Reclaim free space on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

Free space on C: drive will eventually go below your threshold. After investigating the cause with TreeSize Free tool (http://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free/), I ended up in this result (biggest folder is with the name winsxs):

If you are running out of other options to free space on a Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 computer, then as a last resort you can disable SP1 uninstall feature by running the following command on the administrative command prompt:

dism /online /cleanup-image /spsuperseded

It will remove the files needed for Service Pack uninstall and free some gigabytes on Windows drive. In my case about 4GB.

NetStumbler’s replacement for Windows 7

If you are using Windows 7 and you want to see details of wireless networks in your range you can use command line (NetStumbler doesn’t work on Vista nor 7):

netsh wlan show networks mode=bssid

or in short

netsh wl sh n b

The result is something like that (fragment of an output)

If you want a graphical utility, take a look at inSSIDer (http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider-wifi-scanner)

Outlook/Exchange and Notes/Domino and Rich Text

If you send an e-mail with Rich Text formatting from Exchange to Domino, it appears very ugly in Lotus Notes.

Original message in Outlook:

As seen on Lotus Notes:

As you can see, the result looks ugly. It doesn’t look always ugly, it depends on several factors: Outlook contact properties, Active Directory Contact/Mail User properties and Remote Domain settings. I suggest to change only remote domains settings on Exchange 2010.

Easiest way is to do it on Exchange Shell (get all remote domains and disable Microsoft proprietary TNEF/Rich text format for sending e-mails):

Get-RemoteDomain | Set-RemoteDomain -TNEFEnabled $false

Graphical interface is also possible. Select your remote domain from Organization/Hub Transport/Remote Domains and change the following setting:

And yes, all your e-mails can have attachments and formatting after changing this setting. Your e-mail can have 3 formats, when you use Outlook:

1. Plain Text
2. Rich Text
3. HTML

All messages containing formatting information will be converted to HTML format instead of the second option (Rich Text).

DPM 2010 eject tape (or Windows 2008 eject tape)

As you probably figured out that Windows Server 2008 backup software doesn’t support tapes. So if you use Microsoft Data Protection Manager 2010 or some other tape compatible software and don’t see the place to eject tape programmatically, you are in the right place. Here comes the solution.

First of all you need a piece of software to support devio controls. I found a little one on http://www.ltr-data.se/files/devioctl.zip. This zip file contains devioctl.exe, which needs to be placed in windows directory.

To try the eject functionality, you need a test script as a .bat file containing the following line:

devioctl.exe eject \\.\Tape2147483645

The last number can be found out in DPM shell using the following command:

get-dpmlibrary -dpmservername yourdpmservernamehere | get-tapedrive | ft acc*

The result is in my case:

It seems, like I have two drives. In fact I have only one, the other one was the old one, which was replaced to the new drive. So I will use the line with the lowest number.

If you are wondering, what’s the deal with this strange number, you can put it to windows calculator and look at the binary representation of this number:

So if you look at bits 31..0, then 2147483646 is in some interpretation -1, 2147483645 means -2 etc.