Many services and programs out there produce log files as an audit trail for everything they are doing, however few have a function which removes these files as they outlive their usefulness. As a result, these log files sit on your system eating up space (sometimes more than you know) and cluttering directories for those [...]
Backups are something which, usually, run on a very frequent schedule. If left unmanaged, a direct result of this is a large number files eating up a potentially large amount of hard drive space. Remembering to manually go in and remove backup files certainly is one method of management but shouldn’t be a long term [...]
A very useful function which is missing from the Windows library of command line tools is the ability to replace text in plain text files. Here's how to do it with a simple script.
Common system and/or environmental events such as resuming from standby or losing network connection can cause problems for certain applications which expect to be always on and connected.
If you run a Windows Server which takes advantage of the built in DNS Server, you have a nice graphical interface for viewing and managing your DNS records. However, the vast majority of the time you probably just look at these records as opposed to updating them.
When you have a bunch of end user computers on a network, it is important to be sure files stored locally on the respective computers are backed up in the event of hard drive failure. Maintaining backup programs, configurations and, possibly, support costs on each machine can be a real pain, so as an alternative [...]
While there are a myriad of useful applications and utilities which are available via portable distributions, many tools still remain in their “install only” format. This limitation, however, should not discourage you from using the respective program as a portable application. With a few tricks we are going to show you here, you may be [...]
Microsoft has integrated the ability to attach virtual hard drive (VHD) files as physical disks in the Windows Disk Management tool. This process is easy enough to do manually but if you attach VHD files often then we have a solution which enables you to mount and unmount VHD files with a single click.
If you try to update certain Windows files (such as programs or word documents) while they are in use, you get the the standard “access denied, file is in use” error. While the reasoning behind this is obvious, it can be quite annoying if you need to update a small executable which is currently in [...]
Every server administrator has a set of utility programs they like to use. Typically, these tools are kept on each machine to ensure availability and can come from a variety of sources such as Sysinternals and Nirsoft. To keep these tools updated to the latest versions, manually updating can be quite tedious and time consuming, especially [...]
The zip format is the standard for file compression, however many power user and system admin types prefer to use the 7z format because it offers significantly better compression ratios. So to get the best of both worlds, we have created a script which will convert your zip files into 7z files with a single command, a process we are calling “deep archiving”.
Many programs and utilities are distributed as portable applications which do not require you to install them, but what if you wanted to create an installer? Here's how.
Yesterday we showed you how to setup Perl on your IIS6 box, and today we'll show you how to get it up and running on Windows Server 2008 systems running IIS7.
In today's batch scripting lesson, we'll show you in true “set it and forget it” fashion, how to create a batch script which will adapt to your SQL Server as new databases are added and removed.
Perl is a very popular scripting language which is used to develop a wide variety of tools, and today we'll show you how to setup IIS 6 on Windows Server 2003 to serve up Perl scripts.
SQL Server Management Studio makes restoring a database easy, and today we'll walk through the simple process of restoring a database through the GUI. Expert users might want to skip this one.
The most important part of a SQL Server maintenance plan is backing up your databases regularly, and even though Windows isn't as command-line friendly as Linux, you can still trigger a database backup from the command line.
Yesterday we showed you how to install PHP on IIS for Windows Server 2003, and today we'll walk through the same process for Windows Server 2008, which is similar but a little different.
While the Microsoft Sysinternals tools are incredibly powerful and useful, the one feature they lack is the ability to check for new versions. Here's a batch script to automatically update them.
One of most popular development platforms on the web is PHP which powers many popular applications and sites such as Facebook, Wordpress and Joomla. Here's how to install it into IIS version 6 on Windows Server 2003.
When you create a Microsoft Virtual Hard Drive either through Virtual PC or Virtual Server, you have to specify the maximum size of the file up front. Here's how to tweak the size later on.
When it comes to gathering statistics on web sites, you can never have enough. While one of the most popular method for tracking statistics is through services such as Google Analytics, log file analysis remains a reliable way to track your visitors as they are immune to script blockers.
As an IT manager, there are a lot of things you can do which directly impact your company’s bottom line. While the most obvious are direct hardware and software costs, an often overlooked aspect is energy/electricity consumption by computer systems.
All Dell servers come with the Dell OpenManage Server Administrator software which has the ability to monitor and display system level indicators. Here's how to batch assign them to send an email.
When you've got multiple RDP servers sitting behind a firewall, it's tricky to access more than one through Remote Desktop on a single IP. Here's the solution.
When working on development projects or doing product demos which utilize email, having an environment you know will work can be critical. For these situations, having a completely self contained email system is imperative, and here's how to set one up.
Microsoft Office 2007 introduced a new XML based file format for the Office suite of products, and what you might not know is that you can easily extract the images, text, or embedded files from within these documents.
There are lots of great utilities out there which do essential tasks such as monitoring and reporting that once you have configured them, they just sit in your system tray and do their job without you ever knowing. Here's how to run an application as a Windows service whether or not the user is logged in.