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"System Restore" is a feature XP has, where you simply click a calendar to restore your PC to how it was on that day. It's fixed everything I've needed it to fix (dodgy ATI driver installs, crappy shareware, etc.) and can be used by any end user. It even knows when you're doing something that could screw your machine (ie unsigned drivers) and makes a restore point automatically.

That's great, unfortunately it doesn't always work.

It's not perfect, but it's as close as anyone's got to a self-fixing OS. I'm no microsoft zealot but Linux has to achieve that just to stay on par with windows' usability.

That's a very silly statement. Linux doesn't have to implement System Restore to "stay on par". There are many aspects to usability and snapshots will not make-or-break Linux.

Hmmm... I have received the same one from Experts Exchange as well, with the appropriate changes (and 'ammount' spelled correctly). So which bleeding worm is sending this one out? Or is this a manual effort?

Windows Update clients are hardly secure if you happen to modify the registry of the client system to use a differenet "WindowsUpdate" server...

You know, I didn't realize why Experts Exchange had a hyphen between experts and exchange in their url until I accidentally typed it without the hyphen...

Adobe Reader error:

Reader creates temp files which it is supposed to clean up after itself. it has a bug and sometimes creates 64000 temp files and then can't open since it has run out of numbers to assign to new tmp files.

I did this once. A cheap radio shack photocell tied to +5 volts via an active output pin on your parallel port, with the other end of the photocell going to an input pin on that same port, will cause that input pin to read 0 when little or no ambient lighting is present. When hit by a red laser pointer the resistance across the photocell is lowered and the voltage at the input pin ramps up above the binary threshold, to more than ~0.8 volt but less than 5 volts. Because of this, reading the input pin from software when the photocell is lit by a laser beam shows a binary value of 1. To avoid false alarms from stray light, I housed the photocell in a sealed, opaque box with a hole in it for the laser beam to enter and hit the photocell.

A simple C program that reads and writes the memory address of the parallel port can detect, log, and act on these "laser trip" events, doing something as simple as beeping, or as complex as taking a picture and asking for a code. The program should write a 1 to the bit that controls the output pin you are using so that +5 volts appears on it. It should then repeatedly read the input pin you are using. When the input pin transitions from 1 to 0, even for a moment, you know the laser beam has been cut.

The quick and dirty C code to do parallel port operations under linux can be found at here. For beginners I suggest you use one of control bits/pins as your output and one of the status bits/pins as your input. The data bits/pins are bi-directional and must be configured for input or output, and using them makes things slightly more complicated. If you want to get really fancy try using the parallel port IRQ to detect the transition from 1 to 0, this should save processing power by avoiding an expensive loop to check the state of the input pin constantly.

If you need a little more background on the parallel port before diving in, check out this resource

Finally, the above description is for a single laser beam. I used a mirror to bounce a single beam around, to get greater coverage, and to provide the effect of multiple beams in the presence of aerosol or powder. You should be able to support thirteen independent laser beams on a single parallel port, using the data bits/pins and the status bits/pins combined.

It sounds like you are proposing something akin to Experts-Exchange, but with a few differences. OCM would use real dollars, instead of points. OCM would also encourage the creation and reuse of code, not just answers to IT questions. OCM might incorporate private collaborative project spaces to help a shifting group of workers create commissioned code.

You can't convert NTFS to FAT32 without a 3rd party tool like Partition Magic. Now, I'm not sure about PM > 7.0, but as late as 7 it would still generate errors. Here 's more on that

Here's another discussion from some people with alternative methods.

Embed a mildly embarrassing image in a user's Outlook signature. The kicker is to only have it display for a select few users.

Step1 - Create a folder on a webserver with ASP or PHP support that will host the script.
Set the folder permissions such that the only authorized users are the people you want to be in on the joke when it happens.

Step2 - Create an ASP script (PHP is even easier) that will host the embarrassing image and place it in the folder from Step1.

Here are some examples of ASP/PHP scripts (please note that Slashdot will add spaces in anything appearing like a URL)..

