TechAgility

Some while back I was really wishing it was possible to boot to a USB Stick from within a VM – and now it is possible – great news because it just adds that little bit extra in the way of functionality

Great tip how-to boot from USB stick inside of VMware Workstation

A tip pointed by Ivo Beerens. By using my RSS Reader to stay updated on blogs in the Virtualization Sphere I checked this post from Ivo. It’s a great tip. What’s about?

Basically when you want to test ESXi 4 installation to the USB Stick (or this Video post too…) you’ll want to follow my post, which I’ve done in the past and that’s it.

But if you want to test unattended installation of ESXi 4 on USB stick then you would want to boot your VM which is executed in your VMware Workstation, from an USB stick too.Well you can’t. Even the version 7 of VMware Workstation does not support that.

Here comes the help tip from Ivo. Basically what do you have to do is a work around.

01. Download boot manager from PLoP
02. Use the Iso in the boot manager as a boot device to boot your VM
03. Add an USB adapter to your VM (if not already done).

03. Insert your USB stick with ESXi 4 installed in it.
03. When your VM boots from that ISO, just select USB from the menu.

Well not all the credit goes to IVO, because the original help provided was from Ulli Hankeln from sanbarrow.com. -:)

Great tip how-to boot from USB stick inside of VMware Workstation

written by dcaddick

So I noticed some good info coming out of the MSDN Terminal Server blog, like:Introducing Remote Desktop Connection Manager and I was reasonably curious if the RDS Brokering would allow you to attach or add Physical devices like BladePC’s or BladeWS’s to the Virtual Pooling of resources available for users to RDP in to. So I figured the best way was to dive in and give it a shot?

So it seems like there are certainly no issues with installing Win 2008 R2 in a VM based on the VMware Workstation 6.5, remembering that there is no longer a 32 bit version. So here is some of what I found with the install:

Page 17 shows what the Web Access page looks
like (needs to be HTTPS – self signed cert is fine)

At this point I was able to successfully enter the details of my Windows 7 Laptop in the “Connect To” field and then the session on the WIN2008 Server was able to bring up an RDP7 (6.1) session

To double-check I’d need to access this web site remotely from another machine and check that works? But to be honest I was mainly after just figuring out  if I could attach physical units so I’ll leave that for now.

Details of what can be configured under the RDS

Page 25 shows:
Trying to specify devices that can be connected to – and it quickly
becomes apparent that you can only add Virtual Devices to the
mix – I now need to add Hyper-V to this Server (if it’ll let me?) and
then I should be able to add VM’s to the pool for assignment

Bottom line – to add additional devices apart from virtual VM’s
this would quite likely need a hack? to effect this and so here is
where my investigation ends for now.

So this is all of the post for now and I’ll try and place
a link here for the full document
(1.9Mb)

written by dcaddick

Problem:
So how come the Volume on the TV always seems to jump that little (or a lot?) extra during the ad breaks? If we can all take our MP3’s and set them all to the same volume how come the TV Stations/Channels/Studios do the same thing? Are they just lazy or what?

I know it’s not just me right? Search on google with this string – loud volume on tv during ad breaks and you will get:

TV ads too loud, industry watchdog says – Moves to ‘minimise annoyance’, save eardrums
Editorial: TV Ad Volume: Loud Defeats the Purpose
Five’s ad breaks too loud for ASA
Why are TV commercials louder than the show?
Why are TV adverts so loud?
Why are the ads so loud?
‘Excessively loud’ TV adverts to be banned in crackdown after viewer complaints
Bill seeks to turn down sound on TV ads

Now this is just a quick selection from Australia, UK and the US…..

Workaround:
*If* you have a media centre you can record in almost real time and then get the unit to “skip” the adds?

But to be perfectly honest, I don’t mind the ads and if this is what keeps folks at Channel Nine (here in Australia) able to then produce local content like “Underbelly” then that’s fine with me. I would just like to preset the ad volume at 50% say to compensate what it sound like?

Back to the Media Centre – it is possible to detect Ads and do something about it using something like the DVRMSToolbox but unfortunately the disadvantage of this is that you can only do it when watching shows that have already been recorded – not live TV.

