Users guide

Copyright© 2012 - IntelliAdmin, LLC http://www.intelliadmin.com
Free tools for
Network
Administrators
11 Free tools that will make
your life easier as a Windows
Network Administrator
By Steve Wiseman
Revision 8/14/2012

Table of contents
Read This First – a note about Windows file and printer sharing................3
Burn CDs and DVDs from the command line ...............................................4
Cron Server for Windows..............................................................................6
Logoff, Lock or Shutdown Idle Computers ..................................................11
View the history of USB flash drives on a computer ................................... 13
Wifi Strength Meter..................................................................................... 14
Allow users to easily see their local, or public IP ........................................ 16
Execute Processes Remotely ....................................................................... 19
Detect RDP Sessions from a bat file............................................................23
Extract VNC passwords remotely................................................................ 25
Open a command prompt in any folder ...................................................... 27
Network Administrator – Free edition with over 30 plugins......................30

Read This First – a note about Windows file and printer sharing
Many of the free applications we offer require access to file and printer sharing. Each
version of Windows handles this differently.
We have put together guides that will walk you through enabling it on your computers:
Windows XP:
http://www.intelliadmin.com/index.php/2008/12/enabling-file-and-printer-sharing-
in-windows-xp/
Windows Vista, 2008:
http://www.intelliadmin.com/index.php/2008/12/enabling-file-and-printer-sharing-
in-vista/
Windows 7, 2008 R2:
http://www.intelliadmin.com/index.php/2009/08/windows-7-the-admin-share/

Burn CDs and DVDs from the command line
As a network administrator I bet you need to copy data to DVD or CD quite often. We
did too, so we made a free tool that allows you to burn disks right from the command
line.
This first version we wanted to be as simple as possible, so it only does one thing: Burn a
folder to a disk.
-You specify a drive, and a folder.
-It burns it and closes the session on the drive
-If it fails, the program will return 1
-If it succeeds the program will return 0
This means you can create conditional statements in a batch file too.
How do you use it?
BurnDisk.exe E: C:Backup
Where ‘E:’ is the DVD/CD drive letter, and C:Backup is the folder you want to back up.
It will automatically set the volume name to the current date. It will then zip through
your specified folder and burn the contents to the CD or DVD:
You can use the ERRORLEVEL value for conditional statements in your batch file.

Here is an example bat file that checks the result of the BurnDisk.exe output:
@ECHO OFF
REM Backup our files to DVD or CD ROM
burndisk.exe e: c:Backup
REM Check our result
IF %ERRORLEVEL%==0 goto COMPLETE
REM ERROR HANDLING HERE
:COMPLETE
This is version 1.0, so please let us know what “Must Have” features you want to see in
the next version.
(Send an email to support@intelliadmin.com)
It has been tested on Windows Vista, 2008, and 7. Download it from here:
http://www.intelliadmin.com/burndisk.exe

Cron Server for Windows
If you spend any amount of time working with Unix, you will come across Cron and the
CronTab file.
What is it?
Cron allows you to schedule programs to run at specified intervals, like every Sunday at
1AM.
It is true you can use the Windows task scheduler, but it is difficult to transfer scheduled
tasks from one computer to another.
You could copy the folder c:windowstasks, but this is totally unsupported and it does
not always work.
That is the beauty of Cron. Every bit of scheduling info is contained within the Crontab
file.
If you want a group of servers to have the same scheduled jobs, you just need to sync
this file. No registry hacks, no tricks - Just one file.
Not only that, since it is just a text file you can easily schedule jobs from PHP,
PowerShell or VBScript…without any ActiveX or hooks into Windows. You just need to
modify a simple text file.

The program consists of a windows service:
It includes utility for editing the cron file, so if you don’t have to look
up the specs to schedule a job:
Once you install the application, you might be interested in editing the crontab file.
By default it is located in:
C:Program FilesIntelliAdminCron

