guides for slimming down xp

guides for slimming down windows space:

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=80511

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=192199

http://www.windowsbbs.com/windows-xp/54287-no-room-defrag.html

Cleaning up old device drivers

In a cmd window:
SET DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1
devmgmt.msc

then set
View -> Show Hidden Devices

Watch out because not all hidden devices are actually not present.


From:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/remove-old-drivers-after-upgrading-to-new-hardware/

perl read from standard in

$var = 

or
@vars = 
foreach (@vars) {
}


from http://www.linuxtopia.org/Perl_Programming/pickingUpPerl_Input2.html

clean up old installers

Use MsiZap from ms visual studio with the G option to clean up orphaned installer patches.

From comments on http://blogs.msdn.com/heaths/archive/2007/01/17/the-patch-cache-and-freeing-space.aspx

smbpasswd failing with NT_STATUS_LOGON_FAILURE

when smbpasswd fails with "Could not connect to machine 127.0.0.1: NT_STATUS_LOGON_FAILURE" the issue is that the old password you are using is incorrect.

smbpasswd
Old SMB password:
New SMB password:
Retype new SMB password:
Could not connect to machine 127.0.0.1: NT_STATUS_LOGON_FAILURE
Failed to change password for

The old password being used is incorrect resulting in a failure to log into the machine to change your password.

Find which patches are installed on a solaris machine

This is the solaris command to display all the installed patches.

showrev -p

viewing scheduled tasks from the command line

The Windows XP utility schtasks can be used to view/query/change/run the scheduled tasks from the command line.

Remote machines can be accessed using psexec.

check shockwave flash versions

The shockwave page has test apps http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/welcome/

viewing windows stored passwords

To access the windows stored passwords for network resources:

rundll32.exe keymgr.dll, KRShowKeyMgr

from:
http://www.windowsnetworking.com/kbase/WindowsTips/WindowsXP/AdminTips/Security/RemoveSavedPasswords.html
http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/1602/xp_remove_saved_passwords_and_usernames/

Adding ip to pf block list table

pfctl -t [tablename] -T add [ip address]

Managed and unmanaged code

Lessons learned from working in the mixed mode c++ (managed and unmanaged code).

"Managed code calls unmanaged code" is a pinvoke (platform invoke) or IJW (it just works)

"Unmanaged code calls managed code" is called a reverse pinvoke. It is restricted to types that exist the same in both code types i.e. basic types and properly ordered structs of basic types.


The term "managed" is used in 2 different aspects:
compilation target (native vs MSIL)
"#pragma managed" and "#pragma unmanaged" are used to define what the code compiles to
by default all code compiled with the /clr option will be MSIL
NON CLS classes can have mixed compilation - some native and some MSIL - but native code can not use managed types directly

platform target (internal to dotNet vs CLS [Common Language Specification])
CLS code is accessible to managed code and must be compiled to MSIL.
This is where rules about no mixing of managed and unmanaged class inheritance apply. Although it should say that CLS class can not inherit from non-CLS classes and non-CLS class can not inherit from a CLS class.

windows logging off after clone

After cloning a disk partition, windows xp will remember the disk letter if it saw it before and will reuse that letter when reloading.

The letter needs to be purged from the registry.

see
http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partsigs.htm for more information.

running regedit (remote) in bartpe allows to edit the registry on the machine to remove the known drive letters.

In case the site goes away the registry key is

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\MountedDevices]

NFS issue

The issue:
An existing NFS system was failing client connections.


On the client:
mount failed, reason given by server: Permission denied

On the server (Fedora Core 3):
rpc.mountd: authenticated mount request from

The solution was to add the following to /etc/fstab
nfsd /proc/fs/nfsd nfsd auto,defaults 0 0
and remount it by
mount -a