‘Questions and Answers’ Archives
Q&A Monday: Upgrade vs Fresh Install
Question: Hi Jim, I am a new System Administrator, and the first thing that is assigned to me was to plan our upgrading our operating systems to Windows 7. Our environment is a mix of Windows Vista and Windows XP, and I’m not sure if we should just use the upgrade option or complete a clean install. I’m not sure what the [...]
Q&A Monday: Remotely Turn on Computer?
Question: I constantly turn off my home office computer when I am not using it to save energy. I don’t think this is possible, but I thought there would be no harm in asking you the question anyway. Is there a way for me to remotely turn on my computer when I am not in the office? I find that, a few times a month, that when I am not in [...]
Question and Answer: Stop Domain Users from Installing Files
Question: I have Windows 2003 domain and some users have local admin rights. I would like to prevent these users from installing any software on their PCs. Bobby Clem Boulder, CO Answer: In an ideal world we wouldn't have users who were also local administrators, but we in the IT world often have perfect systems to work with. [...]
Q&A Monday: Reinstalling Wan MiniPort
Question: My WAN miniport has gone missing. I accidentally deleted it durring some computer troubleshooting. Do you know how to get it back short of a complete Windows re-install? Thanks, Howard S. Jordan Montgomery, AL Answer: It's been a while since I've been in this situation, but this should work: Download devcon.exe [...]
Q&A Monday: Test your Security
Question: Hi, I'm not a computer expert, but I just switched internet providers and I want to make sure that my home network is secure by seeings what "ports" are open? -Leah J. Hemby, Stockbridge, GA Answer: There is a website that I've used and recommended to other to use to self test their own network. The website is hosted by GRC and the [...]
Q&A Monday:How can I display computer information on my desktop?
Question: I was visiting another data center and while given a glimpse of their servers, I saw on the desktops of their server had their server information. I've seen this at other companies, and with the large amount of physical and virtual servers I have in my data center, it would help me keep the server information viewable just by [...]
Q&A Monday: Move Files to New Computer
Question: Hi, I have an XP SP3 setup that I've tweaked to perfection (for me at least) and would like to maintain those files and settings when I get a new PC. Both machines have ASUS motherboards, the old with Intel Core 2 Duo E8400, the new with Intel i5. I have done some research into sysprep but it seems able to be used in a number of [...]
Q&A Monday: Finding Enabled Active Directory Users
Question: We are looking at a couple different software packages for several processes in my company, though a lot of vendors are charging by active AD accounts. Is there a way to just find all enabled active directory accounts, without having to goto all OU's and count them. Answer: I have been there many times, and I know that sorting [...]
Q&A Wednesday: Screen Saver Group Policy
Since I for some reason thought that Monday was Wednesday, it only seems right for me to post Q&A Monday on Wednesday: Question: Hi I am currently running Windows 2003 on my servers. I have two DC's in my environment. Clients are running Windows XP. I have 5 OUs created for the varying users in the different departments in my [...]
Q&A Moday: Exchange 2007 E-Mail Forwards
Question: I am new to the Exchange 2007 environment, I've worked with Exchange 5.5, 2000, and 2003 and I'm running into a problem that I don't know how to fix. I have a user who wants to forward all incoming e-mail from our email server to his personal GMail account. I loaded his Outlook profile on my computer and set up a rule to forward [...]
