1. Open the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.

2. Double-click “Handler Mappings” from the main IIS screen.

3. Click on “Add Script Map.” to add "script mappings" handler for for c:\PHP\php5isapi.dll with extension *.php and answer "yes" to create "isapi and cgi restrictions" when prompted

4. Set your web site application pool to "Classic mode"

5. Add ISAPI filters to point to c:\PHP\php5isapi.dll

Done !!

What is Sysprep?

Sysprep is a tool that Microsoft released way back to help with cloning physical machines. Because Virtual machine act very much like their Physical brethren, one would think that you could use it on virtual machines as well. You would be write! In fact I find that it’s usage in Virtual machines makes even more sense.

Pre-requisites

1. Make sure you have installed a Virtualization software. Virtual PC , VM Workstation etc.
2. Have all Server Media. You will need to copy some files off the server disks.

Windows 2003 Server

1.) Make sure that you install the Windows Server 2003

2.) Run all the updates you will want on the Base server. You can do this by visiting Windows Update and applying all the updates. This will most likely take a very long time.

3.) Open “My Computer” and create a folder called “Support”.

4.) Put in CD/DVD into computer or mount an ISO of the OS. (if it isn’t still there from the install)

5.) Go to the “\Support\Tools” folder on the disk. Open the support.cab file by double clicking on it.

6.) Highlight all the files and copy them to “C:\Support”.

7.) Right click “My Computer” and select properties.

8.) Click the “Advance Tab”.

9.) Click “Environment Variables” button

10.) Go to the end of the “Variable value” box and type “;c:\support”. The “;” makes sure the OS knows to make “support” a separate value.

11.) Hit “OK” , “OK’” etc till you have all the windows closed.

12.) Restart your machine to enable the path setting you just entered.

13.) Log into the server after reboot.

14.) open command prompt by clicking “STAT – RUN” then typing “CMD”.

15.) Type “sysprep” at the command prompt.

16.) A new window will open called “System Preparation Tool 2.0”. Click “Ok”.

17.) Click “Reseal”

Machine will turn off.

18.)This file can now be used on several machines. I’d make a folder where you store you’re VMS and create a folder called one called “Sysprep Image”.

19.) Turn on your machine. You will see something similar to a default install without waiting for files to be copied!

Once you click finish your machine is production ready. Best of all this machine is supported by Microsoft. If you use a program to just change the SID of the machine Microsoft will NOT support it.

Service Pack Cleanup Tool In Vista SP2 To Clean up Old RTM & SP1 Backup Files

The recently released Windows Vista SP2 has shown significant enhancement and improvement in terms of compatibility, reliability, performance, and speed compared to the earlier SP1. If users had noticed, after installing the Vista SP2, the hard disk’s space had been taken up substantially. This was mainly because a lot of old Vista RTM and SP1 backup files and components were not deleted upon the installation of new SP2.

To housekeep your hard disk and clean up those old and unused SP1 backup files, users probably can try the new Service Pack Cleanup Tool which is also named as compcln.exe. This successor for SP1 cleanup tool, Vsp1cln.exe, can easily remove all the system files (RTM & SP1) inherited from the older versions but replaced by Vista SP2.

Running this compeln.exe tool is pretty simple:

1. Click Start>All Programs>Accessories>Command Prompt or click Start>Run and type cmd to open Command Prompt Windows
2. Execute the command “Compcln.exe”. The path is “c:\Windows\System32 \compcln.exe”.
3. Users will be prompted a question whether to keep Vista SP2 permanently in the system.
4. Once users type “Y” and press enter, the system will start performing the windows components clean

After the cleansing process, users will notice the free hard disk space has increased substantially.

Depending on your background, you may find different sections of the newly published Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIR) to be of more interest.  In today’s post, we would like to highlight the section on infection rates based on the operating system (OS) version and the service pack level.  Microsoft has consistently observed that machines with newer OS and with more recent service packs are less likely to be infected by malware.  The graph below shows the number of computers having malware removed per 1,000 executions of the MSRT on that OS/SP during the second half of 2008 (2H08).

In the SIR, you will find the the following conclusions based on this data:

• The infection rate for Windows Vista is significantly lower than that of its predecessor, Windows XP, in all configurations.
• Comparing the latest service packs for each version, the infection rate of Windows Vista SP1 is 60.6 percent less than that of Windows XP SP3.
• Comparing the RTM versions of these operating systems, the infection rate of the RTM version of Windows Vista is 89.1 percent less than that of the RTM version of Windows XP.
• The infection rate of Windows Server 2008 RTM is 52.6 percent less than that of its predecessor, Windows Server 2003 SP2.
• The higher the service pack level, the lower the rate of infection. This trend can be observed consistently across client and server operating systems.