<%
embarrassing_image = "embarrassing_image.png"
fake_image = "white_one_pixel_square.png"
userfull = Request.ServerVariables("LOGON_USER")
look = inStr (1, userfull, "user_to_goof",1)
If 1 > look Then _
Response.Redirect (embarrassing_image) _
else _
Response.Redirect (fake_image) _
end if
%>

<?php
$embarrassing_image = "embarrassing_image.png";
$fake_image = "white_one_pixel_square.png";
$userfull = $_SERVER["LOGON_USER"];
if (eregi ("user_to_goof", $userfull))
{
header ("Location: " . $embarrassing_image);
}
else
{
header ("Location: " . $fake_image);
}
?>

Step3 - Set the Outlook editor to HTML
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\<Office Version (9 is 2K)>\Outlook\Options\Mail\EditorPreference
10000 = Plain Text
20000 = HTML
30001 = Microsoft Word
30002 = Microsoft Rich Text

This step may or may not work.
Also, you'll need to find the user's hive under
HKEY_USERS (there are typically only a couple) while he's logged in since you can't access HKCU remotely (unless you use a .REG file that the user can enter himself in a login script or something).

Step4 - Edit the stationery and reference the ASP/PHP script as an image within the body.
<img src="http://webserver/directory_with_permissions_s et/harmless_filename.asp" border="0">

Copy the stationery over..
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Stationery

If the last step didn't work (like in my situation) and the user has Word setup as the email editor, you'll need to edit his "document.dot" file instead of an HTML stationery file.

Step5 - Set the stationery..
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging
Subsystem\Profiles\JBrewer\0a0d020000000000c000000 000000046\001e0360\Blank

Sit back and wait for the user to send out an email to the group.

NOTE:
I still have not overcome the "Anonymous" problem.. If an unauthorized user gets the email, he will be prompted for a login.
With PHP, there's a possibility of doing this without using NT permissions at all (look at the "Accepted Answer"). I'm sure there's a way to use this technique with ASP, too.

Funnily enough, Experts Exchange are no longer to be found at expertsexchange.com. I guess it attracted the wrong kind of clientele.

Ars-Technica is a great resource for this kind of thing. Also Experts-Exchange is another good source. Write an article at the least. Submit or post as others have suggested with Wiki, blog, above sites or any other methods mentioned. Hopefully your company has a method to share information. Good on ya for trying to pass on some knowledge.

I'm not sure about XP, but 2000 had a CD that, with physical access to the machine, could very easily reset the admin password to whatever you wanted. All you did was boot up to the CD. Here's info about Windows 2000. Also, on Windows XP, there is an option to create a password reset disk when you first create your password, or Start->Control Panel->User Accounts. From there, choose the option to create a password reset disk. This only works for BEFORE you forget your password, and is quite unsafe (if someone gets the disk).

or Experts Exchange

-dk

Robert, great point.

Despite the fact that this rather funny article on CHAP claims that reverse-MD5'ing a password is hard, any one way hash is going to be hit hard by a decent dictionary attack, especially since you get to go offline and attack it with as much computing power as you want.

In short, bad idea.

NT4's max boot partition size is 2GB. This is one reason why I really dislike having to keep an NT4 server at work for testing.

depr*a*cate

You ought to keep your mouth shut, you run the risk of sticking your foot in it.

Odd that she mentioned thepenismightier.com, since a version of it it is a fairly thriving site, and they like the ambiguity of the name.

One my favorite tech info resource sites has to have a dash in its name, otherwise it might look like "expert sexchange" instead...

It's a great place to post/respond to windows programming questions. It uses a point-based system, so everyone's encouraged to help each other out. I once was stuck in a rut with a complex problem and received a well-detailed response in a matter of minutes! High on my list.

If I get stuck Experts Exchange works fine, tell them Cable4096 sent you.

Some hard stuff includes Recurring Dates and Outlook Integration. Just learning the Outlook object can take weeks or months.