While researching for an upcoming article, I stumbled upon the source code for a number of applications that Microsoft aquired when they purchased Sysinternal. It seems that even the mighty Microsoft needs to bow to The Wayback Machine and forgotten files!
If you go to the Sysinternals website today, you will automatically be redirected to a page on the Microsoft website. But back before Sysinternals was bought, they had an excellent array of freeware and open source applications on this page. Microsoft has made the vast majority of these programs available for free but they have changed the licensing by closing the source code. According to the licensing FAQ:
Q: Can I license or re-use any Sysinternals source code? A: No. We will no longer offer the Sysinternals source code for download or license.
So imagine my surprise when a Google search brought up a link to the Sysinternals source code page! It appears that someone had either missed this page or intentionally let it up. As I was digging through the page, I did find that the majority of the links pointed back to Microsoft but theoccasionalpagestillworked! So I got thinking, if some of the pages are still there, are the source code files still there?
Directory Listing Denied
This Virtual Directory does not allow contents to be listed.
So, if I was to determine if the actual files were still there, I would need the actual file names. This is when I decided to go visit the Wayback Machine.
The Wayback Machine is attempting to create snapshots of the entire Internet at various points in time. With it, you can look up any website and see the information that is has archived. I looked up the Sysinternals source code page on the Wayback Machine and was not disappointed. The page was archived there and from it, I was able to determine what the original file names were.
I have to admit that I was pretty shocked when I realized that all of the source code files are still sitting on a website that Microsoft now manages!
AccessEnum v1.3
This simple yet powerful security tool shows you who has what access to directories, files and Registry keys on your systems. Use it to find holes in your permissions. Source Code • Mirror
CacheSet v1.0
CacheSet is a program that allows you to control the Cache Manager’s working set size using functions provided by NT. It’s compatible with all versions of NT and full source code is provided. Source Code • Mirror
Ctrl2cap v2.0
This is a kernel-mode driver that demonstrates keyboard input filtering just above the keyboard class driver in order to turn caps-locks into control keys. Filtering at this level allows conversion and hiding of keys before NT even “sees” them. Full source is included. Ctrl2cap also shows how to use NtDisplayString() to print messages to the initialization blue-screen. Source Code • Mirror
Device Object Security
Are your device objects as secure as they should be? Learn what permissions are applied to the objects you create with IoCreateDevice and get introduced to kernel-mode security APIs that can be used to close potential device object security holes. Source Code • Mirror
Formatx and Chkdskx v1.0
Complete source code for chkdsk and format clone programs. These examples demonstrate the use of file system utility functions that you can incorporate into your own applications. Source Code • Mirror
Fundelete v2.02
This utility expands the NT 4.0 Recycle Bin to catch file deleted from command prompts and within programs, and it comes with full source code. Several powerful device driver techniques, including getting a user’s SID within a driver, enumerating a directory’s contents, and generating IRPs, are demonstrated in source code available for download. Source Code • Mirror
Inside the Disk Key
The HKLM\System\Disk\Information value is the heart of NT’s disk administration. It contains information on drive mappings and fault tolerant configurations. In this article I go inside the Disk\Information value to describe its format, and provide source code to a program, Diskkey, that reads and decodes it. Source Code • Mirror
NewSID v4.06
Learn about the computer SID problem everybody has been talking about and get a free computer SID changer, NewSID, complete with full source code. Source Code • Mirror
NTFSInfo v1.0
Use NTFSInfo to see detailed information about NTFS volumes, including the size and location of the Master File Table (MFT) and MFT-zone, as well as the sizes of the NTFS meta-data files. Source Code • Mirror
SDelete v1.51
Securely overwrite your sensitive files and cleanse your free space of previously deleted files using this DoD-compliant secure delete program. Complete source code is included. Source Code • Mirror
TCPView v2.4
See all open TCP and UDP endpoints. On Windows NT, 2000 and XP TCPView even displays the name of the process that owns each endpoint. Includes a command-line version, tcpvcon. Source Code • Mirror
Tokenmon v1.01
Watch security-related activity, including logon, logoff, privilege usage, and impersonation with this monitoring tool. Full source code included. Source Code • Mirror
TVCache
Here are the complete sources for a VCACHE replacement called TVCACHE (turbo-VCACHE). This version of VCACHE implements compression of cache buffers in an effort to improve performance. It documents the VCACHE interface for use in your own file systems work (or for caching of arbitrary data) in the source code implementation. Source Code • Mirror
VCMon v1.0
A VCache (Windows 95 disk cache) monitor, from our May 1996 Dr. Dobb’s Journal article on VxD Service hooking. Full source is included. Source Code • Mirror
VxDMon v1.0
VxDMon provides a never-before-seen look into Windows 95 VxDs. See how VxDs interact with one another and monitor the performance of VxD services, including your own. Source Code • Mirror
If you are at all interested in this source code, you would be wise to snap it up quick. Who knows how long Microsoft will leave this on the Internet. According to the license agreement, I cannot put this code on my website so when it is no longer available, I can’t help you out.
