital fund
New Atlantic Ventures noted that IDC estimated that in 2008, it cost $36.29 to power and cool an
average data center disk drive for a year.

Once data is stored on tape, no electricity is required to preserve it. The Clipper Group estimates
that power costs associated with storing data long-term on tape are less than 1 percent of the cost
of storing the same data long-term on disk.

Data protection and data privacy are also concerns for many companies today. Over the last two
years, there have been numerous incidents where private data about employees, patients, or customers
has been exposed due to lost or stolen tapes, according to the nonprofit consumer organization
the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. The organization’s Chronology of Data Breaches5 includes many
banks, businesses, and healthcare providers that have experienced this problem. In such breaches,
the companies faced possible bad publicity, fines, penalties, and a loss of customer confidence.

A 2010 eWEEK article6 quantified the risk from such data breaches. The article cited a Ponemon Institute
study that found the average cost of a breach in 2009 rose to $204 per compromised record,
up from $202 in 2008. The study also found that the average organizational cost of a data breach
rose from $6.65 million in 2008 to $6.75 million in 2009.

LTO-4 incorporated native encryption technology to protect data stored on tape. Many companies
made the move from LTO-3 to LTO-4 for the added protection. LTO-5 continues the effort by offering
the same encryption technology. In particular, LTO-5 drives encrypt data using the 256-bit AES algorithm,
which is recommended by the U.S. government for the highest levels of data security. With
this technology, the encryption keys are, as the name suggests, 256 bits long, making them nearly
impossible to guess or crack using brute-force techniques commonly employed by hackers. (The
data is useless without the correct encryption key to unlock the data.)

Additionally, encryption by LTO-5 drives is hardware-based, meaning companies can reap the highest
levels of security without any loss of performance during the encryption process.

For companies that did not make the move to LTO-4, this may be the time to upgrade to LTO-5. The
reason: due to the rapid growth of data breaches and identity theft over the last few years, there
are now significantly more data privacy laws and regulations. For example, beyond regulations such
as HIPAA, there are relatively new industry mandates such as PCI DSS, as well as numerous state
privacy laws. Encryption is essential in meeting these regulations and laws.

Additionally, many of these new regulations require special data-handling procedures to ensure
data is not tampered with or deleted. Similar to its encryption support, LTO-5, like LTO-4, supports
Write Once, Read Many (WORM) technology required to pass audits and meet regulatory
compliance requirements.

Of course, you could simply image the old server and restore it to the new server, but this could cause licensing and driver issues, not to mention the fact that I prefer to rebuild a server from scratch rather than live with the clutter of an old server on new hardware. In order for you to build a new server, promote it as a Domain Controller and then migrate Active Directory, you need to follow several steps.

Note, at this stage, you must verify two things. First, check on the old server (to be replaced) in Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs that Microsoft Exchange Server (any version) is NOT installed on the server. Furthermore, do not perform this procedure if the old server to be replaced is a Small Business (SBS) Server, since this procedure of replacing the server will break the SBS, and special precautions must be taken. Look out for future articles on how to migrate off an SBS server.

This article was submitted by one of our valuable contributers and hopefully you find it useful.

IT-ETC would like to share this exciting news with everyone. SSL4ALL.com has been launched as its latest addition to focus on Reselling SSL Certificates to the public.

These SSLs are through its Enterprise partner COMODO which is the leader in the SSL industry.

The SSL4ALL.com is a give back project where IT-ETC will make SSL4ALL.com for the first 5 years a low profit margin as a way of contributing to keep websites secure while still being affordable.

We certainly hope this will be a successful project and kindly ask everyone to contribute to make our project a great success by either recommedning us, trying us, or just share ideas with us on how we can be better

In the past the best method to restore a deleted AD object is to reboot a domain controller into Active Directory Restore Mode, logon the computer with a special administrative account, and restore the Active Directory database from a backup file. The final steps are to run the NTDSUTIL command line utility to authoritatively restore the object in question and then reboot the computer into normal mode. This procedure is cumbersome, time consuming and requires that the backup file selected contains the most current version of the object.  Many administrators have wished that an easier method was available.