The file is named ‘crontab’. It roughly follows the same format as the Unix crontab,
except we have added the [FLAGS] option:
[M] [H] [D] [M] [WD] [FLAGS] [Process Name] [Process Arguments]
M – The minute that the process should be executed (0-59)
H – The hour that the process should be executed (0-23)
D – The day that the process should be executed (1-31)
M – The month that the process should be executed (1-12)
WD – The day of the week that the process should be executed (0-
6 Sunday = 0, Monday = 1, Etc)
FLAGS – Windows process execution flags (See the end of the
chapter for an explanation)
Each section can:
-Have a range of values like this: 12-24 (All items from 12 to 24)
-Have a list of values like this: 12,13,14,15
-Include all possible values like this: *
-Skip values using the / like this: 0-59/5 (This would only include 0,5,10,15,20,etc)
Lets put it all together. If we wanted a process to run every 5 minutes we would create a
line like this in our crontab file:
*/5 * * * * "c:windowssystem32cmd.exe" "/c c:test.bat"
See how the skip value works? We specified the * for the minute section (All minutes),
and then told it to skip 5. This means it will run at 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, etc.

If you wanted to run a process every Sunday at 1 pm:
00 01 * * 00 c:process.bat
Or how about, only every Sunday from June to the end of the year:
00 01 * 06-12 00 "c:test.bat"
At 15, and 30 minutes past every hour:
15,30 * * * * "c:windowssystem32cmd.exe" "/c c:test.bat"
This might give you a clearer picture:
* * * * * [FLAGS] C:SomeEXE.EXE ARG1 ARG2 ARG3
- - - - -
| | | | |
| | | | +----- day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday=0)
| | | +------- month (1 - 12)
| | +--------- day of month (1 - 31)
| +----------- hour (0 - 23)
+------------- min (0 - 59)
It takes a little time to get used to the format, but once you do it is a breeze to work with.
A few things to think about when using this:
-Make sure you secure the crontab file by only allowing ‘System’ and Administrator
write access. Otherwise a standard user could simply alter the crontab file and start
running stuff as an administrator
-The programs are run in the context of a service if no flags are set. By default the user
account is ‘System’, and for security reasons it does not have network share access. If
you want to allow access to network shares use the flags to change the context the
application is run in
-Since it is a service, if your program pops up forms, or message boxes…it will have to
run in some session. Either the console session, or an RDP session. (Using flags)

Here is an explanation of how flags work:
The flag is a number, and it indicates how the process should be executed:
1 = The process is executed as an administrator
2 = The process is executed as the session user.
4 = The process is hidden when executed.
8 = The process is executed in the console session.
16 = The process will only be executed if someone is logged into the console.
32 = The process will be executed in all RDP sessions.
64 = This will disable the job.
If you wanted the program to run as administrator in all the current RDP sessions you
would use: 33
This is calculated by adding the options together…32+1
If you wanted the program to run in the console as the current user, but only if someone
was logged in, it would be: 2 + 16 + 8 = 26
If no flag is set, or you set it to zero, the application will run as system and under Vista
and higher, it cannot show any message boxes or windows.
We are always improving our software, so if you have any suggestions – please feel free
to send us an email at support@intelliadmin.com
Download it from here:
http://www.intelliadmin.com/iadmincron.exe

Logoff, Lock or Shutdown Idle Computers
This utility was created after an email from Tracy:
“Hi Steve. Love all the tools and tips you keep sending our way. Got a question. Is there
any easy way to logoff a user when they are not active for say, 15 Minutes?”
I spoke with Tracy further to explain that forcing a logoff could cause data loss.
For example, a user has a Word document open and they walk away. Then boom the
forced logoff happens and their document is gone.
In her case she needs it for public facing kiosks. If one of the technicians walks away, it
leaves the system wide open.
Locking the workstation for this situation is bad too – since it makes it so the customer
cannot use the machine.
Here is how it works, you call the program like this:
idlelogoff.exe [timeout] [action]
timeout - The number of idle seconds before the action is taken
action - [logoff / lock / shutdown] You can lock the workstation, log
the user off, or shutdown the workstation.

