Our Bginfo template has been updated to version 1.5.  The template content is the same, but the installer now handles XP, checking for a copy of bginfo.exe next to script, checking for elevated admin on Vista and later (Version 6 and later).  You can use the installer script to see a simple Shell (.BAT, .CMD) scripting method to check if someone is an elevated admin...

I had two different scenarios in two days where some of the top malware scanners completely ignored very concerning changes to systems I was working on…

UAC has caused a lot of buzz ever since Vista was released. Sometimes even I wonder if the topic of UAC comprises a measurable amount of the total web and email conversations about technology for the last two years ;)

The main concern about UAC has always been those pesky prompts asking your permission to do innocuous activities like deleting kernel32.dll. Sometimes you get them when you don’t want them and sometimes you don’t get them when you should. It turns out there are many ways to cause or suppress UAC prompts – this post attempts to document them all…

If you are just getting started with using manifest files to configure UAC elevation prompts, it can be difficult to remember what the options are and what to do if there is already a manifest. The following is a complete sample template of an application manifest and is commented so that you can…

Oh that sinking feeling after deleting a file that is your only good copy of a script.  However, the second sinking feeling of knowing there is no recycler copy because the deletion happened via another machine over the network is even worse!  I ended up using two products to attempt recovery – my paid for copy of Stellar Phoenix ($99) and the free and famous Recuva.  Guess which one out performed in multiple was…

Maybe you have come across some of the UAC VBScript snippets for figuring out whether the current user is an administrator and even whether they are elevated or not. I wanted a quick and lightweight solution to figure our whether a user was admin and whether they were elevated. Once I got started, it didn’t take much to add checks for all the other groups and special permissions. And it’s all done in 40 lines…

Disabling unnecessary Windows services can result in significant performance gains for production machines and virtual machines. This script helps you manage and share templates for services optmization - including only starting services when they are needed. Some services optimization templates are included and instructions are included for converting from other services optimization tools. Click "Read More" for much more information about the benefits, uses and implementation of the script.

The attached file contains a .bgi template for Sysinternals BGInfo and an installation shell script.  It places all the security and UAC details of a Windows 7 (or Vista) machine on the background bitmap.  I have seem many threads on the net about trying to get bginfo to run for all users and do it without admin rights.  Just run the installation script (bginfoinst.bat) in an elevated command prompt and bginfo will run for all users who login, whether or not they are admins or elevated.

Updated: 2009-12-02 to Version 1.5:
- Correctly handles XP
- Checks for copy of bginfo.exe next to script
- Checks for elevated admin on Vista and later (Version 6 and later)

RegScanner is a very cool little utility for finding things in the registry.  RegEdit's built-in search functionality is similar to notepad.  Type your search string and keep pounding F3 until you find something similar to what you're looking for.  Lots of wasted time.

Here's some things I love about RegScanner:

ACT 5.5 has been released.  Microsoft has made sure that the entire toolset is Windows 7 ready.  The help documents have been enhanced with more information on Shims - Microsoft has been making big improvements on the help documents for over a year.

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