Slow network transfers in Windows 7

Disable Receive-Side Scaling and Receive Window Auto-Tuning.
From an elevated command prompt enter:

netsh int tcp show global

to check parameters

netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
netsh interface tcp set global rss=disabled

to disable Receive-Side Scaling and Receive Window Auto-Tuning

Hyper-V Survival Guide

This link is from Microsoft

How to hide user accounts in Windows 7

Run regedit and go to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList
If this key does not exist then you must create it.
Create a DWORD value with the name of the user you want to hide and assign 0 to this value.
If you want to show the user again in the login screen change the value from 0 to 1.

How to find model and s/n of your computer using wmi

From a command prompt enter these commands:
To retrieve serial number of your computer run
wmic bios get serialnumber

To retrieve model name of your computer run
wmic csproduct get name

Windows Server 2008 R2 DNS Issues

Read the following blog entry
http://weblogs.asp.net/owscott/archive/2009/09/15/windows-server-2008-r2-dns-issues.aspx

Windows 7 themes

Download new Windows 7 themes from here

How to enable BitLocker on USB flash drives

(copied from this link)
Encrypting USB flash drives protects the data stored on the volume. Any USB flash drive formatted with FAT, FAT32, or NTFS can be encrypted with BitLocker. The length of time it takes to encrypt a drive depends on the size of the drive, the pro¬cessing power of the computer, and the level of activity on the computer.

Before you enable BitLocker, you should configure the appropriate Removable Data Drive policies and settings in Group Policy and then wait for Group Policy to be refreshed. If you don’t do this and you enable BitLocker, you might need to turn BitLocker off and then turn BitLocker back on because certain state and manage¬ment flags are set when you turn on BitLocker.

To be sure that you can recover an encrypted volume, you should allow data-recovery agents and store recovery information in Active Directory. If you use a flash drive with earlier versions of Windows, the Allow Access To BitLocker-Protected Removable Data Drives From Earlier Versions Of Windows policy can ensure that you have access to the USB flash drive on other operating systems and computers. Unlocked drives are read-only.

To enable BitLocker encryption on a USB flash drive, do the following:
1. Insert the USB flash drive, click Start, and then click Computer.
2. Right-click the USB flash drive, and then click Turn On BitLocker. BitLocker initializes the drive.
3. On the Choose How You Want To Unlock This Drive page, choose one or more for the following options, and then click Next:

* Use A Password To Unlock This Drive Select this option if you want the user to be prompted for a password to unlock the drive. Passwords allow a drive to be unlocked in any location and to be shared with other people.
* Use My Smart Card To Unlock The Drive Select this option if you want the user to use a smart card and enter the smart card PIN to unlock the drive. Because this feature requires a smart card reader, it is normally used to unlock a drive in the workplace and not for drives that might be used outside the workplace.

4. On the How Do You Want To Store Your Recovery Key page, click Save The Recovery Key To A File.
5. In the Save BitLocker Recovery Key As dialog box, choose a save location, and then click Save.
6. You can now print the recovery key if you want to. When you have finished, click Next.
7. On the Are You Ready To Encrypt This Drive page, click Start Encrypting. Do not remove the USB flash drive until the encryption process is complete. How long the encryption process takes depends on the size of the drive and other factors.

The encryption process does the following:
1. Adds an Autorun.inf file, the BitLocker To Go reader, and a Read Me.txt file to the USB flash drive.
2. Creates a virtual volume with the full contents of the drive in the remaining drive space.
3. Encrypts the virtual volume to protect it.USB flash drive encryption takes approximately 6 to 10 minutes per gigabyte to complete. The encryption process can be paused and resumed provided that you don’t remove the drive.

As a result, when AutoPlay is enabled and you insert the encrypted drive into a USB slot on a computer running Windows 7, Windows 7 runs the BitLocker To Go reader, which in turn displays a dialog box. When you are prompted, enter the password, smart card PIN, or both to unlock the drive. Option¬ally, select Automatically Unlock On This Computer From Now On to save the password in an encrypted file on the computer’s system volume. Finally, click Unlock to unlock the volume so that you can use it.

