Tomalak's questions

I have an application that Windows 2008 would always run "as administrator" (i.e. the blue/yellow shield overlay icon is always visible).

However, the "run this program as an administrator" flag is not set in the file properties.

Where does this implicit flag come from and how can I get rid of it?

Background: I do not want to run this program as an administrator, it should run in a scheduled task with an unprivileged account. Currently UAC would not allow running this program, though.

When I install Internet Information Server on a Windows machine that is fully patched according to Windows Update, will it be installed as patched right from the start?

I have always wondered if any patching inconsistencies could arise from the fact that all available patches (some of which might affect IIS) are marked as installed, but at the point in time they were installed IIS was not on the system and the files they would have affected were not there.

I'm looking for something that accomplishes (as much as possible of) the following:

• provides a WLAN access point for public use (for example, in a bar)
• serves as a transparent proxy forcing users to get their own login before they can begin surfing
• secure (as in: users can't get into the attached LAN & can do allowed protocols only)
• easy to install (monolithic/self-contained Linux distro?)
• easy to configure, preferably per web-interface
• possibly bandwidth-managed so users can't soak up all available bandwidth
• possibly with expiring access (time-limited logins, or one-time passwords)
• free of charge :-)

I know that ChilliSpot can do things from that list, maybe one could use dd-wrt to modify a router… But maybe I'm just missing the ideal "fire-and-forget" solution that I've just never heard of.

What are your ideas?

The plan is to create a shadow copy of a quite large, I/O-heavy volume. It's 350GB, containing a filesystem-based fulltext index organized in hundreds of folders and hundred-thousands of tiny files that need to be in a consistent state for a successful restore.

Currently the indexer is stopped, the backup task runs, and then the indexer is restarted. This results in the index being unavailable for hours during the backup. I'd like to make consistent backups via shadow copy, ideally without ever having to stop the indexer at all.

So, I've switched on Shadow Copy for that volume and configured it to make a snapshot once every night, to a different volume.

Now I'm a bit at a loss - how can I access the shadow copy as a whole, so that I can make a backup? I envision a read-only drive that contains the files as they were at the time of the last snapshot, but maybe things work entirely different.

OS is Windows Server 2003 SP2, backup software is CommVault Galaxy 7.0.

EDIT: Note that - in the meantime - two answers have been created that implement the necessary functionality in form of a script:

• VBScript (by myself)
• PowerShell (by John Homer)

By default, Windows services start in the sytem32 directory (usually C:\WINDOWS\system32).

Is there a way to set up a different working directory? I am thinking of some registry parameter beneath HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SomeService.

So - can this be done?

I have an ASP.NET application on a Windows Server 2003/IIS6 that refuses to run for some reason (it's the Xerox Centre, if that info helps). It has been working flawlessly before though on this server.

Now, all I get if I try to open the app homepage (http://some.intranet.server/XeroxCentreWareWeb/) is a "404 - File or directory not found" error.

• The app is configured to run in it's own app pool, which runs as Network Service.
• The Network Service account has read access to the configured directory.
• If I stop the app pool, I get the expected "Service Unavailable" message, meaning the app and its pool are wired correctly
• I tried to track down any file permission issues with procmon - nothing to be seen. There isn't even an access to the web app directory happening when the page loads.
• Interestingly, according to procmon, the web server accesses the 401-2 custom error file (Logon failed due to server configuration) first, but then decides to send the 404 down to the client.
• EDIT: The app runs with Windows-integrated authentication. Regular users have access to the app directory as well (I would have noticed file system "ACCESS DENIED" messages in procmon, if there had been any.)

This makes me think that there is some kind of weird permission problem that occurs even before the application files are being accessed. I just have no idea where to look.

I've tried to run the app pool as Local System for a test, but to no avail.

What else could I check in this case?

How many groups can an Active Directory account be member of?

Is there any hard limit, or do you know of other problems that can arise when you go over a certain number of group memberships?

Background: We have one account that is member of ca. 400 (possibly nested) groups, and we start to see issues in group policy handling for this account.

I have been given a legacy Business Objects Enterprise XI Server and nobody knows the passwords for it.

How do I reset the authentication database table/config file/whatever so that I can log into the web front-end again?

Currently I am prompted a web page named "Log on to InfoView" with a "Log On to BusinessObjects"/"Existing User" login form.

The exact setup is

• Business Objects Enterprise XI (Developer License, AFAIK)
• Windows Server 2003
• SQL Server 2000 DB Backend

The title says it all, really.

Is it possible to create a network drive mapping that is visible to a service? Supposing the service runs under a domain account that has permissions to the share, of course.

Can anyone give an high-level overview of the options available for SQL Server clustering, their pros and cons?

Is it better to use Microsoft Clustering services or SQL Server native clustering? Does that choice even apply to the latest SQL Server versions?