With the introduction of Windows Server 2008 R2 it is possible to enable an Active Directory Recycle Bin. Deleted AD objects can be restored complete with all object related attributes intact. These attributes includes user and computer account group memberships. In order to enable the Active Directory Recycle Bin all Domain Controllers in the Domain must first be upgraded to Windows Server 2008 R2. The Domain functional level of the Domain and the Forest must be raised to 2008 R2 functional level. This can be accomplished in the Domains and Trusts administrative console. If the Active Directory Forest was created using Windows 2000 or 2003 Server it is also necessary for a member of the Schema Admins group to update the Active Directory Schema by running the ADPREP /Forest Prep command on the Schema Master domain controller and the ADPREP /DomainPrep command on the Infrastructure Master computer. Raising functional levels may affect some applications that integrate with Active Directory, therefore it is important to research possible issues before raising the levels.

Once the functional levels are raised the Recycle Bin can be enabled using the following PowerShell command: “Enable-ADOptionalFeature -Identity <ADOptionalFeature> -Scope <ADOptionalFeatureScope> -Target <ADEntity>”. This command must be run using the Active Directory Module for Windows PowerShell  by an member of the Enterprise Administrators group.  Microsoft gives us an example of how this command would look when it is used to enable the Recycle Bin for the Contoso.com domain:

“Enable-ADOptionalFeature –Identity ‘CN=Recycle Bin Feature, CN=Optional Features,CN=Directory Service, CN=WindowsNT, CN=Services, CN=Configuration, DC=contoso, DC=com’ –Scope ForestOrConfigurationSet –Target ‘contoso.com’”

Now that the Recycle Bin is enabled, deleted object can be recovered using either PowerShell or the ldp.exe utility. This process is described by Microsoft here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd379509(WS.10).aspx

Save yourself time and aggravation by enabling the Active Directory Recycle Bin soon!

 It is a bug with the SQL 2008 installer when installed on windows x64 bit machines. the work around is to specify the path when running the installer by doing it from a command prompt or create a shortcut to the setup.exe on the CD and add the following line next to the setup.exe from the command prompt.

e:\setup.exe /action=install /INSTALLSHAREDDIR=”C:\SQLshared\x64″ /INSTALLSHAREDWOWDIR=”C:\SQLshared\x86″ setup proceeds without issues
Assuming e: is your CD-ROM or where the setup files are located. also here we assume you will be installing it on the C:

If you run into any issues please let us know, this worked for every client we that checked in with us. If it does work for you please still let us know so we know that our tips are useful and we would post more tips as we see them work.

Thank you

ITAhmed

I have gathered a lot of these commands for you so you do not have to try to reinvent the wheel like I did.

Here is the start of you Networking and Firewall related commands for Server Core.  To configure the IP address you will have to remember (or learn) Netsh.  In my example I use “Local Area Connection”  The quotes are needed due the spaces.  If you renamed your connection name then you will want to use the new name in its place.

Configure a Static IP Address on Server Core:
Netsh int ipv4 set address Local Area Connection static 10.1.1.10 255.255.255.0 10.1.1.1
Netsh int ipv4 set dnsserver Local Area Connection static 10.1.1.5 primary
Netsh int ipv4 set winsserver Local Area Connection static 10.1.1.6 primary

Configure a Dynamic (DHCP) IP Address on Server Core:
Netsh int ipv4 set address Local Area Connection source=dhcp

Change the name of the network interface on Server Core:
Netsh int set interface name = Local Area Connection newname = Primary Network 

The Windows Firewall is a blessing to some and a curse to others. Either way it is installed by default and you have to understand the commands that are needed to configure the basics and in some cases some advanced commands.

