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My aged Netgear NAS was primed and ready for a relaxing retirement, so I pursued a befitting upgrade. I briefly considered an out-of-the-box NAS offering from Qnap or Synology, but reconsidered after considering the high price paired with the wimpy CPU & RAM specs. After considerable consideration I decided to build my own. An OS-less HP Microserver costs a fraction of what a Qnap NAS does, and this way I wouldn't be married to an over-priced, low-spec proprietary platform. But what OS to put on it? My hunt for the ultimate free open source NAS distro began.
Read more: The Hunt For the Ultimate Free Open Source NAS Distro
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I hate it when a user's PC shuts down ungracefully, and they choose startup recovery at the next boot. The process (albeit "recommended") removes the PC from the AD domain...uggg... Therefore, I disable the startup recovery prompt altogether.
Run this at a command line or put it in a batch file:
bcdedit /set {default} recoveryenabled No
bcdedit /set {default} bootstatuspolicy ignoreallfailures
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A corrupt WMI repository can mess up things like the Symantec management agent and its ability to deploy software. If you check properties of "WMI Control" in Computer Management (under Services & Applications), and it shows problems, then the PC likely has a WMI issue. Here's how to repair it.
I use powershell remoting to remotely run this, but it can be done at the PC's command line too. The command format below assumes powershell remoting.
Check the WMI repository.
1. Go to C:\Windows\system32\wbem
2. winmgmt /verifyrepository
If errors are found, try to repair the repository.
1. winmgmt /salvagerepository
Still not working? Then totally rebuild the repository.
1. Stop the Windows Management Instrumentation service.
2. Rename the C:\Windows\system32\wbem\repository folder to something like repository-old
3. Re-register relevant DLLs: cmd.exe /C "for /f %s in ('dir /b *.dll') do regsvr32 /s %s"
4. Re-register all the MOF files: cmd.exe /C "for /f %s in ('dir /b *.mof *.mfl') do mofcomp %s"
5. Start the Windows Management Instrumentation service.
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1. Open registry editor (regedt32) and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server. Registry editor can also connect to remote computers.
2. Double-click fDenyTSConnections.
3. Change the value of this setting to 0 to enable Remote Desktop or 1 to disable it, and click OK.
4. Close the registry editor, and reboot the computer for the change to take effect. Use the shutdown command to reboot remotely.
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When dealing with an unfamiliar website / web business, I use these tools to research the site's reputation and scan for malware.
Read more: Website Reputation Tools
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When I'm considering building or modifying a home-built PC, I check out these parts manufacturers.