If you wanted a user to get booted off after 5 minutes (300 Seconds) of no activity, You
would call it like this:
idlelogoff.exe 300 LOGOFF
If you wanted it to lock the workstation after 30 seconds of no activity this would do the
trick
idlelogoff.exe 30 LOCK
If you wanted it to shutdown the workstation after 30 seconds of no activity this would
do it:
idlelogoff.exe 30 SHUTDOWN
It has some sanity checking for the timeout. Anything less than 10 seconds is set to 10
seconds.
Call it from the users startup script to make sure it is active while they are logged in.
Get it from here:
http://www.intelliadmin.com/idlelogoff.exe

View the history of USB flash drives on a computer
Unknown to a lot of users, Windows keeps track of all the USB flash drives ever used on
a Windows computer.
You can find this info yourself by digging in the registry, under this key:
HKLMSystemCurrentControlSetEnumUSBStor
We create a tool that makes it easier to extract this info:
Not only that, but you can even point it at a remote machine and get its USB history too.
http://www.intelliadmin.com/USBHistoryView.exe

Wifi Strength Meter
This tool was created after a good question from Wil:
“Is there a tool available in Windows 7 to check and measure wireless signal strength.
It would show where your weak areas and dead spots are, using whatever card is built
into the PC. Thanks”
We actually have had our own tool to do this internally for a while. We polished it up
and got it ready for you to put on your flash drive
It is a single EXE that does not need an install.
When you launch it, it will default to the first card it finds and show you a list of all the
networks it sees:
If you are in a crowded area, you can easily narrow down the network names shown by
just typing in the filter box at the bottom:

You can also export the list to a CSV file by clicking the export button:
http://www.intelliadmin.com/WiFiStrength.exe

Allow users to easily see their local, or public IP
This utility can really save time when supporting users over the phone. Instead of telling
them to click on start, then control panel, then, etc etc…you can simply say “Click on the
star down by the time” – and bam – they can easily see this info and read it off to you:
After its initial release, A few of you had some great suggestions.
Jean-François asked us to add a public IP option, so we did:

Art wanted a way to remove the clickable link:
John asked if we could add the user name:

Jenny wanted us to put all the info in a tool tip so users don’t even have to click on the
star…so we added that too:
New command line options were added to manage these features:
/no_public_ip – Disables the public IP option. Important if you don’t want the
program to hit our servers when it is run
/no_url – Removes the IntelliAdmin link at the top of the main form.
/no_exit_menu – Removes the exit menu
You can get it from here:
http://www.intelliadmin.com/systeminfo.exe

Execute Processes Remotely
Ever needed to run a program on a machine across your network? This program will
help you do that, and it has many options – so you can get it to execute just the way you
like.
What makes this free tool so special? Here are some situations that it covers:
-Execute a process as the user sitting in front of the machine, not the administrator. Got
a script you want to run on a machine, but as the current user? This can do the trick
-Execute in any console or remote desktop session that matches a wildcard filter. Need
to run a program in Dave’s session on the terminal server? No problem
-Access to the standard input and output of the process on the remote machine. Want to
have a remote command line? Remote Execute can do it.
-Mike is at the reception desk and needs a setup program launched as administrator. No
need to go to his computer, just execute it as an admin in the console session. No UAC
prompts either, it will be automatically elevated.
-Jennifer in accounting needs a drive mapped. Don’t want to interrupt her by remoting
into her machine? Remote Execute can connect you to a command prompt that is run
under Jennifer’s account. Just run the network mapping commands from your
workstation and she is all set.
-Automatic detection of VBS and BAT files, so you don’t have to create a funky
command line to get it to work.

Here is the command line format for Remote Execute:
RemoteExecute.exe -h [host] -u [user] -p [pass] [options]
[filename] [arguments]
Options:
-h The remote host name or IP
-u Username *
-p Password *
-e Don't load users environment variables
-l Don't load users profile
-c Copy file to the remote host
-cs Run process in the console session
-n Run process as hidden
-sf [filter] Run in session where [filter] matches the user
-i Return immediately, and don't wait for it to terminate
-sa Run process under the system account
-su Run process as the session user
-q Quiet mode
* - Required options
Let us start out with a simple example: You want to get a remote command line on a
remote Windows 2000 machine with the IP address 10.10.10.146. What are the
arguments to do this?
RemoteExecute.exe -h 10.10.10.146 -u administrator -p password
%systemroot%System32cmd.exe

See, Now on my Windows 7 machine it drops down to that remote computer’s command
prompt:
If you wanted to run a script as the current console user, it would look like this:
RemoteExecute.exe -su -cs -h 10.10.10.146 -u administrator -p
password c:temptest.vbs
These two options are what enabled this to happen:
-su – Tells it to run as the current session user instead of you
-cs – Tells it to execute the application in the console session
If you wanted to copy that c:temptest.vbs over to the remote host, just add the -c
option like this:
RemoteExecute.exe -c -su -cs -h 10.10.10.146 -u administrator -p
password c:temptest.vbs

