Windows & IIS stuff

Windows Environment Variables Overrides for IIS6

rich@teachout.com — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:43:03 GMT

To add environment variable overrides, so IIS doesn’t read the system environment variables, but rather reads it from a reg key
Do the following (from a dos prompt, or manually but the key in)

REG.EXE add "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\IISADMIN\Parameters\Environment" /v TMP /t REG_SZ /d "C:\windows\temp" /f

REG.EXE add "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\IISADMIN\Parameters\Environment" /v TEMP /t REG_SZ /d "C:\windows\temp" /f

Then do an ‘iisreset’ / restart IIS to force IIS to re-read the variables and activate it.

VOILA !

I found this when troubleshooting a Microsoft Jet DB error. Jet uses environment variables for “TEMP” which in recent SP’s for Windows 2003 get set to ‘%CURRENTUSER%\Application Data\Temp” which doesn’t exist for “Network Services” or whatever the IIS app pool is running as, so the easy override is to force it back to c:\windows\temp.
Note: Sometimes, the temp variables get reset when adding new applications/sites to IIS, or when doing some windows updates, so the reg keys above ensure you don’t unknowingly screw yourself by doing what would be an “unrelated” change that messes up your env vars.

Reasoning:

IIS gets env vars from services.exe which only gets updated on a reboot. Normally, you would just update your env vars, and reboot to activate them.

Using the above override tells a particular service to use special variables. Then just restarting that service gets those updates.. (note, doesn't work for all services, but does appear to work for IIS6 perfectly)

Enjoy!

Disable Hibernation in Windows 2008 (C:\hiberfil.sys) [also for vista and windows 7]

rich@teachout.com — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:39:00 GMT

Click Start, and then type cmd in the Start Search box.
In the search results list, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as Administrator.
When you are prompted by User Account Control, click Continue.
At the command prompt, type powercfg.exe /hibernate off, and then press ENTER.
Type exit, and then press ENTER.

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Creating a "Make a File List" Option in your windows explorer for any directory

rich@teachout.com — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:07:00 GMT

Be able to Right Click on any directory, and make a "filelist.txt" file for that directory. So simple, I do not know why this hasn't always been around!

Get a directory listing of all files in a directory and automatically output it to a txt file.

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Add Adminstrators to Terminal Services Roaming Profiles retroactively

rich@teachout.com — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:17:00 GMT

Just a snippit I needed to run to resolve an issue - it is a dos script that re-takes ownership of a roaming profile, then re-sets up the user security, so it still runs

BE CAREFUL

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Terminal Services Roaming Profiles - Notes for reference

rich@teachout.com — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:21:00 GMT

A bunch of notes I found online about terminal services roaming profiles

(targeted at a 2008 TS, at least that is what the article is referencing)

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Determine the MTU Size Limits of the full path of an internet route

rich@teachout.com — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 04:58:00 GMT

Determine the MTU Size Limits of the full path of an internet route

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Activate Windows 2008 Server - Change Product Key & Activate

rich@teachout.com — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 03:33:00 GMT

Can't figure out how to Activate Windows 2008 Server - If you installed from a Volume License CD, it never prompted you for the license key, so it will not activate. Here is how to change the Product Key & then Activate the server.. easy!
(I've also included a number of other common activation stages you can "jump" to - and a shortcut on how to activate a windows 2008 core installation)

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Win: Force Windows to recheck and fix any "Windows File Protection" files

rich@teachout.com — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 19:04:00 GMT

Force Windows to recheck and fix any "Windows File Protection" files - just a reminder of sfc commands

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Win: Find Windows netstat port usage by Process id/name

rich@teachout.com — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 19:03:00 GMT

Find Windows netstat port usage by Process id/name

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IIS: Environment Temp Variable reset by win updates.. fix without restarting..

rich@teachout.com — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:48:00 GMT

Just a "hack" way to fix this issue, without restarting the entire machine.

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