A real solution to PowerShell SSH Remoting

March 30, 2008 at 11:05 PM | categories: windows, security, microsoft, system administration | View Comments

Can't wait for us to ship PowerShell Remoting? Want remoting to use SSH? Why wait for us? /N software has just announced a beta of their NetCmdlets V2.0 which provides PowerShell remoting over SSH today! They've had this for a while and V2 updates (and improves) the usability of the cmdlets as well as adding a bunch of new and exciting commands. For example, chances are that you won't ever see Microsoft ship the [get/send]-s3 cmdlets but /N software V2 does. :-)

http://blogs.msdn.com/powershell/archive/2008/03/27/powershell-remoting-using-ssh.aspx My blog post from 2006 is currently the #1 Google Result for PowerShell SSH, but finally there is a good solution out there from /N software. It also supports S3. Very cool :)

Microsoft's Intentional Ignorance of Other Operating Systems

July 11, 2006 at 10:03 AM | categories: windows, unix, microsoft | View Comments

I'm really happy that Microsoft employees are blogging more. Though I miss Robert Scoble. Microsoft really lost a lot of public relations points when Scoble left. Today, I came across a post by Raymond Chen, one of the great Microsoft guys that keeps new versions of Windows compatible with older applications. Truly, compatibility is a heroic task, one that most programmers don't want to deal with. However in recent discussions on Windows blindly overwriting the master boot record (and in the process screwing everyone with alternate operating systems), he says:

In the discussions following why Windows setup lays down a new boot sector, some commenters suggested that Windows setup could detect the presence of a non-Windows partition as a sign that the machine onto which the operating system is being installed belongs to a geek. In that way, the typical consumer would be spared from having to deal with a confusing geeky dialog box that they don't know how to answer. The problem with this plan is that not everybody with a non-Windows partition type is necessarily a geek. Many OEM machines ship with a hard drive split into two partitions, one formatted for Windows and the second a small non-Windows partition to be used during system diagnostics and recovery. The presence of this small non-Windows partition is typically not well-known, and it comes into play only when you boot from the manufacturer's "system recovery CD".

I would challenge Raymend Chen to install Linux, because this problem isn't difficult to solve and has been solved by every major Linux distribution years ago. This has been one of my biggest all time gripes with Microsoft. They put on blinders and ignore everything not invented at Microsoft (except when they steal Apple's GUI, but that's another entry). I've reproduced the common system partition types that Linux fdisk knows about. If Microsoft took this list and detected the top ten most common ones, they could solve this problem. If they decided to spend another couple hours implementing all of them, they would make installing Vista a breeze for those of us who know there is more than one Microsoft way. However, they won't because why would Microsoft care if they overwrite your grub/lilo boot record? That just means you will only be using Windows, right? I think they forget that I am a customer too, and I don't appreciate it when a product destroys my setup.

0 Empty	1e Hidden W95 FAT1	75 PC/IX	be Solaris boot
1 FAT12	24 NEC DOS	80 Old Minix	bf Solaris
2 XENIX root	39 Plan 9	81 Minix / old Lin	c1 DRDOS/sec (FAT-
3 XENIX usr	3c PartitionMagic	82 Linux swap	c4 DRDOS/sec (FAT-
4 FAT16 <32M	40 Venix 80286	83 Linux	c6 DRDOS/sec (FAT-
5 Extended	41 PPC PReP Boot	84 OS/2 hidden C:	c7 Syrinx
6 FAT16	42 SFS	85 Linux extended	da Non-FS data
7 HPFS/NTFS	4d QNX4.x	86 NTFS volume set	db CP/M / CTOS / .
8 AIX	4e QNX4.x 2nd part	87 NTFS volume set	de Dell Utility
9 AIX bootable	4f QNX4.x 3rd part 8e	Linux LVM	df BootIt
a OS/2 Boot Manag	50 OnTrack DM	93 Amoeba	e1 DOS access
b W95 FAT32	51 OnTrack DM6 Aux	94 Amoeba BBT	e3 DOS R/O
c W95 FAT32 (LBA)	52 CP/M	9f BSD/OS	e4 SpeedStor
e W95 FAT16 (LBA)	53 OnTrack DM6 Aux	a0 IBM Thinkpad hi	eb BeOS fs
f W95 Ext'd (LBA)	54 OnTrackDM6	a5 FreeBSD	ee EFI GPT
10 OPUS	55 EZ-Drive	a6 OpenBSD	ef EFI (FAT-12/16/
11 Hidden FAT12	56 Golden Bow	a7 NeXTSTEP	f0 Linux/PA-RISC b
12 Compaq diagnost	5c Priam Edisk	a8 Darwin UFS	f1 SpeedStor
14 Hidden FAT16 <3	61 SpeedStor	a9 NetBSD	f4 SpeedStor
16 Hidden FAT16	63 GNU HURD or Sys	ab Darwin boot	f2 DOS secondary
17 Hidden HPFS/NTF	64 Novell Netware	b7 BSDI fs	fd Linux raid auto
18 AST SmartSleep	65 Novell Netware	b8 BSDI swap	fe LANstep
1b Hidden W95 FAT3	70 DiskSecure Mult	bb Boot Wizard hid	ff BBT
1c Hidden W95 FAT3

