Some Notes on the Machines

dd for Windows, including support for /dev/zero and /dev/random, is available here:

http://www.chrysocome.net/dd

This is NOT the dd which comes with Cygwin.

For many years there was ‘blat’, the all-purpose command-line mailer for Windows.  However, blat was never updated for SSL, and a great many email providers (e.g.,. Gmail) require SSL.  One can add a second tool called ‘stunnel’ to create a chain for the purpose, but I don’t like to kludge that much. 

For a while I preferred the applet ‘email’, which is part of Cygwin. However, this is not a standalone applet, and there have been other issues. Just now SwithMail came to light for me:

http://www.tbare.com/software/swithmail.html

Am testing. So far, it is working very well indeed.

Shortcuts to executables on the network, in Windows 7, always bring up that pesky “Do you want to run this file” message. To eliminate these in Windows 7 Professional and up, use gpedit.msc:

User Configuration >
Administrative Templates >
Windows Components >
Attachment Manager

and add “*.exe” to “Inclusion list for moderate risk file types”.

The following two commands, in order, will reliably do a remote shutdown across domains:

net use \\remotesystem password /u:domain\username
shutdown -r -t 0 -f -m \\remotesystem

When you see “Windows cannot query for the list of Group Policy objects”, in Server 2003, try this:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/842804

Windows Easy Transfer is useful from XP to Vista or 7; but from XP to XP, its predecessor still works; it’s called the “File and Settings Transfer Wizard”, and is available thusly:

Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > File and Settings Transfer Wizard

More documentation is here:

http://www.howtotransferfiles.com/XP/XP_XP.html

Some really good control methods for USB drives, is here:

http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html

These look very interesting to me:

http://www.cilsoftware.com/cstuneup.htm

http://www.360amigo.com/en/node/21

Here is the All Users desktop:

C:\Users\Public\Public Desktop\

and here is the All Users start menu:

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\

This tool does very well:

http://download.cnet.com/ProduKey/3000-2094_4-10457063.html