Also, this means that The Wayback Machine might be in violation of the Microsoft license so it may not be available much longer, either.
The USB drive systems that I have been writing are all based on Windows and are aimed at running specific applications groups from a USB drive. But the Pen Drive Linux looks at things slightly differently.
First, they are not looking a Windows but (duh) Linux. This is a completely different take on how computers work.
Secondly, they are not using the Linux system that is installed on the computer. Rather, they are creating and entire Linux system on a single bootable USB drive. This means that you could theoretically plug one of these USB drive systems into a computer with no hard drive and still be able to work just fine! Or, if you are somewhere you need some tools that just don’t run on Windows, then you can boot from your Linux USB drive and away you go!
You gotta like what people are doing with Linux these days. And this is yet another way that Linux will gain more popularity.
Now, there is a down side. You need to have a system that is new enough to be able to boot from a USB drive. But, this is getting to be less and less of a problem as time goes on.
So, I highly recommend popping over to their site with USB drive in hand and see what you think of these systems!
There are days that I think I will just scream if I have to read another boring report. My kingdom for some creativity!
One of the really easy things that you can do make your documents more eye appealing is to select different fonts for various parts of the document. Now, I’m not suggesting that you go out make every word a different font. That is a really good way to get yourself killed! But make your header one font and your title page another. Make sure they are all in the same family so that there is some consistency and suddenly your document is no longer the same old ugly page everyone else is passing around.
Need some more fonts? You can download free fonts and add to your current documents.
LoudLaunch - Compensating bloggers for their unbiased opinions, reviews, and analysis. View the LoudLaunch campaign release this post was based on.
VR Hosted has a new name. It is now Net Actuate. Along with it’s new name comes a whole host of new services.
When they were still VR Hosted, they received a very good review from WebHostingStuff.com and had an uptime of 99.7%!
One of the interesting things about Net Actuate is the open source projects that they support. From their website:
Some of the Open Source projects we currently host include:
Gentoo Linux - Millions of website visitors with tens of thousands of daily rsync updates, and critical infrastructure support
SARE Spam Rulesets - VR powers nightly updates for tens of thousands of users in the battle against spam
Nuvola & Icon-King.com - one of the highest rated Linux / KDE icon themes of all time has over 200,000 downloads from our Servers
Freenode IRC - The IRC network Home to the most channels related to Open Source, we sponsor a server with over 4000 cuncurrent connections.
Cacti - VR has supported Cacti, the best RRD Front end ever built for the past two years.
Qmail Toaster - VR Supports Qmail Toaster, an excellent and easy way to build a fully functional, feature rich qmail based MTA. VR hosts both the site and mirrored builds for the Qmail Toaster script. To date, 528,413 downloads of Qmail Toaster related packages have been downloaded!
They also have hosting plans that can handle the smalled individual website to the largest corporate cohosted system.
LoudLaunch - Compensating bloggers for their unbiased opinions, reviews, and analysis. View the LoudLaunch campaign release this post was based on.
