While not officially supported by Microsoft, there is an excellent modification that The Missing Remote has published. A simple batch file installs a different DLL for Terminal services that allows the console to remain logged on while up to 2 other users log into a separate RDP session.

Now I can do any management and monitoring or changes necessary without having to submit a “TV-Outage Request”. :-D Very cool.

On a serious note though, Alan and Lilia did an awesome presentation at TechEd and I’m sure this site will show the same level of awesome-ness. Rock on Al.

C:\WINDOWS\System32\cscript manage-bde.wsf -help

Enjoy

Have a great weekend ;-)

Assuming your laptop with Bitlocker is stolen, the person can still turn the computer on and boot into windows. They can’t log on because they don’t know your password, and of course you use a complex password…. If they take the drive out of the laptop and try to read it on another computer or boot off an external drive in your computer. Your system partition will have an invalid file system, so they can’t access your data.

If they try to reset your SAM password using a Linux boot utility, it won’t work because the SAM is encrypted on the drive.

Further to this, BitLocker only works on the SYSTEM partition (not active partition). So any other volume’s on your PC will need to be encrypted using EFS. This is still secure because the encryption keys for the EFS files are stored on the system drive and are encrypted therefore unavailable.

BitLocker will NOT stop a person from gaining access to your data if you have weak passwords or they obtain the USB key.
It will NOT stop a forensic analysis from taking a copy of the encrypted drive.

It WILL stop someone copying your documents/ emails/ etc. off your stolen device.

Basically, Microsoft in their infinite wisdom setup their EPG settings so that each time Windows Update runs it checks the value of the registry key and will reset it to the default. This way if Microsoft decide to change their epg update URL, they can. Only problem is that it breaks all the other EPG programs.

It has now been 2 weeks with no EPG download problems. Read on for a step by step guide to how I fixed it.

1. Install KeepKey into the C:\ProgramData\KeepKey folder
2. Install the KeepKey service by running %windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\installutil /i C:\keepKey\keepKey.exe
3. Stop Keepkey Service
4. Run Media Center channel & guide detection. STOP before putting in the post code.
5. Alt+Tab to install your EPG (FreeEPG or IceTV) Next -> Next -> Finish.
6. Alt+Tab back to your MCE, enter the post code and finish the detection.
7. Assign the names to the channels.
8. Alt+Tab again to CMD and start the KeepKey Service 

9.   Go out for a beer knowing that your precious CSI, CSI NY & Two and a Half Men episodes are being recorded for you to watch later.

DailyTech is running an article on how to perform a clean install when using the VISTA upgrade DVD. With the cost of Vista I see most families will need to buy upgrade licences just so that they can afford the software. I don’t however envy the poor uncle/ cousin/ family friend that have to help with a re-install of VISTA 12 months down the track. Images of my own experiences looking for that old copy of windows 3.11 Setup Disk 1 or Windows 95 CD still haunt me to this day.

While the method proposed by DailyTech is a bit ‘fiddley’ it will definitely be easier and more stable than doing an upgrade from XP. The other benefit is that once your VISTA upgrade key is activated you don’t need to go searching for your old CD keys again. :-)

The basic steps for doing the clean install are:

1. Boot of the Vista DVD and do a trial install by not entering the DVD key
2. Select the version of Vista you are licensed for and install the trial copy
3. Once the install is complete and windows has booted, run the setup from windows and run an upgrade. This time enter the upgrade DVD key.
4. Allow Vista to install over your trail version
5. Once the upgrade is complete delete the \windows.old\ folder.

Now I assume you need to upgrade from your current XP install once to begin with so that your key is activated and your XP key is invalidated.

Thanks again to DailyTech for the instructions.

Alex, if you ever end up reading this I suggest that you actually use a copy of VISTA before posting any more propaganda about it. For years software developers have been lazy; writing programs that create errors when they are not run as an Administrator. I suggest you being one of them, have a good look at SysInternals, they provide a large number of free tools that let you view access to windows and debug why your applications do not work properly.

By default, Parental controls are not turned on so I don’t see why you should complain about this stopping most users from running your games. UAC is turned on but can be easily turned off with a single tick box & reboot. A better idea would be for you to put the ‘My application is crap and needs to run as an adminstrator‘ flag in all your games and windows will automatically ask once for approval to run the program, and then the only problems will be the ones with your coding. And while we are on that topic, if you write your web sites properly and digitally sign your code, IE will happily download the files without error messages and warnings.

I’m not a parent (yet) but when I am, I will definitely want to know what my kids are doing with their computer. There is so much Pornography, Spy ware, Viruses, Paedophiles out on the internet, I like the idea of having to approve the programs my children run. They ask, I check and approve. It’s a great idea.

The only people I can see that will have a problem with the new systems implemented will be those ones that run Bot-Nets, Ad-ware & Spy ware networks. Of course, if this was your real aim and the ‘Games’ are just a front your comments make perfect sense.

The days of all users running with administrator privileges are gone. I wish you the all the best in learning how to code in this every changing world.

With UAC enabled, whenever a user (or program) wishes to change or access something deemed to be “system critical” the screen will dull and a prompt will open above the requesting process asking if the user requested the change. This is a GUI version of the process used in Linux & Unix where to administer something, the user must type SU to elevate their privileges.

 
Most settings in Vista that require the UAC approval display the Microsoft Security Shield as part of the icon or text. This way you know to expect the prompt.

You may find some games will not run properly unless they are run with an administrative account. In this case, you can configure in the properties of the shortcut/ executable to always run as an administrator OR you can right click the application and select ‘Run as Administrator’. Most post-UAC created applications will either not need to run as an administrator or should display the Shield as part of the application icon.

My only word of advice is when you first build a Vista PC or if you are changing a lot of configurations, turn off UAC (it’s under User Accounts in Control Panel), install your programs, configure your settings and then turn it back on again. Otherwise you will likely get so fed up with the prompts that you turn the setting off and leave it that way.

• (Dumb) Users with old/ cheep hardware cannot enable encryption using the BitLocker console therefore not loose any data.
• Network Admins can use the local group policy settings to bypass the TPM check because of course they would keep a copy of the decryption key in a safe location.

Be warned, I have found that the BIOS for some older devices do not support prompting for a USB flash drive during boot. As such my wonderful Toshiba Tecra S1 does not support BitLocker. My newer ASUS M/B does and works quite well. Computer boots, select Windows Vista, Prompts for

USB Drive
, insert drive, Vista tells you to remove the drive and it continues booting. Most important thing then is NEVER STORE THE USB DRIVE WITH THE COMPTUER.

Requirements for BitLocker are: 

• A TPM Module
• Small Active partition, I recommend 50MB set as S:\
• Large System partition, 16GB Min for Vista
• USB Thumb drive (optional but I recommend this for power users)
• Pin code (optional, recommended for normal users)

Windows Vista creates a recovery key(string)/ file when drive is initial encrypted which using group policy can be stored on a network location. The other good feature is that a drive can be encrypted but set NOT to prompt for encryption keys. So if a user needs to drop their laptop to a support department, they can de-activate BitLocker without un-encrypting the drive. Failing this, the tech can type in the insanely long recovery key that was backed up with Group Policy. 

Overall, BitLocker is a great thing for safety of data, just don’t implement USB drives or pin numbers on shared devices or else the drive and key will end up attached to the lid of the laptop…. :-S