DVRMSToolbox – andy vt’s tools & blog
DVRMSToolbox User Guide

http://www.comskip.org/
Comskip Manual
Tuning Guide
Release History

Potential:
So if comskip manages to create it’s magic based on – “The recording is analyzed on various characteristics such as black frames, silences and changes in aspect ratio”, and my brother has mentioned to me that what happens is that the National TV Station puts out a signal that uses 3 black frames to indicate the “cut” from the program to an ad break so that affiliates can switch in their local ad’s, then if this is the case then surely there is potential to be able to somewhat reliably “recognize” the cut to to ad’s in a live TV transmission?

Can anyone confirm this is the case?

Rather than wait for govt’s to dictate to TV Broadcasters that they MUST have or enforce some kind of “Volume Levelling” system I’d love for the open source community to come up with an alternative that puts the consumer in charge?

I have seen that there are units out there that can limit the “dynamic range” of the TV/Amp system – but I feel that’s a bit of a cheat – in this day and age we should be capable of wresting the volume control away from the advertisers and putting it back in our hands?

written by dcaddick

So I have been asked a few questions regarding FBWF (File Based Write Filter) in the last few days and thought this might also be useful to others?

By default in XP Embedded there is a component called EWF (Enhanced Write Filter) that acts as an overlay to catch actions that require write access like the Cache for the browser and these are discarded during a reboot. As an Admin you can set up the XPe system as you like and then COMMIT the changes to the flash memory via Command Line or using the icon in either the system tray or the Control Panel.

The main difference between the older EWF mechanism and the newer FBWF is that the EWF is pretty much an “All or Nothing” affair, where as with the FBWF you protect the entire partition and can then selectively “punch holes” in the protection based on Files, Directories or Registry entries to allow persistent write access to the Flash Memory so that these changes will be committed and maintained.

Example of setting FBWF via Command Line:

fbwfmgr /enable
fbwfmgr /addvolume c:
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “Program Files\Citrix”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “Program Files\Citrix\ICA Client”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “Program Files\TeemNT”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “windows\system32\ccm”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “windows\system32\ccmsetup”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “windows\system32\wbem”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “Documents and Settings\All Users\Desktop”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “Documents and Settings\User\ntuser.dat”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “Documents and Settings\User\ntuser.dat.log”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “Documents and Settings\User\Desktop”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “Documents and Settings\User\Application Data\ICA\Client”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “windows\system32\config”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “windows\bginfo.bmp”
fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “RegfData”

As you can see from the above this was to allow the Thin Client to continue to be Write Protected, but at the same time allow the Users to effectively save their settings and have this maintained between reboots.

Anyhow, just one important point……  IF you need to punch in some RegFilter exclusions so that some registry keys “stick” between reboots then it is absolutely mandatory that you have a file exclusion for : fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “RegfData” because this is how the data is “saved” and it then gets injected in to the registry after the reboot has settled down – Does this make sense?

For the registry entry below you can see that the first two are in the image by default because they look after the TSCal and Domain membership, but after that I was adding additional Reg keys for information that I wanted to be persistent between reboots – my earlier comment was that you needed the additional file to be excluded at “fbwfmgr /addexclusion c: “RegfData”” so that these keys will actually work, as the data is stored using RegfData and then “injected” on the next reboot.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesRegFilterParametersMonitoredKeys]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesRegFilterParametersMonitoredKeys]
“ClassKey”=”HKLM”
“FileNameForSaving”=”MSLic.rgf”
“RelativeKeyName”=”Software\Microsoft\MSLicensing”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesRegFilterParametersMonitoredKeys1]
“ClassKey”=”HKLM”
“FileNameForSaving”=”MacAcc.rgf”
“RelativeKeyName”=”Security\Policy\Secrets\$MACHINE.ACC”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesRegFilterParametersMonitoredKeys2]
“ClassKey”=”HKLM”
“FileNameForSaving”=”TeemNT.rgf”
“RelativeKeyName”=”Software\Pericom\TeemNT\Sessions”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesRegFilterParametersMonitoredKeys3]
“ClassKey”=”HKLM”
“FileNameForSaving”=”TtNTCon.rgf”
“RelativeKeyName”=”Software\Pericom\TtNTConWiz”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesRegFilterParametersMonitoredKeys4]
“ClassKey”=”HKLM”
“FileNameForSaving”=”Citrix.rgf”
“RelativeKeyName”=”Software\Citrix”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesRegFilterParametersMonitoredKeys5]
“ClassKey”=”HKCU”
“FileNameForSaving”=”ControlPnl.rgf”
“RelativeKeyName”=”Control Panel”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesRegFilterParametersMonitoredKeys6]
“ClassKey”=”HKLM”
“FileNameForSaving”=”Print.rgf”
“RelativeKeyName”=”System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesRegFilterParametersMonitoredKeys7]
“ClassKey”=”HCC”
“FileNameForSaving”=”ScreenRes.rgf”
“RelativeKeyName”=”SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video”

I have also found another article stating how it is possible to get FBWF working on XP Pro, and although I haven’t tested this it certainly looks like a much simpler way of achieving effectively the same thing as SteadyState? But I would consider modifying the registry components below to CurrentControlSet instead of ControlSet001?