WindowsVista is almost here. By now, most people know about or at least have heard about this new and improved version of Windows. But what about the newest version of Windows Server? When will it be releasing to the public? What new features will it have?
Im pretty happy with Windows Server 2003. It has been pretty reliable for my situation. What new features and goodies is Microsoft going to give to entice users to Upgrade? Well I did some research and found some interesting things.
Network Access Protection
From the Microsoft website:
With Network Access Protection, you can create customized health policies to validate computer health before allowing access or communication, automatically update compliant computers to ensure ongoing compliance, and optionally confine non-compliant computers to a restricted network until they become compliant.
This would be a neat feature if it is implemented correctly.
New Terminal Service Features
The feature that stands out the most is Remote Applications. This allows applications to be installed on the Terminal Services Server and be shared to users. Remote Applications can be used side by side just like they were installed on the local machine. By using Remote Apps, this would allow true roaming profiles. The problem now is a user may move to a different computer but may not have a certain program installed.
Another feature is Terminal Services Web. This allows users to log in on the intranet or internet and use applications and desktops the same way remotely. This is integrated into IIS 7, Active Directory, and Sharepoint 3.0
Of course, Microsoft is promising increased reliability and security in the update Terminal Services. It will be interesting to see how the remote applications feature is implemented to reduce bandwidth consumption and slow applications.
Windows Powershell is a new command line shell that includes over 130 command line tools to automate common administration tasks of Active Directory, Terminal Server, and IIS. Also included is a new “easy to learn” scripting language made for system admins.
Availability and Naming
Microsoft has stayed true to its two year release timeline on server platforms. They plan on releasing it by the end of 2007 or early 2008. Longhorn is just a ‘codename’, but I don’t think that even Microsoft knows what they are going to name it. A few of my favorites: Windows Server Superb, Windows Server 1337, and Windows Server Superfun.
This is just a outline of some of the new features that stood out to me. There are many more features available. Overall I think they sound good, but if they come out good is another story. A public beta will be released sometime in the next few months. Probably middle to late summer. I’m not really an early adopter, but it will be interesting to see how the new features are implemented.
I know for me, blogging is a passion. I do it because I really like the information that I generate and the feedback that I get from people. I feel that I am really contributing to the blogosphere. And that is evident by the number of times Digg has taken down my sight (and the number of times my web host has “suggested” that I get dedicated hosting!).
I would love to start blogging full time but unfortunately I have bills to pay and mouths to feed. As you can see, I have a few advertisements on my site but I don’t want to be come one of those sites that is 75% ads and 25% content. I don’t think that there is a lot of benefit to that.
Enter LoudLaunch. This is a new website that works off a model similar to some other pay per post sites. But, I have noticed that there are a couple of differences.
The biggest difference is that they aren’t interested in “stealth” marketing. You will see at the bottom of this post (which is sponsored by LoudLaunch) that there is a very clear statement indicating that this is a LoudLaunch campaign. No hiding links in your posts to “trick” people into visiting websites you have no interest in.
Another difference is that they are willing to let you advertise for free! You are welcome to submit a free campaign at any time. This can help to generate traffic to your website as well. Or, if you want to spend a little bit of money to ensure that you get some traffic, you can start a paid campaign for as little as $50.
The final difference is that you can write absolutely anything you want about the campaign. While there are generally a few requirements, you are free to be as honest as you want about the campaign. If you think the product is the worst thing in the world, you are free to say it!
I have to admit that I was skeptical at first and that I am not 100% convinced yet because there seems to only be a few active paying campaigns right now that I would be willing to write about but I think it is worth a look at least.
LoudLaunch - Compensating bloggers for their unbiased opinions, reviews, and analysis. View the LoudLaunch campaign release this post was based on.
While researching for an upcoming article, I stumbled upon the source code for a number of applications that Microsoft aquired when they purchased Sysinternal. It seems that even the mighty Microsoft needs to bow to The Wayback Machine and forgotten files!
Note: This blog entry is sponsored by 
Note: This blog entry is sponsored by 