Atlanta .NET Regular Guys

Disable Windows Server 2003 Shutdown Event Tracker

I was working in a VPC, installing SharePoint 2007 and the new beta Office tools.  The number of reboots wasn't painful or anything, but I am seriously sick of the Windows Server 2003 Shutdown Event Tracker. 

 

A quick look around online and I found that by following these steps I was able to stop myself from unnecessary pain:

1. From Window's Start menu, select Run and enter GPEDIT.MSC
2. From the Group Policy Object Editor, expand Computer Configuration | Administrative Templates | System
3. Double-click Display Shutdown Event Tracker from the System Setting list
4. Select the Disabled option button
5. Click OK
6. Close Group Policy Object Editor

Thanks to Charles Maxson of the Office Zealot blog, particularly this post, for the above answer.  I even nicked his screenshot!

HowTo: Unblock restricted file attachments in Microsoft Outlook

Occasionally this is a frustration for some of my users.  They want to be able to send and receive files which are normally restricted.  Executables, batch files, registry files, etc.  Rather than try to instruct them in the fine arts of ZIP and FTP, I'd rather just open their machines up to catastrophic possibilities and grant them the ability to send and receive these files.  This is purely motivated by me not wanting to be hassled with this anymore.
There are two security levels built into Outlook when it comes to file attachments.  The first level is configurable by the user - these attachments can be saved from an e-mail message to the machine's hard drive.  The second set of security restrictions is more strict - no file in this group is allowed to be interacted with in Outlook.  You simply can not send or receive these files and there is no way to change this.
Well, there actually IS a way to change it, but nothing out of the box.  If you want to change the Outlook file attachments security levels, you can either download the Outlook Permissions Add-in or you can make the following changes to your systems registry:

1. Start...Run..."regedit"
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Security
4. Create a new string value called Level1Remove
5. Enter in the file extensions you want to use, such as .exe or .bat
6. You can have multiple file types separated by a semicolon like this: ".exe;.com"

The following are a list of the file attachments that are restricted by default
.ade            Microsoft Access project extension
.adp            Microsoft Access project
.asx            Windows Media Audio / Video
.bas            Microsoft Visual Basic class module
.bat            Batch file
.chm           Compiled HTML Help file
.cmd           Microsoft Windows NT Command script
.com           Microsoft MS-DOS program
.cpl            Control Panel extension
.crt            Security certificate
.exe            Program
.hlp            Help file
.hta            HTML program
.inf            Setup Information
.ins            Internet Naming Service
.isp            Internet Communication settings
.js             JScript file
.jse            Jscript Encoded Script file
.lnk            Shortcut
.mdb            Microsoft Access program
.mde            Microsoft Access MDE database
.msc            Microsoft Common Console document
.msi            Microsoft Windows Installer package
.msp            Microsoft Windows Installer patch
.mst            Microsoft Windows Installer transform; Microsoft Visual Test source file
.pcd            Photo CD image; Microsoft Visual compiled script
.pif            Shortcut to MS-DOS program
.prf            Microsoft Outlook profile settings
.reg            Registration entries
.scf            Windows Explorer command
.scr            Screen saver
.sct            Windows Script Component
.shb            Shell Scrap object
.shs            Shell Scrap object
.url            Internet shortcut

The above registry list and file extensions were taken from here.