Disable firewall:
netsh firewall set opmode disable

Server Core can be managed by using MMCs from a remote server. However with the firewall being on by default you will have to allow these tools to work remotely.  The first thing to note here is how to translate the MMC Snap-in to Windows Firewall Rule Group.

Event Viewer – Windows Firewall Rule Group – Remote Event Log Management
Services – Windows Firewall Rule Group – Remote Services Management
Shared Folders – Windows Firewall Rule Group – File and Printer Sharing
Task Scheduler – Windows Firewall Rule Group – Remote Scheduled Tasks Management
Reliability and Performance – Windows Firewall Rule Group – Performance Logs and Alerts and Windows Firewall Rule Group – File and Printer Sharing
Disk Management – Windows Firewall Rule Group – Remote Volume Management
Windows Firewall with Advanced Security – Windows Firewall Rule Group – Windows Firewall Remote Management

To enable all of these rules follow use this command:
Netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group=remote administration new enable=yes

Bottlenecks occur when a resource reaches its capacity, causing the performance of the entire system to slow down. Bottlenecks are typically caused by insufficient or misconfigured resources, malfunctioning components, and incorrect requests for resources by a program.

There are five major resource areas that can cause bottlenecks and affect server performance: physical disk, memory, process, CPU, and network. If any of these resources are overutilized, your server or application can become noticeably slow or can even crash. I will go through each of these five areas, giving guidance on the counters you should be using and offering suggested thresholds to measure the pulse of your servers.

Since the sampling interval has a significant impact on the size of the log file and the server load, you should set the sample interval based on the average elapsed time for the issue to occur so you can establish a baseline before the issue occurs again. This will allow you to spot any trend leading to the issue.

Fifteen minutes will provide a good window for establishing a baseline during normal operations. Set the sample interval to 15 seconds if the average elapsed time for the issue to occur is about four hours. If the time for the issue to occur is eight hours or more, set the sampling interval to no less than five minutes; otherwise, you will end up with a very large log file, making it more difficult to analyze the data.

Hard Disk Bottleneck

Since the disk system stores and handles programs and data on the server, a bottleneck affecting disk usage and speed will have a big impact on the server’s overall performance.

Please note that if the disk objects have not been enabled on your server, you need to use the command-line tool Diskperf to enable them. Also, note that % Disk Time can exceed 100 percent and, therefore, I prefer to use % Idle Time, Avg. Disk sec/Read, and Avg. Disk sec/write to give me a more accurate picture of how busy the hard disk is. You can find more on % Disk Time in the Knowledge Base article available at support.microsoft.com/kb/310067.

Following are the counters the Microsoft Service Support engineers rely on for disk monitoring.

LogicalDisk\% Free Space This measures the percentage of free space on the selected logical disk drive. Take note if this falls below 15 percent, as you risk running out of free space for the OS to store critical files. One obvious solution here is to add more disk space.

PhysicalDisk\% Idle Time This measures the percentage of time the disk was idle during the sample interval. If this counter falls below 20 percent, the disk system is saturated. You may consider replacing the current disk system with a faster disk system.

PhysicalDisk\Avg. Disk Sec/Read This measures the average time, in seconds, to read data from the disk. If the number is larger than 25 milliseconds (ms), that means the disk system is experiencing latency when reading from the disk. For mission-critical servers hosting SQL Server® and Exchange Server, the acceptable threshold is much lower, approximately 10 ms. The most logical solution here is to replace the current disk system with a faster disk system.

PhysicalDisk\Avg. Disk Sec/Write This measures the average time, in seconds, it takes to write data to the disk. If the number is larger than 25 ms, the disk system experiences latency when writing to the disk. For mission-critical servers hosting SQL Server and Exchange Server, the acceptable threshold is much lower, approximately 10 ms. The likely solution here is to replace the disk system with a faster disk system.

