Alexander’s Blog

You may have seen the computer information displayed on the trainer’s computer during a class or on virtual machine demos at TechNet events. The small utility that allows you to display the information such as, IP address(es), domain/workgroup, CPU, RAM, and logged on user information is called BackInfo.exe. Some other similar utilities also display this information as a screen saver which can be a security risk, especially on servers where you could be displaying the Administrator’s login name, along with the other information.

For some reason Microsoft doesn’t make it easy for you to download this free utility. They have made it a part of Windows Server System Reference Architecture (WSSRA), which is a whopping 97.2MB package. However, you can download it at filewatcher.com here.

The tool works great but you will notice that it reports Windows Vista as Microsoft Windows NT version 6.0 Professional (Build 6000) and Windows Server 2003 as Microsoft Windows NT version 5.2 Advanced Server.

Mozilla Firefox can protect your saved certificates and passwords with a master password. If you want to reset the master password, you can simply provide the current password and reset it to a new one. However, if you forget your master password then you are in trouble and will not have the option to change the existing password.

You can reinstall Firefox over an existing version, or you can even remove Firefox completely and reinstall a fresh copy, you still will not be able to reset the master password. But here’s a method that you can use to reset the master password in Firefox. Type the following command in the address box in your browser and then click the reset button in the lower right corner, as shown in the graphic.

chrome://pippki/content/resetpassword.xul

If you run into a situation where the above method does not work, then you may need to hack the password using a Firefox master password recovery tool, such as FireMaster.

Microsoft has a performance testing tool for Active Directory called ADTest. It is primarily an Active Directory load-generation tool that allows you to simulate client transactions on the host server. According to Microsoft “By varying client load, you can relate the transaction rate to resource utilization on the server and get some idea about the requirements for your environment. Because ADTest can perform generic Active Directory requests, it can also create an organizational unit structure inside Active Directory. You can add many organizational units and user objects in those ADTest-created organizational units. You can also add attributes to the user objects. Once you have created the Active Directory structure you require, you can use ADTest to perform various Active Directory requests, including Modify and Search. Several pre-built tests have been written to reproduce some typical activities you might want to evaluate. Examples of these pre-built tests are: an interactive logon, a batch logon, a search for a random user, and a modification of an attribute of a random user. By varying your hardware environment or other test parameters, you can gain insight into the performance sensitivities of your particular setup.”

Microsoft reminds users that benchmarking and performance exercises only useful for a general understanding of the hardware requirements for various implementations. The tests that you run take place in a limited lab environments so they may not translate directly to real-world scenarios. In other words, use this tool just to get some general ideas and don’t depend on the results too much for a production environment.

You can download the tool here.

I recently evaluated a product called Fireman 3.0 by Honest Technology. It’s primarily a CD/DVD burner software but it’s like a Swiss army knife that includes several utilities in one package. With Fireman 3.0 you can create data, audio, or video discs. And with all the additional tools, you can do a whole lot more.

The audio burning capabilities include support for creating MP3 or WMA CD/DVDs. You can also import audio from a music CD. I can burn ISO images, which gives me the ability to store all files on a CD/DVD as a single file.

Fireman 3.0 supports creation of video CD (VCD), video super CD (SVCD), and video DVD using the DVD Authoring Studio. The DVD Authoring Studio is a basic utility that allows you to create simple video DVDs to watch on your home DVD player. It’s like a mini version of iDVD that you may have used on your Macintosh. However, this utility is fairly limited and you shouldn’t expect it to do any fancy work for you.

One nice feature of the DVD Authoring Studio is the ability to create photo slideshows on a DVD that you can watch on your home DVD player. You can also add music to the slideshow but the method is not documented and is not very intuitive. You’ll have to call the tech support to find out how.

Fireman 3.0 even includes a backup utility that you can use to backup and restore your important data. There are several additional tools included in the utility area, such as ability to erase re-writable CD/DVD, view Disc information, and make a label or cover for your CD/DVD. If that wasn’t enough, it also includes a Photo Viewer and even a DVD Player. I should point out that the label maker is a full-featured program that is included in the Fireman 3.0 package. Using LightScribe discs, you can create your own custom laser-etched CD/DVD labels using your personal photos, artwork, and text.

Photo Viewer supports magnification levels of 25% to 1000%. You can use the scroll button on your mouse to zoom in and out of magnification level which makes it very convenient. Another nice feature in Photo Viewer is the ability to start a slideshow with just one click.

Areas of Improvement
Windows Vista doesn’t come with a utility to create a copy of a CD or DVD, which comes as a big surprise to Windows Vista users. It includes tools such as Windows DVD Maker and Windows Media Center, neither of which can be used to make a copy of an existing CD or DVD. I was hoping that Fireman 3.0 will fill that gap but it doesn’t support copying of discs either. This is a major deficiency in a product that is meant to burn CD/DVD but it doesn’t include a basic feature such as disc copy.

If there is one area that needs the most help, it’s the Fireman 3.0 Help file. It needs some major work. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate the Help file as 1 – practically non-existent and completely useless. There is no way to search a topic and it lacks descriptions and details. Luckily, the Fireman 3.0 interface is so simple that you don’t really need to go to the Help file much. However, there are always questions about the capabilities of the software and if the Help file included some real documentation it would have been nice.

In addition to not being useful, Fireman 3.0 Help file is also not well-integrated. Depending on what topic you need help with, you have to go to that specific utility for help. For example, the DVD Authoring Studio, the DVD player and the Label Maker all include their own help files which cannot be accessed from the Fireman 3.0. The software developers failed to link all the help files. Hopefully, this bug will be fixed in the next version or with a patch.

One limitation in Fireman 3.0 has to do with the way it creates bootable discs. You can supposedly create bootable CD/DVDs. but this can be deceiving because it is not what you think. You cannot copy the source files of an operating system to a CD or DVD and easily make a bootable disc. With Fireman 3.0 only bootable floppy disks can be used to create bootable image. Most of the computers don’t even come with floppy drives anymore, so obviously this is a limitation in Fireman 3.0.

Summary
Overall, I found Fireman 3.0 to be an excellent utility. It is simple, reliable, intuitive, and works with Windows Vista. It definitely needs some improvement in the documentation area and lacks an important disc copy feature. However, for a reasonable price of $19.99, you will find Fireman 3.0 to be an excellent value for a product that is loaded with several useful tools.

The Malware Removal Starter Kit, the newest Solution Accelerator from Microsoft, provides free, tested guidance to help you combat malware attacks and restore infected systems—so users can safely get back to work. The kit shows you how to use the Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) to discover malware by performing a thorough offline scan of your computers, uncovering malware that may be hiding in the operating system. And once malware is located and identified, it can be quickly removed from infected PCs with a number of free anti-malware tools, like the Malicious Software Removal Tool from Microsoft.

The Malware Removal Starter Kit answers questions like:
• What are the keys to a reliable, effective response plan to remedy malware outbreaks?
• How do I build a bootable CD that lets me perform offline virus scans?
• How can I discover and remove viruses and other malware hiding in the operating system?
• How does the Malware Removal Starter Kit augment Microsoft’s anti-malware strategy?

Click here to download the kit.