Strange Colors in Video Playback

June 25, 2006 at 07:27 PM | categories: windows, troubleshooting | View Comments

After attempting to play back some MPEG and DivX videos, I was getting strange colors in every program I was using, including VLC, Windows Media Player and mplayer.  Even tweaking the gamma, constrast, hue, brightness and every other setting I could find, the video still looked washed out and dark.  The only thing affected was video playback.  The desktop, web browsing and games all looked fine. Finally, I figured out that in the NVidia control panel, there are seperate settings for video playback.  Somehow they had all been changed to bizzare values.  All it took was to return them to the default to fix the problem.  Very strange, as I know I didn't touch any of these values and I had just reinstalled this system from scratch.  Anyway, hope this helps someone Googling this problem as I wasn't able to find any useful information.

Virtualizing Firefox Bon Echo with Altiris SVS

May 30, 2006 at 03:43 PM | categories: windows, mozilla, howto, virtualization | View Comments

The next release of Mozilla Firefox is approaching, with some of the following new features:

• Built in Anti-Phishing protection.
• Search suggestions now appear with search history in the search box for Google and Yahoo!
• Support for client-side session and persistent storage
• Changes to tabbed browsing behavior
• Search plugin manager for removing and re-ordering search engines
• Better support for previewing and subscribing to web feeds
• New microsummaries feature for bookmarks
• Inline spell checking in text boxes
• Automatic restoration of your browsing session if there is a crash
• New combined and improved Add-Ons manager for extensions and themes
• Extended search plugin format
• Updates to the extension system to provide enhanced security and to allow for easier localization of extensions
• Support for SVG text using svg:textPath

Do you love Firefox and want to help test the bleeding edge versions, but don't want blood all over your computer? Are you worried that the Alpha software will kill your bookmarks and eat your GMail? Enter Altiris Software Virtualization Solution: "Where virtual machine utilities like VMware Workstation manage entire virtual computers, Altiris Software Virtualization Solution 2.0 virtualizes individual software installations. Once installed on a system, SVS runs continually. If you install a program under it, SVS grabs all changes to the Registry and file system (including added and deleted files) that the installer makes and puts them in what Altiris calls a layer. Thereafter, the virtualization software directs file and Registry calls to the layer or to the base system as appropriate. The SVS-installed app looks perfectly normal, but disappears without a trace when you deactivate the layer. You can turn the app on and off like a light switch." -- Neil J. Rubenking, PC Magazine, 3-23-06 Altiris has made this software free for personal use and I've written some instructions to get you started (assuming you have access to a Win32 PC)

Step by Step

1. Download Bon Echo Alpha 3
2. Obtain Altiris personal use license. You don't have to input your e-mail address on the download form (unless you want to). Kudos to Altiris for this.
3. Download Alitiris Software Virtualization Solution
4. Install SVS by unzipping the download and double-clicking the Software_virtualization_Agent.msi.
5. Make sure to check the Software Virtualization Admin Tool box, we will be using it later to create our own custom Bon Echo layer.

6. Reboot (it is Windows after all)
7. Open the Altiris Software Admin and select File -> Create New Layer.
8. On the Create New Layer dialog, select "Install application" and click Next.

9. Enter Bon Echo Alpha 3 as the Layer name and click Next.
10. Make sure Single program capture is selected, then browse to where you saved the Bon Echo Setup alpha 3.exe. Parameters can be left blank. Click Next.