PhysicalDisk\Avg. Disk Queue Length This indicates how many I/O operations are waiting for the hard drive to become available. If the value here is larger than the two times the number of spindles, that means the disk itself may be the bottleneck.

Memory\Cache Bytes This indicates the amount of memory being used for the file system cache. There may be a disk bottleneck if this value is greater than 300MB.

Memory Bottleneck

A memory shortage is typically due to insufficient RAM, a memory leak, or a memory switch placed inside the boot.ini. Before I get into memory counters, I should discuss the /3GB switch.

More memory reduces disk I/O activity and, in turn, improves application performance. The /3GB switch was introduced in Windows NT® as a way to provide more memory for the user-mode programs.

Windows uses a virtual address space of 4GB (independent of how much physical RAM the system has). By default, the lower 2GB are reserved for user-mode programs and the upper 2GB are reserved for kernel-mode programs. With the /3GB switch, 3GB are given to user-mode processes. This, of course, comes at the expense of the kernel memory, which will have only 1GB of virtual address space. This can cause problems because Pool Non-Paged Bytes, Pool Paged Bytes, Free System Page Tables Entries, and desktop heap are all squeezed together within this 1GB space. Therefore, the /3GB switch should only be used after thorough testing has been done in your environment.

This is a consideration if you suspect you are experiencing a memory-related bottleneck. If the /3GB switch is not the cause of the problems, you can use these counters for diagnosing a potential memory bottleneck.

Memory\% Committed Bytes in Use This measures the ratio of Committed Bytes to the Commit Limit—in other words, the amount of virtual memory in use. This indicates insufficient memory if the number is greater than 80 percent. The obvious solution for this is to add more memory.

Memory\Available Mbytes This measures the amount of physical memory, in megabytes, available for running processes. If this value is less than 5 percent of the total physical RAM, that means there is insufficient memory, and that can increase paging activity. To resolve this problem, you should simply add more memory.

Memory\Free System Page Table Entries This indicates the number of page table entries not currently in use by the system. If the number is less than 5,000, there may well be a memory leak.

Memory\Pool Non-Paged Bytes This measures the size, in bytes, of the non-paged pool. This is an area of system memory for objects that cannot be written to disk but instead must remain in physical memory as long as they are allocated. There is a possible memory leak if the value is greater than 175MB (or 100MB with the /3GB switch). A typical Event ID 2019 is recorded in the system event log.

Memory\Pool Paged Bytes This measures the size, in bytes, of the paged pool. This is an area of system memory used for objects that can be written to disk when they are not being used. There may be a memory leak if this value is greater than 250MB (or 170MB with the /3GB switch). A typical Event ID 2020 is recorded in the system event log.

Memory\Pages per Second This measures the rate at which pages are read from or written to disk to resolve hard page faults. If the value is greater than 1,000, as a result of excessive paging, there may be a memory leak.

Processor Bottleneck

An overwhelmed processor can be due to the processor itself not offering enough power or it can be due to an inefficient application. You must double-check whether the processor spends a lot of time in paging as a result of insufficient physical memory. When investigating a potential processor bottleneck, the Microsoft Service Support engineers use the following counters.

Processor\% Processor Time This measures the percentage of elapsed time the processor spends executing a non-idle thread. If the percentage is greater than 85 percent, the processor is overwhelmed and the server may require a faster processor.

Processor\% User Time This measures the percentage of elapsed time the processor spends in user mode. If this value is high, the server is busy with the application. One possible solution here is to optimize the application that is using up the processor resources.

Processor\% Interrupt Time This measures the time the processor spends receiving and servicing hardware interruptions during specific sample intervals. This counter indicates a possible hardware issue if the value is greater than 15 percent.

System\Processor Queue Length This indicates the number of threads in the processor queue. The server doesn’t have enough processor power if the value is more than two times the number of CPUs for an extended period of time.