Helpful Keyboard Shortcuts for Windows Media Center

(copied from this link)
* Media Center Start page (start Media Center, if necessary): Windows logo key+Alt+Enter
* Recorded TV: Ctrl+O or Ctrl+Shift+T
* Guide: Ctrl+G
* Music Library: Ctrl+M
* Video Library: Ctrl+E
* Picture Library: Ctrl+I
* Movie Library: Ctrl+Shift+M
* Radio: Ctrl+A
* Go back to previous screen: Backspace
* Toggle full screen/window: Alt+Enter
* Go to channel number (Live TV or Guide): Enter number using the 0–9 keys
* Up one channel (while playing TV): Plus (+) or Equal (=)
* Down one channel (while playing TV): Minus (–)
* Record: Ctrl+R
* More Info/Display shortcut menu: Ctrl+D
* Play: Ctrl+Shift+P
* Pause/Play (toggle): Ctrl+P
* Stop: Ctrl+Shift+S
* Replay (Back): Ctrl+B
* Skip (Forward): Ctrl+F
* Rewind: Ctrl+Shift+B
* Fast Forward: Ctrl+Shift+F
* Mute: F8
* Volume up: F9
* Volume down: F10
* Audio language options (TV or DVD): Ctrl+Shift+A
* Subtitles/Closed Captions: Ctrl+U

VMware vima howto

how to configure the network
----------------------------
sudo system-config-network-tui

how to configure the firewall
-----------------------------
sudo system-config-securitylevel-tui

how to set proxy for vima-update
-------------------------------
Edit /etc/vmware/esxupdate/vimaupdate.conf and set proxy and proxyport
then run the following commands
sudo vima-update scan
sudo vima-update update

how to change the time zone
---------------------------
You can change the time zone from the vMA Linux console, as follows:
1. Remove the existing localtime file.
sudo rm /etc/localtime
2. Make a symbolic link for the time zone that you want to use. For example, for Tokyo time:
sudo ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Athens /etc/localtime

how to setup ntpd
-----------------
in file /etc/ntp.conf enter this line
server gr.pool.ntp.org prefer
then enter these commands:
sudo service ntpd start
sudo chkconfig ntpd on

how to add a server to vima
---------------------------
sudo vifp addserver

how to remove a server from vima
--------------------------------
sudo vifp removeserver

how to list all managed hosts on vima
-------------------------------------
sudo vifp listservers

how to enable vi fastpass for a given host
------------------------------------------
This allows you to store credentials without having to pass them in each time you execute a command.
vifpinit
for vima 4.1 use the command
vifptarget -s hostname

how to clean vima and return it to a clean state
-----------------------------------------------
Enter this command
vimaclean
and reboot

...also take a look at this blog posts:
Using vMA as your ESXi syslog server
Administer vSphere using the vSphere Management Assistant

How to remove Active Directory from a DC in safe mode

Read the following article from MS Knowledge Base:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/332199
You can also try to repair AD using this article's info:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/258062

CentOS / RHEL Configure Yum Automatic Update Retrieval and Installation

from this blog we can do the following:

Create this script to update the system:

#!/bin/bash
/usr/bin/yum -y -R 120 -d 0 -e 0 update yum
/usr/bin/yum -y -R 10 -e 0 -d 0 update

and save it to this folder:
/etc/cron.daily/yumupdate.sh to apply updates one a day.
/etc/cron.weekly/yumupdate.sh to apply updates once a week.

First command will update yum itself and next will apply system updates.
-R 120 : Sets the maximum amount of time yum will wait before performing a command
-e 0 : Sets the error level to 0 (range 0 - 10). 0 means print only critical errors about which you must be told.
-d 0 : Sets the debugging level to 0 - turns up or down the amount of things that are printed. (range: 0 - 10).
-y : Assume yes; assume that the answer to any question which would be asked is yes.

Make sure you setup executable permission:
chmod +x /etc/cron.daily/yumupdate.sh

Cisco Password Recovery Procedures

This page is an index of password recovery procedures for Cisco products:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/customer/products/sw/iosswrel/ps1831/products_tech_note09186a00801746e6.shtml

Microsoft Deployment useful links

Take a look at these links:
http://www.cluberti.com/blog/2009/08/10/mdt-2010-and-deployment-from-a-usb-key/comment-page-1/#comment-591
http://www.svrops.com/svrops/articles/sysprepvista.htm
http://blogs.ethz.ch/jlaville/2008/03/21/step-by-step-vista-and-windows-2008-deployment-with-wds-waik-and-mdt/
http://blog.augustoalvarez.com.ar/2008/12/12/installing-and-configuring-wds-windows-deployment-services-full-images-deployment-part-i/
http://sharepointgeorge.com/2009/windows-deployment-services-waik-and-windows-7-part1/
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/mdt/threads
http://www.minasi.com/newsletters/nws1003.htm