What about that terminal server? Lets say you have a user named mike logged into that
server and want to run a script that remaps all his printers.
The command line would look like this:
RemoteExecute.exe -su -sf mike -h 10.10.10.146 -u administrator
-p password c:CodeReMapPrn.bat
-su – This option tells it to run as mike, not the administrator. This will allow our
printer mapping to directly affect his account
-sf – This is the session filter. It tells it to find the first account matching the name
‘mike’
The session filter argument can also take DOS style wildcards:
RemoteExecute.exe -sf admin* -su -h 10.10.10.146 -u
administrator -p password c:CodeBigScript.bat
Just keep in mind it will only execute on the first session that matches the wildcard.
What if you have a batch file on your local machine that you want to have copied over to
the remote machine?
Just use the -c option, and it will copy the file and automatically take care of the rest:
RemoteExecute.exe -c -h 10.10.10.146 -u administrator -p password
c:CodeBigScript.bat
Make sure you always put your options first. The file you are going to execute, and its
arguments always go last.
Also, it recognizes vbs, and bat files. It automatically pipes them through the
appropriate processor (cscript.exe or cmd.exe) so you don’t have to.
You can get the latest version from here:
http://www.intelliadmin.com/remoteexecute.exe

Detect RDP Sessions from a bat file
We created this tool after I received a question from Ryan:
“I have a scenario where an application starts when a particular user (generic admin
account) logs on to the console. The problem is that when the same user account is also
used to login to an RDP session, on the same server, the service tries to start again,
and breaks…Is it possible for a logon script to recognize that it is logging on to the
console? If so I could start the application from this script and not worry about it
starting a second time if someone accidentally RDPs using the same account.”
I originally thought that this could be easily detected by an environment variable, or
even VB Script…but it turns out that those two methods are not reliable.
The %SESSIONNAME% variable is set if you are on a terminal server. If you just RDP to
the console of a workstation, or server – it is empty.

So instead, we put together a free utility called RDPDetect. It returns 1 if you are in an
RDP session, and 0 if you are not. The return value can be picked up as an error level, so
you can use it in a bat file like this:
@echo off
RDPDetect.exe
if ERRORLEVEL 1 goto RDP_ENABLED
if ERRORLEVEL 0 goto RDP_DISABLED
goto END
:RDP_ENABLED
echo This is a RDP Session
goto end
:RDP_DISABLED
echo This is a not a RDP Session
:END
You can download the latest version from here:
http://www.intelliadmin.com/RDPDetect.exe

Extract VNC passwords remotely
We made this tool after we got this question from Linda:
“Hi Steve
We have a few computers that have VNC installed. I no longer know what the
password is. They are in another building, and it would be fantastic if I could
somehow get the passwords from these systems.”
This was an excellent question. One answer is to just change the password...but first let
me tell you - The only way this will work is if the computer is within your LAN or WAN,
and you have a windows administrator account.
If it is across the internet, you are out of luck.
To first option is to just reset the password. You can do this by using our free VNC
Password set utility. You can find more about it here:
http://www.intelliadmin.com/index.php/2006/06/set-your-vnc-password-remotely/
You could use that utility to re-set the password and connect with VNC.
The other solution is to use a new tool we developed just for this purpose, the
IntelliAdmin VNC Password Viewer.

The VNC Password viewer:
You simply pick the machine you want to pull the password(s) from, enter your
Windows username/password info (You can leave it blank if you want to use the account
you are logged into)…and press the start button.
It will grab the password from the remote machine, decrypt it, and display it in the form.
You can download it from here:
http://www.intelliadmin.com/VNCPasswordView.exe

Open a command prompt in any folder
I use the command prompt quite a bit, and I was looking for a way to launch it directly
from a folder I am looking at in explorer.
It turns out this is not too hard to do. I found a way to add a menu item when you right
click on the folder. I will walk you though the steps to do it yourself
First open regedit, and browse to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDirectoryshell
Drill down to the ‘directory’ key, then the ‘shell’ key under that.
Under this create a new key named “cmd”. Once created, double click on the default
value on the right