Network Bottleneck

A network bottleneck, of course, affects the server’s ability to send and receive data across the network. It can be an issue with the network card on the server, or perhaps the network is saturated and needs to be segmented. You can use the following counters to diagnosis potential network bottlenecks.

Network Interface\Bytes Total/Sec This measures the rate at which bytes are sent and received over each network adapter, including framing characters. The network is saturated if you discover that more than 70 percent of the interface is consumed. For a 100-Mbps NIC, the interface consumed is 8.7MB/sec (100Mbps = 100000kbps = 12.5MB/sec* 70 percent). In a situation like this, you may want to add a faster network card or segment the network.

Network Interface\Output Queue Length This measures the length of the output packet queue, in packets. There is network saturation if the value is more than 2. You can address this problem by adding a faster network card or segmenting the network.

Process Bottleneck

Server performance will be significantly affected if you have a misbehaving process or non-optimized processes. Thread and handle leaks will eventually bring down a server, and excessive processor usage will bring a server to a crawl. The following counters are indispensable when diagnosing process-related bottlenecks.

Process\Handle Count This measures the total number of handles that are currently open by a process. This counter indicates a possible handle leak if the number is greater than 10,000.

Process\Thread Count This measures the number of threads currently active in a process. There may be a thread leak if this number is more than 500 between the minimum and maximum number of threads.

Process\Private Bytes This indicates the amount of memory that this process has allocated that cannot be shared with other processes. If the value is greater than 250 between the minimum and maximum number of threads, there may be a memory leak.

Wrapping Up

Now you know what counters the Service Support engineers at Microsoft use to diagnose various bottlenecks. Of course, you will most likely come up with your own set of favorite counters tailored to suit your specific needs. You may want to save time by not having to add all your favorite counters manually each time you need to monitor your servers. Fortunately, there is an option in the Performance Monitor that allows you to save all your counters in a template for later use.

You may still be wondering whether you should run Performance Monitor locally or remotely. And exactly what will the performance hit be when running Performance Monitor locally? This all depends on your specific environment. The performance hit on the server is almost negligible if you set intervals to at least five minutes.

You may want to run Performance Monitor locally if you know there is a performance issue on the server, since Performance Monitor may not be able to capture data from a remote machine when it is running out of resources on the server. Running it remotely from a central machine is really best suited to situations when you want to monitor or baseline multiple servers.

you can see what it does and how it does it by the instructions below. also you can download this free utility that was made by the genius developer Ruud van Velsen of Microsoft Benelux, keep in mind that Microsoft in no way supports this tool.  I love it and live by it.

 Download Xnet Command Line utility for services

XNET
=============================================================================
Win32 character-based/commandline utility enabling you to manage local and
remote Windows NT services.
USAGE
=============================================================================

1 general usage.
—————————————————————————–
Usage : XNET <Start  | Stop   | Pause  | Continue | List | Install |
              Remove | Modify | Reboot | Shutdown | Help>

Run XNET HELP <command> for information on the individual commands.

Example : XNET HELP MODIFY
2 starting, pausing, continuing or listing a service.
—————————————————————————–
Usage : XNET <Start | Pause | Continue | List>
             [[\\Server\]ServiceName] [/w:Wait]

Start       – Starts specified service, or lists all running services if no
              service specified.
Pause       – Pauses specified service.
Continue    – Resumes specified service.
List        – Lists all services, or details on specific service.
ServiceName – name of service, optionally preceded by name of remote
              machine (eg : \\REMOTE\MSSQLServer).
Wait        – number of seconds to wait for request to complete (default : 30
              seconds)

Example : XNET START \\HOUND\Spooler
          XNET PAUSE MSSqlserver /w:90
          XNET LIST \\HYENA
          XNET LIST
          XNET LIST NetLogon
3 stopping a service.
—————————————————————————–
Usage : XNET STOP [[\\Server\]ServiceName] [/w:Wait] [/y]

ServiceName – name of service, optionally preceded by name of remote
              machine (eg : \\REMOTE\MSSQLServer).
Wait        – number of seconds to wait for request to complete (default : 30
              seconds)
/y          – Don’t ask for confirmation to stop dependent services.

