Thoughts about IIS (and now SharePoint!) : Misc.

Are you running a 32-bit OS on your 64-bit capable machine?

jamesbl — Thu, 21 May 2009 12:54:00 GMT

I recently formatted my wife’s notebook in order to install Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC). I was curious whether her system was 64-bit capable or not, so I whipped up the following script, which answered the question for me (yes, it was, btw).

This is a very basic script, but answered the question easy enough. Hopefully, it can help you in some way as well:

On Error Resume Next
Const wbemFlagReturnImmediately = &h10
Const wbemFlagForwardOnly = &h20
arrComputers = Array("localhost")

For Each strComputer In arrComputers
   WScript.Echo
   WScript.Echo "=========================================="
   WScript.Echo "Computer: " & strComputer
   WScript.Echo "=========================================="

   Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\CIMV2")
   Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery("SELECT * FROM Win32_Processor", "WQL", _
                                          wbemFlagReturnImmediately + wbemFlagForwardOnly)

   For Each objitem in colitems
WScript.Echo objItem.DeviceID
WScript.Echo "   DataWidth    = " & objItem.DataWidth
WScript.Echo "   AddressWidth = " & objItem.AddressWidth

If objItem.DataWidth > objItem.AddressWidth Then
         WScript.Echo "Your hardware is 64-bit capable, but you are running on a 32-bit operating system."
End If
   Next
Next

Simply save the above as a file and run it via “cscript <filename.vbs>” as normal.

My Brother-in-law…

jamesbl — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 17:27:49 GMT

THE Ops Manager… Here’s my thousand words:

Please Bring Back my IE

jamesbl — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 02:47:07 GMT

Every time I install a fresh copy of Vista and/or Server 2008, I have to dig this up and “remember” how to bring back my IE icon on the desktop, since there’s no longer a way in the UI to do it, so I thought I’d share this with you (and me next time I need it!) as well. Hopefully it will save you some time.

Using Regedit, navigate to the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel

Locate the value {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D} in the right pane and change it from a 1 to a 0.

Finally, refresh your desktop by selecting it with the mouse and pressing F5 (or secondary click and choose “Refresh”).

Note: You can also make this change under HKEY_LOCAL_SYSTEM for a system wide change for all users, instead of for one specific user. Keep in mind, however, if the value exists in both places, the one located under HKEY_CURRENT_USER will be used.

To save you some time, here are the contents of the .REG file:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel]
"{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}"=dword:00000000

Are you SharePoint Designer Challenged?

jamesbl — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:42:03 GMT

I know I am... Like me, you might also like two new downloads that have been recently posted.

Office SharePoint Designer 2007 Training Standalone Edition
and
Office SharePoint Designer 2007 Training Portal Edition

For those craving keyboard efficiency morsels

jamesbl — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 02:17:57 GMT

Often times when delivering a training class, while browsing around in Explorer, I will hit a particular keystroke which almost always elicits conversation from my students who are paying close attention... I am not sure why, but it appears to be a little known keyboard shortcut that I use quite often that is the center of the conversation.

Consider the following example of a listview which contains items that we really want to see, but the shell doesn't want us to see completely for some reason:

From here, all we can tell is there are two files that currently look exactly alike. Bummer.

Now for the coolness. While holding the CTRL key down, press the + sign on the numpad (or for you laptop users, the numpad equivalent of CTRL + Fn + / ).

As you can see, *all* columns are appropriately sized in one swift keyboard move.

Another one of my favorite morsels as a lefty is CTRL+INSERT for Copy and SHIFT+INSERT for Paste. No need to remove your left hand from that mouse...except in the Outlook reading pane...ugh.

For you camera buffs out there

jamesbl — Sun, 20 May 2007 08:54:00 GMT

Have you ever popped in a flash card from your digital camera on a Windows Server 2003 machine and were annoyed that it does not automatically mount it and create a drive letter for you? So you then must open the Disk Management MMC and give it a drive letter manually, etc.

This was bugging me so I dug around and finally found out how to make this happen automatically, like on a Windows XP box.

Just run “mountvol /e” – this will set a registry key (NoAutoMount) to a 0, which defaults to 1 on Server 2003… Now your compactflash/sd/xd cards will automatically get mounted and assigned a drive letter upon insertion.

Note: This should also work for removable USB drives, too.

Yes, you have reached the end of the Internet...

jamesbl — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 19:52:00 GMT

Soon to come above will be some common IIS issues I run into while using various versions of IIS (namely IIS6). Please hold...