Monthly Archives: June 2011

Miscellaneous

Poor sound quality in Spotify

6 Comments

I love Spotify, but recently I have been plagued by poor sound quality. Specifically I experienced clipping, popping and variations in volume level during playback. As far as I could tell this affected all the songs I played in Spotify. At first I thought the problem was specific to Spotify, but after doing some tests with Grooveshark and Windows Media Player I discovered that the problem affected all apps playing sound. After a little digging I discovered a workaround for the problem.

Open the Sound properties:

image

Select Properties for the Default Device, the select the Enhancements tab:

image

Select Disable all enhancements. If you are playing music it will momentarily pause and then continue, hopefully (as it did for me) with now crystal clear quality.

Happy listening!

Last.FM profile: www.last.fm/user/morgands

Morgan

Windows

Script to install Remote System Administration Tools (RSAT) for Windows 7 with Service Pack 1

3 Comments

Here is a quick script to just install, or install and enable the Windows 7 Remote System Administration Tools (RSAT) for Windows 7 with Service Pack 1. I created it for use with the software deployment functionality in System Center Configuration Manager, but it is not limited to that.

' InstallRSAT.vbs
' v 1.0 (15.06.2011)
' by Morgan Simonsen, Atea
' 
' Detects system architecture, and installs and enables RSAT for Windows 7 with SP1, depending on submitted arguments.
'
' Usage:
' InstallRSAT.vbs <Install|InstallAndEnable>
'
' Install: just install RSAT, must be manually enabled
' InstallAndEnable: install and enable RSAT (all components)
'
' If no arguments are submitted; Install will be used.
'
' Arguments are CASE SENSITIVE!!!
 
'Enable/disable debugging
strDebug = 0
 
Set objWSHShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
 
'Get script arguments
Set objArgs = WScript.arguments
 
If objArgs.Count = 0 Then
    ' No arguments submitted, defaulting to install (and not enable)
    strInstallAction = "/Install"
Else
    strInstallAction = objArgs.item(0)
    Select Case strInstallAction
        Case "/Install"
            'Install action selected
        Case "/InstallAndEnable"
            'InstallAndEnable action selected
        Case Else
            'Invalid argument submitted; quitting!
    End Select
End If
 
strScriptPath = objFSO.GetParentFolderName(WScript.ScriptFullName)
 
'Determine CPU Architecture
strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\" & strComputer & "rootcimv2")
 
Set colProcessors = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select * from Win32_Processor")
For Each objProcessor in colProcessors
    strProcessorArchitecture = objProcessor.Architecture
Next
 
'strProcessorArchitecture = objWSHShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE%")
strWinDir = objWSHShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%WINDIR%")
 
strWUSA = strWinDir & "system32wusa.exe"
strDISM = strWinDir & "system32dism.exe"
strx86Package = strScriptPath & "Windows6.1-KB958830-x86-RefreshPkg.msu"
strx64Package = strScriptPath & "Windows6.1-KB958830-x64-RefreshPkg.msu"
 
Select Case strProcessorArchitecture
    Case "0"
        strProcessorArchitectureHumanReadable = "x86"
        strLogFile = chr(34) & strWinDir & "LogsRSAT Install (" & strProcessorArchitectureHumanReadable & ").log" & Chr(34)
        objWSHShell.Run (strWUSA & " " & strx86Package & " /quiet /norestart /log:" & strLogFile),0,True
        If strInstallAction = "/InstallAndEnable" Then
            Call EnableRSAT()
        End If
    Case "9"
        strProcessorArchitectureHumanReadable = "x64"
        strLogFile = chr(34) & strWinDir & "LogsRSAT Install (" & strProcessorArchitectureHumanReadable & ").log" & Chr(34)
        objWSHShell.Run (strWUSA & " " & strx64Package & " /quiet /norestart /log:" & strLogFile),0,True
        If strInstallAction = "/InstallAndEnable" Then
            Call EnableRSAT()
        End If
    Case Else
        'Unknown architecture; quitting!
End Select
 