Example : XNET STOP \\HOUND\Spooler
          XNET STOP MSSqlserver /w:90
          XNET STOP Netlogon /y
4 installing a service.
—————————————————————————–
XNET INSTALL [[\\Server\]ServiceName] [/b:Binary] [/d:Dependencies]
             [/l:LoadOrderGroup] [/n:DisplayName] [/u:User] [/p:Password]
             [/i:Interactive] [/s:StartType]

ServiceName    – name of service, optionally preceded by name of remote
                 machine (eg : \\REMOTE\MSSQLServer).
Binary         – Name of executable.
Dependencies   – Dependencies of service.
LoadOrderGroup – LoadOrderGroup of service.
DisplayName    – ‘Long’ name of service (aka DisplayName).
User           – name of (domain) user account to assign to service. Specify
                 ‘LocalSystem’ to assign system account.
Password       – Password for service.
Interactive    – specify Yes or No to allow service to interact with desktop.
StartType      – indicates when a service will be started. Possible values
                 are ‘AUTO’ (started at system startup), ‘DEMAND’ (started
                 at user request) and ‘DISABLED’.

Example : XNET INSTALL \\HOUND\MyService /b:C:\WIN32\MS.EXE /u:LocalSystem
          XNET INSTALL MyService /b:C:\WIN32\MS.EXE /u:RuudV /p:password
          XNET INSTALL MyService /b:C:\WIN32\MS.EXE /u:HiYa\There /p:right
5 modifying a service.
—————————————————————————–
XNET MODIFY [[\\Server\]ServiceName] [/u:User] [/p:Password] [/b:Binary]
             [/d:Dependencies] [/l:LoadOrderGroup] [/n:DisplayName]

ServiceName    – name of service, optionally preceded by name of remote
                 machine (eg : \\REMOTE\MSSQLServer).
User           – name of (domain) user account to assign to service. Specify
                 ‘LocalSystem’ to assign system account.
Password       – Password for service.
Binary         – Name of executable.
Dependencies   – Dependencies of service.
LoadOrderGroup – LoadOrderGroup of service.
DisplayName    – ‘Long’ name of service (aka DisplayName).
Interactive    – specify Yes or No to allow service to interact with desktop.
StartType      – indicates when a service will be started. Possible values
                 are ‘AUTO’ (started at system startup), ‘DEMAND’ (started
                 at user request) and ‘DISABLED’.

Example : XNET MODIFY \\HOUND\MyService /u:SE\User1 /p:NewPass
          XNET MODIFY \\HOUND\MyService /u:LocalSystem
          XNET MODIFY MyService /n:FancyName
6 removing a service.
—————————————————————————–
Usage : XNET REMOVE [[\\Server\]ServiceName]

ServiceName – name of service, optionally preceded by name of remote
              machine (eg : \\REMOTE\MSSQLServer).
/y          – Don’t ask for confirmation of remove.

Example : XNET REMOVE SampleService
7 rebooting/shutting down Windows NT.
—————————————————————————–
XNET <Reboot | Shutdown> [\\server] [/w:Wait] [/m:Message] [/f] [/y]

Reboot      – Reboots specified server, or local machine if no server
              specified.
Shutdown    – Shuts down specified server, or local machine if no server
              specified.
Message     – Warning/message to display on specified server during countdown.
Wait        – Wait xx seconds for request to complete (default : 30 seconds)
/f          – Force applications closed (don’t allow ‘FileSave’ dialogs).
/y          – Don’t ask for confirmation of request.

