Nick R's questions

I've got a server where a number of users are sharing user logins for a short period of time to prevent too many people from logging in at the same time.

The users are connecting over remote desktop, but the problem is that when one user is busy doing something, another user logs in as the same user and disconnects the active session.

Is there any way of preventing one user from logging in and disconnecting the same username who is already connected to somewhere else?

This is on Windows Server 2008 R2

The reason for limitation is the hardware will only support a small number of users. New hardware has been ordered, but users need to use the system until the new one is available.

Slightly open ended question, but what are guidelines for configuring windows server 2008 running Oracle?

For example, should the paging file be kept small (1gb) if I've got 32gb of RAM in the server? Are there any simple parameters to tweak?

Update: I've modified the configuration on one system to have no paging file on any disk as there is 32Gb of RAM in the system. This appears to work fine. I'm wondering if there are any other parameters that could be modified

What is the best approach to replacing a system file that is in use. I need to replace usbehci.sys in c:\windows\system32\drivers with an older version to fix a problem with Windows 7 and tuners in media center.

Is there a standard way of replacing system files that are in use. A reboot is acceptable.

Is it possible to create an installation of Windows where there is no drive C? I've tried a number of approaches with having blank disks and other things, but never managed to get it to work.

I'm trying to reproduce an environment a customer has where installing software fails because there is no drive C.

I've got a corrupt ntbackup file that won't open in ntbackup.

There are various utilities that a google search turns up that say they can repair the files. Do I need to use one or is there a simple way of using ntbackup to do this?

How can you run a 32 bit version of explorer on 64 bit windows 7 x64?

This is to allow tortoisehg to work.

I've tried running "c:\windows\syswow64\explorer /separate" and it just starts another version of the 64 bit explorer.

The question could also be rephrased. I've got a software application that requires a USB dongle. It works correctly when running at the console of the remote machine, but when connecting via remote desktop it does not seem to work.

I've seen this behaviour before a few times and wondered whether or not it is possible to block access to the usb ports, and if so, it should be possible to allow access.

Is it safe to backup data to a hard drive and then leave it for a number of years?

Assuming the file system format can still be read, is this a safe thing to do. Or is it better to continually rewrite the data (every 6 months or so) to make sure it remains valid?

Or is this a stupid question?

What is the best free SSL VPN client that works on 64 and 32 bit windows clients?

I've got a situation where a windows server (Windows server 2003), that can only be accessed using remote desktop or citrix, appears to freeze temporarily.

What is the best way to monitor this system. Sending more data across the network link could be causing the freeze, so I don't want to have tools like process monitor running and causing network traffic.