Change the save location of the offline files cache

Hi,
this is not a new special feature in windows 7 but I think sometimes it makes sense to use this, the offline files cache.

If you work with files in a network share, sometimes you have the requirement that you can edit some files at home without a network connection to your company.

In this case you can make this files offline available. This is not pretty complicated, you do a right click on the file and click on "make available offline" if this feature is activated.

Imagine that you have a small system partition with 30 GB and a second partition with 130 GB (so a 160 GB hard disk).

If you would like to move the cache of the offline files to the second partition, you have to do these steps:

1. At first please synchronize all local files with the network, because after these steps your local cache will be deleted

2. Second you have to create a batch file with following content named ResetCache.bat:
REG ADD HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\CSC\Parameters /v FormatDatabase /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

This command will delete your local cache

3. Reboot your computer

4. Open the registry and add the following entry to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\CSC\Parameters
Type: REG_SZ
Name: CacheLocation
Value: \??\NEW CACHE LOCATION PATCH, e. g. \??\D:\CSC

5. Create the folder in your defined patch and reboot your computer

6. Synchronize the offline files and you will see, that your offline files will be stored in the new location

So long

Event forwarding in Windows 7

Good evening at all,

today I will give you an introducing in a nice feature of windows 7, the event forwarding and collecting.
Every windows 7 computer in your enterprise have a own event log. So it's pretty costly if you want to monitor them to know when errors are occured.

In windows 7 you have two modes for this problem:
Mode 1:
Collector initiated
Mode 2:
Source computer initiated

I would like to show you my favourite: the source computer initiated subscription

1. Start a cmd shell with administrative privileges on a computer which should forward defined events

2. run this command and accept this with yes (type in: y for yes)
winrm qc

3. After this the computer will be configures for forwarding the events to a specific computer (a service will be started, a HTTP-Listener will be created and a firewall rule will be configured)

4. Add the collector computer account to the local group "Event Log Readers) of the
forwarding computer with this command:
net localgroup "Event Log Readers" computer$@DOMAIN.INT /add"

These are the steps for the computer which will forward the events.

Then you have to do run the winrm qc command on the collector computer on the same way as above.


Then we have to create the event subscription on the collector computer:

5. Open in the computer management console the System Tools - Event Viewer - Subscriptions

6. Right click on "Subscriptions" and click on "create Subscription"
(if there's a popup with the Event view you have to accept this with yes for configuring the necessary service)

7. Then choose "source computer initiated" and add the computer group with the clients which should send the log informations to the collector computer

8. At least you should set the events which will be forwarded from the source computers.
Maybe you only want to get error events in the system protocoll so you can configure this by clicking on “select events”.

Then you can see on the ”Runtime status” if this subscriptions works correctly.

Of course there are a lot of preferences but this would burst the frame of this post ;-).

So long and good night

Command Tool: Windows Update Stand-alone Installer

Hi,

you would like to install or uninstall updates with a command line tool?
Then you have to use this one:
wusa

This tool is included in Windows 7 and can do a lot of things for windows update, e. g. uninstall updates with a specific KB Number:
wusa /uninstall /kb:

For more parameters you can use this command:
wusa /? or wusa /help

There are a lot of more parameters which you can configure, e. g. the restart reaction after a command.
Here you can see a description of this tool too:
http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B934307&x=11&y=13

So long

Can't delete a job in the printer queue

Hi,
if you have a problem with printing a document and you can't abort this print in the queue, you can do the following steps:
At first you should restart the spool service:
net stop spooler 
net start spooler

If it's not possible to remove the document from the queue after these step, you can remove the files in the following directory:
%WinDir%/System32/Spool/Printers
There are two files for each document in the printer queue which you can delete if you want for removing them from the printer queue.

Greets

Export DNS Cache to textfile

Hi at all,

for troubleshooting in networks sometimes it's good to know the local DNS cache for name resolution.
For example if you replace a webserver in your environment through another one and you want be sure that the correct IP will be used, then you have to look at the name resolution.

To export the local dns cache of a client you have to do the following steps:
1. start a command line with administrative privileges
2. type in the following command:
ipconfig /displaydns >C:\myDNScache.txt

"C:\myDNScache.txt" is the path for your export file

Now you are able to see if the name resolution works fine and the correct IP will be provided.

Additional:
To delete the DNS Cache you can use this:
ipconfig /flushdns

To deactivate the DNS Cache:
net stop dnscache

Greets

Completion of WSUS

Hi at all,

sorry that it took so long time for the next post, but I was busy because of learning for my certification for MCTS Windows 7 Configuring, which I've completed successfully.
So there was the problem of handling the mobile wsus clients. If you have an active directory environment you can configure a group policy with a startup and a shutdown-script.

In the startup script you can set the following registry keys to your internal wsus server:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate]
"WUServer"="http://WSUS-Server-Name or instead of the Name the IP adress and Port"
"WUStatusServer"="http://WSUS-Server-Name  or instead of the Name the IP adress and Port"

And in the shutdown script you can configure these registry keys again but instead of your internal wsus server you have to set the microsoft update source in the internet (http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com).


DON'T FORGET: The wsus client don't use the proxy configuration of your internet explorer. If you have a proxy in your environment and you didn't set the winhttp proxy settings, then the wua client won't receive updates.
You can configure the winhttp proxy settings with the command "proxycfg -u". With "proxycfg -d" you delete these entries.
Type "proxycfg" and you will see your current configuration of the winhttp proxy configuration.
So maybe it will be necessary that you include theses proxy commands in your start- or shutdown-scripts.

Don't wonder if it takes some time, that the wua client will work successfully, because if you have to configure the winhttp proxy configuration, the wsus service have to be restartet and maybe this will be done after a reboot. 
To force your changes you can use following commands:
net stop wuauserv (stop the windows update service)
net start wuauserv (start the windows update service)




If you have any questions, feel free to ask.


Regards