HOWTO turn off sticky keys in windows

I am normally not one to get riled up, but I have to admit that the number of times I've seen the above dialog makes me ready to use words I shouldn't.

We are blessed with every Windows installation having Sticky Keys ready to respond to either a rapid press of the shift key or a long pause on the shift key. If you are anything like me, I often pause in thought with a finger on the shift key. Right now I pause with my finger on the shift and wonder whose decision it was to leave this on by default in Windows? ... On a lighter note, on the name "sticky keys." Isn't that something you would get if you use your keyboard immediately after peeling an especially juicy orange?

To the get dialog above:
Hit shift 5 times
or
Hold shift down for 5 seconds.


To turn it of from the dialog above:

1. Click Settings
2. On Keyboard Tab, as seen the dialog below un-select use StickyKeys
   
   
3. Careful you aren't done yet. Click the settings button in the StickyKeys area.
   
4. In that dialog un-select all the items.
5. Click OK.
6. Click OK once more.

You are now not going to be interrupted while you are paused thinking any more.

Keywords: Windows, StickyKeys off, Turn off StickyKeys, how to Turn off StickyKeys, Stop StickyKeys dialog.

Enlighten your windows desktop or background with the Computer Name - BGInfo

In my current employment, I am typically remote "desktoped" (RDP'd) into several machines at the same time. The tool I use to keep myself informed is BGInfo a SysInternals (now owned by Microsoft).

For instance see below. There is a nice background, overlayed with particular machine information.

This tool is for the admin and people with some windows know-how, but still I would love to wrap this tool up in a little installer to add a little more value like an example configuration file and allow it to use a config file and run on startup.

I am willing to bet that several people in the legal department at MS would not be willing to let me redistribute this tool with my own MSI. I am not willing to experiment and find out for sure.

Instead of an installer, I'll list out the minor steps that made this tool more valuable to me and provide the configuration as above for you to experiment with.

Configuration

1. Download the BGinfo zip from Sysinternals site
   
2. Unzip into C:\Program Files\BGInfo (or a path of your choice)
3. Download my example configuration BGsetup.zip.
4. Unzip into C:\Program Files\BGInfo
5. Launch BGInfo.exe by double clicking.
6. Use the File Menu -> Open to open the bgsetup.bgi file.
7. Tweak as you see fit. Hit apply and view the results.
   

Autorun BGinfo at Windows start up

1. You could download autorunBGInfo.zip, a registry entry and double click the .reg file to put it in your registry
   OR
   
2. Add the following to your registry:
   Key Location: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\
   Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]
   String Name/Value:
   Name: BGIno
   Value: \"C:\\Program Files\\BGInfo\\Bginfo.exe\" \"C:\\Program Files\\BGInfo\\bgsetup.bgi\" /timer:0 /silent /all
   

With those two things together, this tool is more valuable to me. Notice that you aren't limited to only the options listed in GUI. A quote from the BGInfo manual:

If BGInfo does not contain information you would like to display you can create a user defined field that contains whatever information you want. You can define one or more custom fields that display:
· An environment variable;
· A registry value;
· The contents of a text file;
· The version information contained in a DLL or executable file;
· The time stamp (last modified date) of a file;
· The output of a VB Script;
· The result of a Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) query.

For the working soul in the tech industry, I can imagine that data could add further value to your desktop.

Keywords: BGInfo, Background text, background overlay Windows, Machine information desktop overlay, Wallpaper text configurator, machine information on background, Machine information on desktop, solve the what machine am I logged into problem, desktop background, desktop wallpapter.

InterfaceLIFT: High-Resolution Wallpaper

Not that this is very technical, but yesterday I found a good site for sharing and getting wallpaper/desktop backgrounds.

InterfaceLIFT's content is entirely vistor-submitted and is intended to be shared. They do a great job of search and provided a multitude of resolutions from 1024x768 to 2560X1600 as well as a number of other formats (ipod/sony psp).

My search for "Seattle" returned several of great photos of the city. Another search for "Vancouver" returned even more.

InterfaceLIFT: High-Resolution Wallpaper

The more sharing, the merrier and who can complain at the price of nothing?

And if you are looking for other art they have icons too. Have a new app that you want a cool icon for? I'd check these ones out.

Paul

Keywords: Wallpaper, Desktop background, images, free wallpaper, linux, windows, icons

HOWTO use logparser to find what machine locked out an account

I've been in a number of organizations where the mystery of who, what, where, when and how an account got locked out is umm, a mystery. This is because the regular login/logout data and other authentication data is bundled in with the 1 or 10 errors per day. The truth is obfuscated by too much data. The biggest problem always appears to be with service accounts, with a number of dependencies on an account.

It turns out it can be relatively simple to right a MS logparser query to hunt out this information. AKA, logparser is your best friend. The second think to note is EventID 644 indicates the event that is written when an account is locked out. The rest is really the details.

1. install Logparser - Logparser download from Microsoft
2. Create a file by the name of lockedaccounts.sql at the same directory as your logparser.exe (or add the folder that holds logparser.exe to the path).
   file contents:
   SELECT timegenerated AS TimeLockedout,
   extract_token(strings, 0, '|') As UserName ,
   extract_token(strings, 1, '|') AS OriginatingMachine,
   EventID,
   SourceName,
   Message,
   CASE EventID
   WHEN 529 THEN 'Invalid userid/password'
   WHEN 531 Then 'Account disabled out'
   WHEN 539 Then 'Account locked out'
   WHEN 530 Then 'Outside of logon time'
   WHEN 532 THEN 'Account Expired'
   WHEN 535 THEN 'Password Expired'
   WHEN 533 THEN 'User not from allowed system'
   WHEN 644 THEN 'Account Auto Locked'
   WHEN 540 THEN 'Successful logon'
   ELSE 'Not specified' END AS EventDesc,
   strings
   INTO lockedact.csv
   FROM \\%DOMAINCONTROLER%\Security
   WHERE EventID=644
   
3. run the following command: (it has a 90 second run time on ~500,000 remote eventviewer records)
   C:\>logparser file:lockedaccounts.sql?DOMAINCONTROLER=ADOMAINCONTROLER
   

4. Open the lockedact.csv file in Excel. Hunt out the account you want to analyze. The Column ‘OriginatingMachine’ is the machine that locked out the account. The other columns are there for info only. Note that EventID 644 is the one you are interested in (http://www.ultimatewindowssecurity.com/events/com264.htm ).

For more (much, much more) on logparser: http://www.logparser.com

For a more elaboration on logparser scripts see my blog entry on logparser here: Logparser examples and more.

Keywords:Windows, Active Directory, how to, HOWTO use Microsoft logpaser to find what machine locked out an account in Windows, what machine locked out an account.