11. Verify the information you entered is correct and click "Finish".

12. Proceed through the Bon Echo Setup as normal. You can leave the defaults as is.

13. When you reach the final screen, right click on the Altiris Capture tray icon (yellow lightning bolt) and select Stop Capture.

At this point you should have a virtualized Bon Echo Layer. Use the Altiris Admin tool to enable or disable this layer. You can also reset the layer back to the default state from this interface. With this tool, you can help test beta software without worry of damaging your system. Be sure to report any bugs you discover. There are also many pre-packaged layers available at: svsdownloads.com. Cheers!

Broken Windows

May 01, 2006 at 02:25 AM | categories: windows, security, microsoft | View Comments

I finally started fixing some of the computers I've had lying around the house. Someone asked me if I was embarassed that I had three broken systems. I guess that gave me some motivation, plus I wanted to play Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 on my projector and I needed a Windows PC. I've been using my PowerBook G4 for almost two months now and it has done everything I've needed except hardcore gaming. It took me about an hour to piece together all the parts into one working PC. I finally got XP to boot and then realized I had forgotten my password, and since I had increased the security settings to insane levels, I locked out all my accounts, including administrator. Sigh. So I spent another two hours downloading Linux boot CD-ROMS with utilities to "hack" the Windows password file. While I was burning one, I discovered that if you boot XP into safe mode, it happily ignores the account lockouts. I don't know whether to laugh that I locked myself out of my own PC, or to cry that Windows would allow such an easy bypass. Well maybe tomorrow I'll get the energy to get OpenBSD on the G3 I have sitting in the corner. I expect OpenBSD running on PPC is slightly more secure than XP.

Microsoft's Monad Misses the Mark

April 25, 2006 at 05:53 PM | categories: windows, microsoft | View Comments

Monad, what have you become? I found the following on Arul Kumaravel's blog:

CMD.EXE	Monad Equivalent
cd	set-location cd
cd c:\temp	set-location c:\temp
cls	clear-host cls
copy con	function copycon { [system.console]::in.readtoend() }
copy con foo.txt	copycon | set-content foo.txt
dir	get-childitem dir
dir /ad	get-childitem | where { $_.MshIsContainer } dir | where { $_.MshIsContainer }
dir /od	get-childitem | sort-object LastWriteTime dir | sort LastWriteTime
dir /o-d	get-childitem | sort-object LastWriteTime -desc dir | sort LastWriteTime -desc
pushd	push-location
popd	pop-location
start .	invoke-item . ii .

When I saw this, I actually looked to make sure it wasn't an April Fool's joke. I've been hearing about Monad for some time, it was yet another promised feature that Vista won't have. It sounded impressive, for once Microsoft was going to create a command line interface, and they were going to clean up the cruft that has accumulated in the past 40 years of computing. It was/is supposed to be completely object oriented, a cut above the poor UNIX text interfaces. I was just impressed they had finally listened to their customers pleading and begging for a way to script and use the command line to admin Windows boxes. Then I run across an idiot on Slashdot where someone was using this example to brag about Monad! Most of the time when people type LOL, they aren't really laughing out loud, but this time, my lungs hurt from laughing so hard. Have these people actually used a command line interface? The reason the commands are so small in UNIX is that they are faster to type! This syntax in Monad looks like it was dreamt up by someone that saw a UNIX shell a couple times and said, "wow, these commands don't make much sense, how would a new user know what cd or ls or ps means?" If this is the state of Monad, I can't imagine ever using it. The whole point of a command line interface is that I can ssh to a machine over any kind of network and quickly type and do useful work. I was ready to give them a shot, but if they've missed this most basic point, I don't see how it would be useful. Probably not a surprise that Microsoft can't get a text interface right, but I was hoping. I leave with a quote: [ebnf] is monad pronounced like gonad?

Microsoft Vista, Ignoring the Tried and True

April 25, 2006 at 02:07 PM | categories: windows, security | View Comments

Bruce Schneier, noted security expert, summarizes some of what is being said about Vista's new security model. It is amazing how clueless Microsoft can be in ignoring the security models that have proven themselves to be successful and useful in other operating systems. This is one area where I wouldn't give Microsoft flack for not innovating. Security is tough, learn from the mistakes others have made! I'm very disappointed with this, especially because NTFS has such a fine grained permissions system. They could have really pulled off something nice. Thankfully, I've been using nothing but Linux and Apple OSX for the past month. If more games were available for OSX, there would be no need for Windows in my life ever again.