One of our techs recently ran across a problem with a new Windows Vista Business laptop trying to synchronize offline files to a Windows Server 2000 file server. Synchronization would start, but the Sync Center in Vista would show failures for every single file that was attempted to be sync'd. The error message read something to the extent of "The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process". We tried the usual: checking permissions on the folders being offline'd (I know that's probably not a word, but you get what I mean); deleting his local cache of Offline Files; disabling and then re-enabling Offline Files. But we just kept on banging our heads against the same error. At first, just about any web search for the error resulted in either something about Windows Home Server or databases or something of the like. Eventually, though, we struck gold: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/296264/en-us: Configuring opportunistic locking in Windows…

We'll start off with Inactive accounts first, and then work on the disabled accounts after that. Active Directory in Server 2003 has a nice user/computer attribute called lastLogonTimeStamp that can help us keep track of inactive accounts. If you have ever tried to use that attribute, however, you might have come up with something like this…

Part I demonstrated how to find aged or inactive accounts, and in Part II we will look at another lingering account type: disabled accounts. Like inactive accounts, Directory Searchers also come in handy for disabled accounts. We can also, however, read an Active Directory account's status directly from a hidden attribute on the ADSI object. Let's start with the Directory Searcher method. This entry also draws from Bahram’s Blog. The code: $adobjroot = [adsi]'' $objdisabsearcher = New-Object System.DirectoryServices.DirectorySearcher($adobjroot) $objdisabsearcher.filter = "(&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=user)(userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=2))" $resultdisabaccn = $objdisabsearcher.findall() | sort path…

I am pretty sure I'm not the only one who wants something more descriptive than DSC1900298.JPG to name my digital photos. And yes, I know that Windows Explorer allows you to rename pictures en masse, but I don't like the convention they have chosen in that the first file is named [common name].JPG, then the subsequent files are named [common name] (2).JPG and so on and so forth. I had a few requirements for how I wanted to go about this: Get rid of the parentheses. If I will be posting those pics online anywhere, I wanted to keep the names as free of special characters as I can. Number the first file. The Windows Explorer route does not number the first file when doing bulk renames. This is easy enough to do manually, but I just don't want to bother. Keep a constant number of digits in the index number. I want the renaming process to take into account how many pictures there are and adjust the number of index digits accordingly. If there are fewer than 10 files/images, then only 1 digit is required (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4...9). If there are between 10 and 99 files (inclusive), then two digits are required (01, 02, 03...10, 11, 12...99). I think you get the idea. Windows definitely doesn't do that…