Setting Network Priority

At work most of us are connected to multiple networks e.g one LAN or WiFi or Some other....

In my case WiFi was on top priority so when connect both LAN and WiFi , WiFi connection was being used which as slower than my LAN.  so I wanted to use WiFi only when my LAN is not working. below are the steps to set priority

1. Open network connections wizard by Goto Start -> Run Type ncpa.cpl and click OK

2.  Press the ALT key, click Advanced Options and then click Advanced Settings

3.  Select Network and Organize order using up/down buttons 

4. After organizing the network connections available according to your preferences, click OK.

5. The computer will now follow an order of priority when detecting available connections.

Sharing Internet Connection(USB/Dialup) in WiFi network

I was a broadband internet user but recently I switched to BSNL 3G Data card(USB Modem). I wanted to share my internet with all hosts connected in my network.
List of hardware available with me:
1. BSNL 3G USB data card
2. WiFi Router
3. Multiple laptops
4. Smart phones with WiFi



Approach 1# Using Internet connection sharing software (Proxy Servers e.g. CCProxy)
It’s pretty simple approach:
1. Connected all devices to my Local WiFi network
2. Connected Internet on one of my laptops using USB Modem(BSNL 3G)
3. Installed Proxy Server (CCProxy) on same laptop
4. Configured all other devices to use proxy from server installed #3
This approach worked fine for browsing but it was a pain to configure proxy for each application(Gtalk,Yahoo,Skype…) on each device.
And many applications doesn’t work properly with proxy server. e.g. Facebook for android on Samsung galaxy S was not working with this configuration. So I started looking for different approach.

Approach 2# Sharing Internet connection between networks
I liked this approach as all my devices can access internet just by joining my wifi network, no configuration at client end is required.
1. Installed BSNL 3G Model on one of my laptop
2. Went to network connections, and enabled internet sharing from this modem to my “Local Area Network”. It’s automatically set my NIC’s Ip to 192.168.0.1/255.255.255.0

3. Connected this network to Internet Port on my Router. Configured static IP on internet port of router 192.168.0.2/255.255.255.0 and gateway 192.168.0.1
4. Connected internet using Modem.
5. Now anyone joining my local WiFi nwtwork are able access internet

Clearing/Cleaning Run History

Steps:
1. Start the registry editor (regedit.exe)
2. Move to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RunMRU
3. Select the entry you wish to remove
4. Press the Del key (or select Edit - Delete) and click Yes to the confirmation
5. Double click the MRUList value and remove the letter you just deleted. Click OK to save the change
6. Close the registry editor

Disable Administrative shares

Every Windows NT/W2K/XP/Vista/2003 machine automatically creates a share for each drive on the system. These shares are hidden, but available with full control to administrators. The drive letter, followed by the $ sign is the name. When trying to attain a highly secure network, you may wish to address this potential security issue by disabling these shares.

It is possible to simply remove the share from Server Manager (in NT) or Shared Folders (in W2K/XP/Vista/2003) but the problem with this method is that the shares will automatically be recreated when the machine reboots.

You can disable these shares permanently by changing following registry entries:

Servers:
Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Key: SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanManServer\Parameters
Name: AutoShareServer
Data Type: REG_DWORD
Value: 0

Workstations:
Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Key: SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanManServer\Parameters
Name: AutoShareWks
Data Type: REG_DWORD
Value: 0

If you can't find the value in the registry under the exact location please create them.

A reboot is necessary for this to take effect.

Using Custom Drivers with Windows XP

Last week i was installing Windows XP on my Dell PE 1950.

I started with usual process, inserted bootable Windows XP disk and booted from CD-Rom. Installation process started smoothly but i was socked when it came to disk selection screen, there was no disk available message. after doing some googling i came to know that my dell server is having SAS raid controller and normal XP disk doesn't holds driver for same.

My Dell server servers was having "Dell SAS 6/iR Integrated Controller". i downloaded drivers from same from ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/SAS-RAID/R165652.exe

The Very common process to supply custom drivers to windows XP is Put your drivers into Floppy drive and press "F6' you see status message "Press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver...." during the windows installation and once you will press F6 drivers will be load from floppy. but in my case i didn't had floppy drive in my server. so i was not able to go with this option.

again after doing some googling i found that dell provides a utility to prepare drivers in USB instead of floppy. i used this utility and loaded my SAS drivers during the windows installation and finally i got my hard disks listed on disk selection screen. after that installation went ahead smoothly.

I had many Dell servers where i had to install the XP so i was looking for some utility to merge my drivers into XP disk itself and i got nLite. using nLight i merged my drivers into XP disk itself and now i can install XP on my all servers without any additional drivers as all needed drives are present in disk itself.