The text you type in here will be the description on the menu. I used “Open Command
Prompt Here”. This is what it will look like when we are finished:
Under the cmd key you created, create another key named “command” Set the default
value for this to
cmd.exe /k “cd %L && ver”
This is what it should look like in regedit:

Now when you right click on a folder you can launch a command prompt right in it.
Now here is the bonus. We created a little application that will do this all for you
You can download it from here:
http://www.intelliadmin.com/OpenCommandPromptHere.exe

Network Administrator – Free edition with over 30 plugins
The last tool I am going to tell you about is Network Administrator:
We are giving away a free edition as part of this e-book that allows you to run an action
against up to 3 computers at a time.
Here is a list of some of the plugins we have right now:
Report amount of free disk space
What computers are low on drive space? Network Administrator can help you find out
Silently install the latest security patches
Want to make sure the latest security patches are installed? Network Administrator can
silently download and install the latest critical, and security patches.

Show you the last person to logon
See what user logged on to a machine last. Network Administrator can show you the
account name, and the date and time.
Send instant messages
Need to notify your users that the server is going down in five minutes? Don’t mess with
‘net send’ any longer. Network Administrator can send that message to users in a flash.
Change network configuration
Want to switch 1000 hosts to DHCP? Have new DNS servers? No problem, with this
plugin you can change them in a few clicks
Daylight Saving Time Update
Easily update those older NT 4.1, Windows 2000, and XP machines to the latest DST
settings without being forced to purchase a $5000 patch from Microsoft.
Disable CDROM and DVD Drives
Keep users from installing unwanted software. Disable and enable their CDROM / DVD
drives with ease.
Disable CDROM and DVD Burning
Keep users from copying data off your network. Disable DVD and CD burning while
allowing users to still have read only access.

Set Excel 2007 to save in the older format
Having a problem with users sending Excel 2007 documents to people outside your
network? Reduce those help desk calls by forcing all of your Excel 2007 users to
automatically save in the 2003/XP format.
Folder copy
Have a set of shortcuts you want to copy to everyone’s desktop? Or a configuration file
you need to place on their C Drive? Use the folder copy plugin to copy files and folders
to many machines in just a few clicks.
Kill Processes
This plugin can kill a process by name across your network. Got a piece of spyware that
uses a common filename, but keeps randomizing a prefex? Use the wildcard feature to
zap them all
Manage Services
Stop, Start, and modify services using the manage services plugin
Change Power Management Settings
Save energy by making changes to the power management settings on computers across
your network
Remote Desktop Enabler
Have remote registry access to a remote machine, but remote desktop is disabled?

Remote desktop enabler can turn on remote desktop so you can get into that machine
asap.
Remote Desktop Port Set
Want to change the port Remote Desktop uses to listen for connections? Use this plugin
to change the port that Remote Desktop listens on.
Remote Execute
Got an MSI file you want to install silently on 100 machines? Network Administrator
can do it in a few clicks. Build batch files, or VBS files and easily execute them remotely.
Set Local Administrator Password
Resetting the domain administrator password is easy, but what happens when an
employee leaves the company and you have 50 machines with the same local
administrator password? Normally, you would walk around to each one and change it.
With the ‘Set Local Administrator Password’ feature you can change it across your
network without even getting out of your chair.
Set VNC Password
Use Tight VNC, or Real VNC on your network? Need to change the password on a 100 or
1000 machines? Network Administrator can change them all in one sweep of your
network.
Reboot or Shutdown Computers
Quickly shutdown, or reboot computers. You can even set a time limit before your action
takes place, and tell users why they need a reboot or shutdown.

Disable USB Flash Drives
Prevent access to USB flash drives, while allowing USB based keyboards, mice, and
scanners.
Windows Autologon
Set windows to automatically logon as a specific username and password.
Reset The Printer Spooler
Got a printer that corrupts printer jobs once in a while? Stop wasting time deleting them
by hand. Use this plugin to quickly clear out the jobs and get printing again.
We are adding features and plugins to this one all the time – so make sure you are on
subscribed to our newsletter to get the latest edition when it comes out. You can do that
by visiting our site here:
http://www.intelliadmin.com/index.php/subscribe/
Get the latest edition of Network Administrator from here:
http://www.intelliadmin.com/NetworkAdministrator.exe
Thanks for reading, and please feel free to send us comments or suggestions to
support@intelliadmin.com

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