Guide to using FBWF on Windows XP Pro

---

Hi there. my first post, hope its of use to people here. I am using FBWF on a standard Windows XP Pro installation (SP3 RC1 to be exact). Finding no guide available online, I thought I’d write this one.
–EDIT–
Quick note for those of you who don’t know what FBWF is. It is very similar to EWF, but FBWF (file based write filter) offers some important advantages. FBWF uses less ram (you can reclaim ram overlay space when you delete files), you can also commit on the fly (without restarting or disabling), and have persistent (write through) folders that write straight to the drive (so you can have a persistent My Documents for example).
–EDIT–
You will need the following files from the XPe feature pack 2007 trial.
fbwf.sys fbwfdll.dll fbwflib.dll fbwfmgr.exe
If you’re not sure how to extract these files, please see the “New EWF + MinLogon and CF instructions” thread by SFiorito.
1.Copy fbwf.sys to WINDOWSsystem32drivers
2.Copy all other files to WINDOWSsystem32
3.Add the following to your registry (it’s probably easiest to copy it into an empty txt file, rename it to fbwf.reg, and load)

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMControlSet001ServicesFBWF]
"Start"=dword:00000000
"Type"=dword:00000002
"ErrorControl"=dword:00000001
"ImagePath"=hex(2):73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,44,00,
  52,00,49,00,56,00,45,00,52,00,53,00,5c,00,66,00,62,00,77,00,66,00,2e,00,73,
  00,79,00,73,00,00,00
"Group"="FSFilter System Recovery"
"DisplayName"="File-Based Write Filter"
"Description"="File-Based Write Filter driver"
"DependOnService"=hex(7):46,00,6c,00,74,00,4d,00,67,00,72,00,00,00,00,00
"DebugFlags"=dword:00000000
"EnabledOnAllSkus"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMControlSet001ServicesFBWFFBA]
"EnablePostFBA"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMControlSet001ServicesFBWFInstances]
"DefaultInstance"="Fbwf Instance"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMControlSet001ServicesFBWFInstancesFbwf Instance]
"Flags"=dword:00000000
"Altitude"="226000"

4.Reboot

5.Go to your command prompt, and type in the following commands.

fbwfmgr /enable

fbwfmgr /addvolume X:

fbwfmgr /setthreshold S

X is the drive you want to protect (most will want to protect c. S is the size you want your ram drive to be in MB(mine is 256).

6. Reboot, and your done!

There are 4 other commands in fbwfmgr you may want to play with. /setpreallocation 1 reserves the ram space (I.E does not dynamically change with the amount of actual used space). /setcompression 1 compresses the date to save more ram space, but at the cost of CPU time. /overlaydetail tells you what files are being stored in ram, and how much ram space is being used. /addexclusion X: “persistentfolder” enables write through on the folder X:persistentfolder.

For those used to EWF, unfortunately there is no way to commit all data, and each file has to be committed manually with the following command /commit X: “windowsfile.exe”

I hope I haven’t left anything out! Hopefully this guide will be usable and somewhat clear…and if it breaks your puter, well, I’m sorry

Update:

For those wanting to try some testing I have uploaded the FBWF files here

written by dcaddick

So anyway, I figured that with the stories getting around regarding the recent PDC that there would be Virtual Machines of Windows 7 being handed out on the portable Hard drives that it wouldn’t take long for them to appear on Torrent sites etc… And so it would appear Download 64-bit Windows 7 6801 Pre-Beta ISO (Microsoft.Windows.7.64Bit.Build.6801.DVD-WinBeta Torrent)

So I started looking around to see how easy this might be to crank up under the old trusty VMware Workstation 6 (I really have been slack, haven’t I, must update that shortly?) and this again didn’t take long at all to find an authoritive article that shows the only real thing that needs to be set is the HDD to IDE as opposed to SCSI? Windows 7 + VMWare 6/VMWare Fusion 2