Example : XNET REBOOT \\HOUND /y
          XNET SHUTDOWN /w=120
          XNET SHUTDOWN /f
NOTES
=============================================================================
1 Current version = 1.04

2 XNet was developed by Ruud van Velsen of Microsoft Benelux. The program
  is not officially supported by Microsoft, but any feedback is welcome.

OnlineRack Webhosting provider (division or IT-ETC) has gone public with its new state of the art email spam/virus filtering service. Ahmed Amin (Co-founder) of OnlineRack stated that OnlineRack.com currently processes 44million messages a month for all of IT-ETC clients with filtering rate of 90 to 95% of flagged spam and virus messages. this successful filtering rate has been steady for months. Ahmed Amin also stated that they have complete load balancing and fail over in place. The Spam/Virus filter service is now offered to the public, no contract required and the service fee is only $10 per domain per month. Ahmed Amin stated, this service is priced per domain because we feel it is easier budgeted that way and makes it easy for the client to afford such very much needed service. there is no reason to have to go through 50 to 80 spam messages daily and risk over looking a critical email just because it got deleted by accident. The website OnlineRack has not yet been updated with this great news, however it should be updated in the next few days as onlinerack.com launches its new trendy website, However, if you are intrested you may contact sales@onlinerack.com or contact even Ahmed@onlinerack.com for more info

The best fix or work around is this, it worked for me:

 Click Start -> Control Panel

1. Open Administrative Tools
2. Open Local Security Settings
3. Click Software Restriction Policies
   1. If no software restrictions are defined, right click the Software Restriction Policies node and select New Software Restriction Policy
4. Double click Enforcement
5. Select “All users except local administrators”
6. Click OK
7. Reboot the machine
8. Install VMWare 2.0 and it should proceed with no issues.

Good Luck

Microsoft Management Console (MMC) could not create the snap-in

This issue occurs because the Administration Tools Pack is not installed by a user who has administrative user rights. New security enhancements in Windows Vista require elevated user rights when a .dll file is registered. Therefore, Windows Vista security enhancements require that certain snap-ins are installed only by a user who has local administrative user rights.

MMC could not create the snap-in

To resolve this issue, register the Windows Server 2003 management tools on a domain user account. To do this, follow these steps:

1.	Log on to Windows Vista as a user who has local administrator permissions.
2.	Create the RegisterAdminPak.cmd script. To do this, follow these steps: a. Start Notepad, and then open a blank document. b. Paste the following code to the document in Notepad: @echo off REM RegisterAdminPak.cmd REM (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. set filelist=adprop.dll azroles.dll azroleui.dll ccfg95.dll set filelist=%filelist% certadm.dll certmmc.dll certpdef.dll certtmpl.dll set filelist=%filelist% certxds.dll cladmwiz.dll clcfgsrv.dll clnetrex.dll set filelist=%filelist% cluadmex.dll cluadmmc.dll cmproxy.dll cmroute.dll set filelist=%filelist% cmutoa.dll cnet16.dll debugex.dll dfscore.dll set filelist=%filelist% dfsgui.dll dhcpsnap.dll dnsmgr.dll domadmin.dll set filelist=%filelist% dsadmin.dll dsuiwiz.dll imadmui.dll lrwizdll.dll set filelist=%filelist% mprsnap.dll msclus.dll mstsmhst.dll mstsmmc.dll set filelist=%filelist% nntpadm.dll nntpapi.dll nntpsnap.dll ntdsbsrv.dll set filelist=%filelist% ntfrsapi.dll rasuser.dll rigpsnap.dll rsadmin.dll set filelist=%filelist% rscommon.dll rsconn.dll rsengps.dll rsjob.dll set filelist=%filelist% rsservps.dll rsshell.dll rssubps.dll rtrfiltr.dll set filelist=%filelist% schmmgmt.dll tapisnap.dll tsuserex.dll vsstskex.dll set filelist=%filelist% w95inf16.dll w95inf32.dll winsevnt.dll winsmon.dll set filelist=%filelist% winsrpc.dll winssnap.dll ws03res.dll for %%i in (%filelist%) do ( echo Registering %%i ... regsvr32 /s %%i ) echo. Echo Command Completed c. On the File menu, click Save. d. In the Save as type box, click All Files, type C:\Users\UserAccountName\RegisterAdminPak.cmd in the File name box, and then click Save.Notes UserAccountName represents the folder name of the user who is currently logged in.You must run this script in Windows Vista only.
3.	Run RegisterAdminPak.cmd from an elevated command prompt. To do this, follow these steps: a. Click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type your password, or click Continue. b. At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER.Note If you are running a 64-bit version of Windows Vista, type cd %systemroot%\syswow64 before you run the following command. C:\Users\UserAccountName\RegisterAdminPak.cmd