Function EnableRSAT()
            objWSHShell.Run (strDISM & " /Online /Enable-Feature " &_
            "/FeatureName:IIS-LegacySnapIn " &_
            "/FeatureName:IIS-IIS6ManagementCompatibility " &_
            "/FeatureName:IIS-WebServerManagementTools " &_
            "/FeatureName:IIS-WebServerRole " &_
            "/FeatureName:IIS-Metabase " &_
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools " &_
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-ServerManager " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Roles " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Roles-CertificateServices " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Roles-CertificateServices-CA " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Roles-CertificateServices-OnlineResponder " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Roles-AD " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Roles-AD-DS " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Roles-AD-DS-SnapIns " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Roles-AD-DS-AdministrativeCenter " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Roles-AD-DS-NIS " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Roles-AD-LDS " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Roles-AD-Powershell " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Roles-DHCP " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Roles-DNS " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Roles-FileServices " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Roles-FileServices-Dfs " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Roles-FileServices-Fsrm " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Roles-FileServices-StorageMgmt " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Roles-HyperV " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Roles-RDS " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Features " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Features-BitLocker " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Features-Clustering " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Features-GP " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Features-LoadBalancing " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Features-SmtpServer " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Features-StorageExplorer " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Features-StorageManager " & _
            "/FeatureName:RemoteServerAdministrationTools-Features-Wsrm"),0,True
End Function
 
Function Debug(data)
    If strDebug = 1 Then
        WScript.Echo data
    End If
End Function

.csharpcode, .csharpcode pre
{
font-size: small;
color: black;
font-family: consolas, “Courier New”, courier, monospace;
background-color: #ffffff;
/*white-space: pre;*/
}
.csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; }
.csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; }
.csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; }
.csharpcode .str { color: #006080; }
.csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; }
.csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; }
.csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; }
.csharpcode .html { color: #800000; }
.csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; }
.csharpcode .alt
{
background-color: #f4f4f4;
width: 100%;
margin: 0em;
}
.csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; }

Active Directory

Computer naming schemes

1 Comment

I often get asked what I recommend for server/client naming schemes. Although there is no definitive answer; this always depends on your organization and what your specific requirement are, here are some pointers:

Things you would often want to include in the name of a machine:

  • Your organization name or an abbreviation of it: <org>
  • The machine type; laptop, desktop, workstation, server etc.: <type>
  • The computers MAC address: <MAC>
  • Asset tag: <asset tag>
  • Make/Model: <model>
  • The name of the user who owns/uses the machine: <username>
  • The department it belongs to: <dep>
  • A running number: <n>
  • The OS the machine is running: <OS>

You can combine these any way you want; using hyphens or other separators, or not. Here are a few I often use:

  • <org>-01234 (eg. BigFirm-56798)
  • <org>-<type>-01234 (eg. BigFirm-l-87980)
    V=Virtual
    W=Workstation
    L=Laptop
    K=Kiosk
    etc.
  • <org>-<asset tag> (eg. BigFirm-A5B98)
  • <org>-<MAC address> (eg. BigFirm-AABBCCDDEEFF)
  • <org>-<model>-01234 (eg. BigFirm-HP8100-89476)
  • <org>-<username>(-<type>) (eg. BigFirm-BobH-V)

If you have any suggestions of either complete schemes or things you like to include in your machine names, please leave a comment and I will update the article.

Also, remember that Windows computers use both DNS hostnames and NetBIOS names. NetBIOS names are limited to 15 characters, but DNS hostnames are not. Windows will not stop you from using names that are longer than 15 characters, but the NetBIOS name of the machine will be limited to the first 15 characters of the name you choose. If the part of your name that makes it unique is beyond the 15th character you will have more than one machine on your network with the same NetBIOS name. Furthermore, although Windows itself will work with a name longer than 15 characters, many tools will not. An example of this is MDT 2010.

Happy naming!