Copyright 2003 – Doug Knox
Original article is posted here. In this page I’ve added links to REG files.

The files listed here are all ZIP files, which contain a REG (Registry) file. Download the ZIP and open it. Extract the REG file to your hard disk and double click it. Answer yes to the import prompt. REG files can be viewed in Notepad. Each of the REG files contains the default settings for the file extension indicated.

NOTE: If your EXE file associations are corrupted, it can be difficult to open REGEDIT, or to even import REG files. To work around this, press CTRL-ALT-DEL and open Task Manager. Once there, click File, then hold down the CTRL key and click New Task (Run). This will open a Command Prompt window. Enter REGEDIT.EXE and press Enter.
Thanks to Nigel Andrews for this tip.

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A couple of days ago I’ve noticed that whenever I was launching any Excel file I was getting an error message like this:

AppName: excel.exe AppVer: 11.0.6560.0 AppStamp:4296b6f2 ModName: msvcrt.dll ModVer: 7.0.2600.2180 ModStamp:41252c84f Debug:Offset: 00037efb

And the application event log was registering two events:

Event ID: 1000
Source:  Application Error
Type:  Error
Description: Faulting application excel.exe, version 11.0.8169.0, faulting module msvcrt.dll, version 7.0.2600.2180, fault address 0x00037efb.

Event ID: 1000
Source:  Microsoft Office 11
Type:  Error
Description: The description for Event ID ( 1000 ) in Source ( Microsoft Office 11 ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event: excel.exe 11.0.6560.0; 4296b6f2; msvcrt.dll; 7.0.2600.2180; 41252c84; 0; 00037efb.

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This code demonstrates how to create CD ROM open and close calls. Create a Windows Forms Application and add two buttons. I will leave default names in this example Form1 for the form and Button1 and Button2 for buttons. I’ve changed the text property only.

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If you speak and write in Russian but do not have a Russian keyboard you may find very useful an online service www.translit.ru. There you can either use an on-screen keyboard or type directly into a frame. All of your typed text will be immediately transliterated. Besides, you may register on this site and if you do so, you may personalize the layout as you wish.

However, if you frequently need to type in Russian on your home pc it might be a better solution to download a Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator and define your own keyboard layout. You will need Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows Server 2003 (MSKLC will not run on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME or Windows NT4) and Microsoft .NET Framework v1.0 or v1.1. You can download Microsoft .NET Framework from here. There’s a very good information on customizing keyboard layouts and some compiled layouts on Paul Gorodyansky’s page. Also, he offers a Virtual Cyrillic keyboard which you can use online.

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Here’s a small example of how to log off, restart and shutdown computer in Visual Basic. Open Visual Studio and create a new Windows Forms Application:

In the Solution Explorer right-click on ExitWindows –> Add –> Module… Leave the default name Module1.vb as is and click Add.

Paste the following code in Module1:

Public Declare Function ExitWindows Lib "user32" (ByVal uFlags As Long, _
ByVal dwReserved As Long) As Long

Public Const EWX_LOGOFF = 0
Public Const EWX_SHUTDOWN = 1
Public Const EWX_REBOOT = 2
Public Const EWX_FORCE = 4

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Scripting tools and utilities

• Scriptomatic 2.0
• Do-It-Yourself Script Center Kit
• WMI Code Creator
• ADSI Scriptomatic
• Tweakomatic
• Log Parser 2.2
• Portable Script Center
• HTA Helpomatic
• Scriptomatic 1.0

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Here’s a list of several security guides guides available for download from Microsoft’s site.

Windows Server 2003 Security Guide
This updated technical guidance provides information about how to harden computers that run Microsoft Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1 (SP1). A collection of security templates, scripts, and additional tools is also included to help evaluate, test, and implement the guidance.

Windows XP Security Guide

This guide provides detailed technical information for customers who are interested in hardening deployments of Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2) on desktop and laptop client computers in different types of environments.

Windows Vista Security Guide

The Windows Vista Security Guide provides recommendations and tools to further harden Windows Vista. Use the GPOAccelerator tool in this Solution Accelerator to efficiently establish the Enterprise Client (EC) environment or the Specialized Security – Limited Functionality (SSLF) environment.

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Brief Description

Microsoft MultiPoint Software Development Kit (SDK) is a development framework that allows developers to build applications that enable up to 250 individual mouse devices to work simultaneously on one computer.

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In this post I will describe how to create a compressed backup of any SQL Server database in Windows. This is especially useful if you have Express or MSDE edition of SQL Server where there’s no SQL Agent. Let’s look a this example:

1. First we will create a folder, where we want to keep or database backups. Let’s call it C:\DbBackup.
2. Now, we’ll create a sql script that will backup our database. I will use Northwind database in this example. The created backup file will have the name Northwind_[current date]. bak Open a Notepad and paste the following T-SQL code:

-- Create backup of NorthWind Database
-- add current date to the file name and
-- save it inside C:\DbBackup folder
--
DECLARE @str NVARCHAR(255)
SET @str=N'C:\DbBackup\Northwind_'+CONVERT(VARCHAR, GETDATE(), 105)+'.bak'
BACKUP DATABASE Northwind TO DISK=@str

3. Save file as NorthwindBackup.sql

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Error Message:
Msg 16821, Level 11, State 1, Procedure sp_makewebtask, Line 131
SQL Web Assistant: Could not open the output file.
____________________________
Script completed with errors


Description:
This error message appears when you try to call the procedure sp_makewebtask but the output file cannot be opened.

Consequences:
The T-SQL statement can be parsed, but causes the error at runtime.

Resolution:
Errors of the Severity Level 11 are generated by the user and are corrigible by the user. The statement cannot be executed this way. You must specify a valid and accessible path. Also you have to make sure that the Service Logon account for SQL Server has appropriate rights to write to the specified location.

Versions:
All versions of SQL Server.

Example(s):

-- In this example we try to call the sp_makewebtask procedure
-- to output the result to a file on drive A:\. As our machine
-- does not have such a drive, the error is raised.

EXEC sp_makewebtask 'A:\test.html','SELECT * FROM Northwind.dbo.Orders' 

Remarks:

How to change the SQL Server or SQL Server Agent service account without using SQL Enterprise Manager in SQL Server 2000 or SQL Server Configuration Manager in SQL Server 2005:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/283811