301 redirect is the most efficient and Search Engine Friendly method for webpage redirection. It’s not that hard to implement and it should preserve your search engine rankings for that particular page. If you have to change file names or move pages around, it’s the safest option. The code “301″ is interpreted as “moved permanently”.

You can Test your redirection with Search Engine Friendly Redirect Checker

Below are a Couple of methods to implement URL Redirection

IIS Redirect

• In internet services manager, right click on the file or folder you wish to redirect
• Select the radio titled “a redirection to a URL”.
• Enter the redirection page
• Check “The exact url entered above” and the “A permanent redirection for this resource”
• Click on ‘Apply’

ColdFusion Redirect

<.cfheader statuscode=”301″ statustext=”Moved permanently”>
<.cfheader name=”Location” value=”http://www.new-url.com”>

PHP Redirect

<?
Header( “HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently” );
Header( “Location: http://www.new-url.com” );
?>

ASP Redirect

<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<%
Response.Status=”301 Moved Permanently”
Response.AddHeader “Location”,”http://www.new-url.com/”
%>

ASP .NET Redirect

<script runat=”server”>
private void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
Response.Status = “301 Moved Permanently”;
Response.AddHeader(“Location”,”http://www.new-url.com”);
}
</script>

JSP (Java) Redirect

<%
response.setStatus(301);
response.setHeader( “Location”, “http://www.new-url.com/” );
response.setHeader( “Connection”, “close” );
%>

CGI PERL Redirect

$q = new CGI;
print $q->redirect(“http://www.new-url.com/”);

Ruby on Rails Redirect

def old_action
headers["Status"] = “301 Moved Permanently”
redirect_to “http://www.new-url.com/”
end

Redirect Old domain to New domain (htaccess redirect)

Create a .htaccess file with the below code, it will ensure that all your directories and pages of your old domain will get correctly redirected to your new domain.
The .htaccess file needs to be placed in the root directory of your old website (i.e the same directory where your index file is placed)

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Please REPLACE www.newdomain.com in the above code with your actual domain name.

In addition to the redirect I would suggest that you contact every backlinking site to modify their backlink to point to your new website.

Note* This .htaccess method of redirection works ONLY on Linux servers having the Apache Mod-Rewrite moduled enabled.

Redirect to www (htaccess redirect)

Create a .htaccess file with the below code, it will ensure that all requests coming in to domain.com will get redirected to www.domain.com
The .htaccess file needs to be placed in the root directory of your old website (i.e the same directory where your index file is placed)

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
rewritecond %{http_host} ^domain.com [nc]
rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1 [r=301,nc]

Please REPLACE domain.com and www.newdomain.com with your actual domain name.

Note* This .htaccess method of redirection works ONLY on Linux servers having the Apache Mod-Rewrite moduled enabled.

How to Redirect HTML

Please refer to section titled ‘How to Redirect with htaccess’, if your site is hosted on a Linux Server and ‘IIS Redirect’, if your site is hosted on a Windows Server.

There is a good resource site that talks into similar details about domain forwarding, search engine friendly methods and so forth. check it out

http://www.webconfs.com