Hot Buttered IT

Learn how to schedule an auto start for your PC without using
Wake on LAN.

In my previous article, I discussed how to calculate how much it is costing both you and your company leaving your computers powered on. I also showed you how to calculate potential savings by reducing the amount of time the computer is powered on. But leaving an organization’s computers powered off creates a quandary for I.T. staff. What about the need to remote to that computer to install software? What about the need to push out important patches and updates?

Well, one option is to purchase a utility that uses the Wake on LAN feature to automatically start the computers at a pre-scheduled time. Those of you not familiar with Wake on LAN, it uses a special network packet, the Magic packet, to send a signal to your Magic packet compliant network card. When the network card receives this packet, it automatically powers on the computer. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Well, you may discover that pushing out a Magic packet through versus subnets may not work according to plan. And, there is the cost of the software to do this. I’ve tried some free products but they were manual start ups one computer at a time, and not viable for a complex network. [Read more →]

Tags: BIOS, Hardware, Money Saving Tips, Utilities by simon
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FileMon is a free Microsoft utility which monitors and displays file system activity on a system.  This includes when  a file is opened, read, write or deleted. Like it’s sister utility RegMon, FileMon can be used if you suspect some Malware is residing on your computer, so you can monitor what’s occurring at your Windows based computer. And, you are doing this at very level.

For those working in an enterprise environment, it comes in handy when attempting to discover what specific files are written to during certain actions. This came in handy when I used an ADP time sheet program in which ADP insisted we provide local Administrator privileges for each user. Talk about trying to to take the easy way out. Using FileMon, I was able to determine that the time sheet program, called Etimesheet, created temp files when started. So, instead of allowing local Admin permissions for every person on our domain, I simply provided write permissions on the files and individual folders required for the program.

To see how FileMon works, watch my VIDEO.

Tags: Free Stuff, Software, Utilities, Windows by simon
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