System Admin

Re: Howto? - Create new, or modify, Windows system (dynamic) environment variables

28-Jul-08 3:32

you can try the following syntax
%TIME:~3,2%

see set /? for more info.

I've been usign this for a long time for rotating backup folders through weekdays.
The only problem I found is that the format of the date/time string depends on language and system settings, so you can't easily move one config to another PC.

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Luc Pattyn28-Jul-08 3:48

Luc Pattyn

28-Jul-08 3:48

Hi,

I created a small C program that returns a number, either the date or the time, in the formats
yyyyMMdd or HHmmss, and I typically use _yyyyMMdd_HHmmss as part of a file name when creating
either a log file or a backup file.

The program returns a number (as an exit code), because you can't return a string.
And I run it twice (date and time) because a single datetime would overflow the int range.

Smile | :)

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Voting for dummies? No thanks. Dead | X|

Mount network share, ask fore credentials

peterchen24-Jul-08 3:48

24-Jul-08 3:48

We have a few "roaming PC's" that are not always connected to ther network, and are used by different people.

We have most data on a share usually mounted as drive W:\, but that's painful for these PC's. I would like to either:

(a) mount the share permanently on these computers (i.e. they should be available after logon with a local account), but credentials for the share should be asked when accessing it after logon.

OR

(b) create a shortcut that mounts the share and asks for credentials with the "normal" dialog.

What I can do now is:
- create a shortcut for the share, credentials asked when clicking it (sux for various reasons)
- make them members of the domain (doesn't work well for various reasons)
- mount the share permanently under specific credentials (not what I need)

Any suggestions?

Jörgen Andersson24-Jul-08 4:38

24-Jul-08 4:38

Until you tell us why your different alternatives doesn't work or sux, it's a bit hard to guess what you want/need.
But anyway, here's a fourth alternative.

At an old customer of mine we used an autostarting Guest-cd with a simple script that mounted a drive and a printer with guest privileges.
Just make sure you get the CD back.
Here is a shortened simplified version of the script without exception handling:

@ECHO off
cls
:start
ECHO.
ECHO 1. Add Printers and drive v:
ECHO 2. Remove printers and drive v:
ECHO 3. Exit
set choice=
set /p choice=Enter the number of your choice.
if not '%choice%'=='' set choice=%choice:~0,1%
if '%choice%'=='1' goto add
if '%choice%'=='2' goto remove
if '%choice%'=='3' goto end
ECHO "%choice%" is not valid please try again
ECHO.
goto start

:add
echo INSTALLING PRINTER AND DRIVES.. PLEASE WAIT....
net use \\domain\ipc$ /USER:domain\visitorname visitorpass
net use v: /delete
net use v: \\dcalswgb01\visitor

rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /in /n\\domain\printer1
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /in /n\\domain\printer2

goto end

:remove

net use v: /delete
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /dn /n\\domain\printer1
rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /dn /n\\domain\printer2

goto end

:end

peterchen24-Jul-08 5:12

24-Jul-08 5:12

Some of these computers are mobile and don't have a permanent LAN connection.
On all of these computers, different users work under the same local account. However, to access the share, they need to authenticate against the domain controller, each user with his/her own credentials, of course.

Using the share (i.e. browsing to \\server\exchange) is clumsy for various reasons, e.g. everyone is used to find the stuff on w:\, and for some tools the share needs to be mounted as a drive.

I could include the computers in the domain (at least the desktop machines), but I don't see how this would help, as all users want and should share the same local acocunt. Also, some connect via WLAN which is a tad slower (Domain Controlller login isn't really fast for still unknown reasons, and I would rather spend the budget on some other tools than CAL's. That's the "sux" part. Big Grin | :-D

One solution would be a version of "net use" that asks for credentials (rather than taking them from the command line). I could put that into startup, or as link on the desktop.

I considered a small skript/an app that asks for username and pwd, but I don't want to "teach" people to enter their credentials into some uncommon dialogs, and deal with plaintext passwords in a cmd/wsh script.

Jörgen Andersson24-Jul-08 10:07

24-Jul-08 10:07

Do you have more users than computers?
Otherwise it doesn't make sense to me.

peterchen24-Jul-08 10:41

24-Jul-08 10:41

No.
Could you explain what you would do?

Jörgen Andersson28-Jul-08 2:30

28-Jul-08 2:30

Sorry for not answering, it's been really nice weather (still is) and I'm on vacation Big Grin | :-D

Something you could try to do is to create mandatory user profiles for the computers where people should have the same profile. The users would still log on with their personal account and therefore retain their personal rights on the fileserver, but they would get the same profile at logon. All changes to the profile would of course be lost at logoff.

My (very unclear) question was referring to your CALs. What I should have asked is if you have user based or device based CALs. Normally the CAL is user based and you can connect as many computers as you feel like as long as you have one CAL per user. Device based CALs basically only make sense if you have more users than computers which might be the case where you're working in shift.

BTW, slow Domain Controllers are usually DNS related.

peterchen28-Jul-08 3:28

28-Jul-08 3:28

You are right, the reference to CAL's was pointless.
I found a neat trick (see below), so I don't have to mess around with the profiles. Anyway, thanks for helping!

Jörgen Andersson wrote:
BTW, slow Domain Controllers are usually DNS related.

Yeah, every little issue I google blames DNS. However, clients seem to be set up correctly, and error logs don't show anything. Do you knwo a good, complete article/checklist what to check and could be wrong?

Jörgen Andersson28-Jul-08 4:56

28-Jul-08 4:56

Point one and two on my checklist is netdiag and dcdiag thats included with the support tools on the server cd

Matthew Faithfull25-Jul-08 4:30

Matthew Faithfull

25-Jul-08 4:30

Mount the share permanently under all the Domain credentials, making everyone a domain member. When the laptop's on the network everything will now be fine. Also give everyone who uses the laptop detached a local user account on the laptop that does not have the share at all. Make the credentials for the local accounts the same as the domain ones. Users will still attempt to log onto the domain when disconected and most times it will work due to cached credentials but at least when they have problems you can tell them they should use their local machine account when not on the network.
This probably isn't ideal for you but it's the only way we've managed to get a workable solution in exactly the same situation.

"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage."
Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)

peterchen28-Jul-08 3:35

28-Jul-08 3:35

I found a trick, see my post below.

solved

peterchen28-Jul-08 3:24

28-Jul-08 3:24

I found something that does what I want, so no messing around with the domain necessary Smile | :)

create a batch file
net use W: \\server\share

but store it on \\server\share (or a sub folder)

Create a shortcut to the batch file, using \\server\share (NOT W:\..)
When starting the shortcut, windows will ask for credentials to access the share. When it reache sthe net use, you are already authenticated. Big Grin | :-D

With some extras:
(allow to run multiple times, error checking, open explorer)

<br />
@echo off<br />
<br />
IF EXIST W:\NUL goto OK<br />
net use w: \\wolfgang\exchange<br />
IF EXIST W:\NUL goto OK<br />
<br />
echo could not mount server share. Error=%ERRORLEVEL%<br />
pause<br />
goto END<br />
<br />
:OK<br />
start explorer /e,/select,W:\User<br />
goto END<br />
<br />
:END<br />

Re: solved

Jörgen Andersson28-Jul-08 4:59