So this only left the possibility of the O/S complaining about needing to be activated, blah, blah, so I was wondering if this might be able to be bypassed as I was only curious about checking it out – not necessarily running the O/S on hardware anytime soon, and I turned this article out that solves that quite neatly at 15 Windows 7 Pre-Release Preview MAK Unlimited Activation Product Keys

All in all, this might take you about a hour or two after you have finished downloading to install and start testing Windows 7 – happy trails?

written by dcaddick

So if you have a look at the MSTSC.EXE file that starts the RDP session and use the /? to call further info from the component you get something very much like this:

But if you dig a just a touch deeper you will find that the MS Terminal Services Client or RDP Client as it is more commonly known draws the config information for most of its settings from the simple DEFAULT.RDP file that will typically be saved in the Users profile. (see example below)

So if you want to make changes to the way it behaves then it is fairly straightforward to make the changes in the GUI of the Client and then use the “Save As…” command from within the GUI – but what happens if you’d like to replicate this as standard behavior across multiple devices?

Search in the target computer to find the default.rdp file? (they should be hiding in each users profile) This is the settings that are used when the RDP Client is used – so open default.rdp in notepad or similar and you will find it is pretty straightforward to read?

Here in this example I have set the local C,D and E drives to be visible:

But at the same time some of these settings are pretty easy to guess at and start modifying with a reasonable degree of being able to accurately guess what they will change? I’ve highlighted some of the pretty obvious ones?

++++Example++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
screen mode id:i:2
desktopwidth:i:1280
desktopheight:i:800
session bpp:i:32     <<< Colour depth
winposstr:s:0,3,0,0,800,600
full address:s:
compression:i:1
keyboardhook:i:2    <<<Keyboard Shortcuts
audiomode:i:0   <<<Sound
redirectprinters:i:1   <<<attach local printers? 1 is on
redirectcomports:i:0
redirectsmartcards:i:0
redirectclipboard:i:1
redirectposdevices:i:0
drivestoredirect:s:C:;D:;E:;
displayconnectionbar:i:1
autoreconnection enabled:i:1
authentication level:i:0
prompt for credentials:i:0
negotiate security layer:i:1
remoteapplicationmode:i:0
alternate shell:s:
shell working directory:s:
disable wallpaper:i:1    <<<part of controlling “the experience”
disable full window drag:i:1
allow desktop composition:i:0
allow font smoothing:i:0
disable menu anims:i:1
disable themes:i:0
disable cursor setting:i:0
bitmapcachepersistenable:i:1
gatewayhostname:s:      <<<Part of the TS Gateway from here down
gatewayusagemethod:i:0
gatewaycredentialssource:i:4
gatewayprofileusagemethod:i:0
++++Example++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If this is the case then make the changes to the user’s default.rdp – then use the “save as”… then test Test, and then replicate to the same location on all devices?

written by dcaddick

Reap the rewards of the open-source community courtesy of Douglas Toombs from Windows IT Pro Magazine

Find your free tools:
"LocatePC"
"OCS Inventory NG" 
"PRTG" 
"SIW" 
"SyncBack" 
"TrueCrypt" 
"WinDirStat" 
"Wink"
"BareTail" 
"Ethereal" 
"FileZilla" 
"NeWT" 
"Ngrep" 
"OpenSSH" 
"WinDump" 
"WinPcap" 
"Winfingerprint"
"CamStudio" 
"CDBurnerXP" 
"Comodo Firewall Pro" 
"DriveImage XML" 
"GParted LiveCD" 
"JkDefrag" 
"PageDefrag" 
"TestDisk"

25 Absolutely Cool, Totally Free Utilities

written by dcaddick

DISCLAIMER: If you decide to flash ANY device with something other than the Vendors correct firmware then you are on your own!!!

Moving on from a previous post the other day regarding "Supercharge Your Wireless Router With Open Firmware – Wired How-To Wiki" I was chatting to my brother and it turns out that he has recently been having troubles with his Billion device and as a consequence of it being out of warranty he decided to buy an ASUS WL-500G

And now I can see why, not only is it a Wireless Access Point with ADSL but it also has 2 x USB 2.0 ports as well so that this can effectively act as a mini NAS unit as well by hosting additional storage <see table below>