There are two reasons for this:

1. Service packs include all previously released security updates. They can also include additional security features, mitigations, or changes to default settings to protect users.
2. Users who install service packs generally maintain their computers better than users who do not install service packs and may also be more cautious in the way they browse the Internet, open attachments, and engage in other activities that can open computers to attack.

Server versions of Windows typically display a lower infection rate on average than client versions. Servers tend to have a lower effective attack surface than computers running client operating systems as they are more likely to be used under controlled conditions by trained administrators and to be protected by one or more layers of security. In particular, Windows Server 2003 its successors are hardened against attack in a number of ways, reflecting this difference in usage.

Continue http://blogs.technet.com/mmpc/archive/2009/04/21/malware-distribution-across-operating-systems.aspx

The first command installs the Server Key

start /w slmgr.vbs -ipk ABCDE-FGHIJ-KLMNO-PQRST-UVWXY

The second command activates

start /w slmgr.vbs -ato

There are two main things that you have to do to schedual Powershell scripts.

1. Allow Interactive Commands using set-executionpolicy command.
2. Put Powershell script in a ".ps1" file. You can use any text editor to make this.

The first thing you need to do is make sure that Powershell is set to execute Powershell scripts, instead of only allowing interactive commands to be run in the Powershell environment.

Type the following at the Powershell command prompt:

set-executionpolicy RemoteSigned

This will allow the system to run Powershell scripts that are created locally (Remote Powershell scripts that may be downloaded must be signed).

Once this is done, you can create your Powershell script using notepad. Just make sure you name the file with an extension of .ps1 . Now to run the script outside of its Powershell environment you type a command similar to the following:

powershell -command "& 'MyScript.ps1' "

Just put the above command into a .bat or .cmd file and schedule it like you would normally schedule a script to be run with Windows task scheduler.

At the command prompt type:

CD\Windows\System32
cscript scregedit.wsf /ar 0

If you typed it correctly it will display:

Microsoft Windows Script Host Version 5.7
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Registry has been updated..

Next type:

cscript scregedit.wsf /ar /v

If you did things correctly the server will output:

Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.7
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server fDenyTSConnections
View registry setting.
0

Next you will have to make sure that the firewall on the server has the propper ports opened to allow remote connections through. You do this by running another command.

C:\Windows\System32>netsh firewall set service type=remotedesktop mode=enable

If done correct it will output: ok

I have seen this documented in a couple of places now – but I also see a number of people still wondering why this is happening and how to stop it, so I thought I would post it here too.  When you first add a Hyper-V host to SCVMM 2008 you may see a warning icon displayed with the message "Needs Attention" and "Virtualization service version status is not up-to-date".  To get rid of this alert there are three updates that need to be applied to the Hyper-V server:

• KB950050: This is the RTM update for Hyper-V
• KB956589:  This is an update to Hyper-V specifically for SCVMM compatibility
• KB956774: This is an update to the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) client in Windows Server 2008

Once you have these three updates installed everything should come up green.

Netsh can accomplish many tasks, and one of those is to set a system’s IP address and DNS servers. Like the IPv4 Properties GUI that you’ll find in the full Server 2008 installation, Netsh lets you choose to either assign a static IP address or get IP information from a DHCP server. Using DHCP makes for a simpler command, so let’s start with that:

netsh interface ipv4 set address name="Local Area Connection" source=DHCP

DHCP is the default setting, so it’s more likely that you’ll want to set a static IP address. To do so, assemble a Netsh command on one line as follows:

netsh interface ipv4 set address name="Local Area Connection"
source=static address=X.x.x.x mask=255.255.255.0 gateway=X.x.x.x

Notice that the gateway is now optional. Some older versions of Netsh complained if you left the default gateway’s IP address off a Netsh command.

For example, to assign a static IP address of 192.168.2.2 on a /24 network with a default gateway address of 192.168.2.1, you’d type:

netsh int ip set address “local area connection” static 192.168.2.2 255.255.255.0 192.168.2.1

Finally, you’ll want to specify one or more DNS servers’ IP addresses that your Server Core system can use for resolving names. Netsh can do that, but the syntax is a bit unexpected: You use netsh int ip set dns to set the preferred DNS server and netsh int ip add dns to specify your additional choices. The syntax for setting the first DNS server is easier than for setting the IP address:

netsh int ip set dns “local area connection” static 10.50.50.4

Set static IP address

netsh int ip set address “local area connection” static 192.168.2.2 255.255.255.0 192.168.2.1

Set NIC back to DHCP

netsh int ip set address “local area connection” dhcp

** Note – do a ipconfig to find out what your nic is named. If you have multiple nics the nic might be named "local area connection 2" etc.