Stuck at "Please wait for the Group Policy client..." on Windows 2008 R2

My fellow workmate and myself were working on a two servers that were recently handed over to us.

These servers had multiple nics. Did the usual checked and also change the network provider order to have the "production" network first, because this it the way I roll.

We both joined the servers to the domain, rebooted and everything was fine, could logon etc.
my workmates server was  Stuck at "Please wait for the Group Policy client..."

So did the usual ; trying to view remote event logs, force a remote shutdown (which didn't work).
Decided that it was the fact that the bind order was stopping the logon from working
(Tried remote netsh, that didnt work remotely for some reason, most likely me)

Solutions to fix the problem to allow logon:
Add the blue cable
Add network cable to all NICs on the box (I dont have physical access to the box)
this should give IP address to all NICs


Disable NICs in BIOS
If you in the BIOS disable network card this might also be a option

Remote Connection and Disable the NIC(S) via netsh

1. download psexec from microsoft
2. connect to remote server psexec \\<servername> cmd.exe
3. perform a netsh interface ip show config or ipconfig /all
4. review the network setup, write down the names of the unused NICs or NICS with 169.254 addresses
5. go and disable the nics for example netsh interface set interface "Local Area Connection 3" DISABLED

make sure you don't disable the NIC you are working off! (of course)

Solution to fix the issue:
 change the network provider order to have the "production" network first,

Seven Segment Ardunio Gear Display

Was discussing that there is a upgrade for a stock part that would allow my bike to have a seven segment gear display for my motorcycle.

with leanings from - http://www.stanford.edu/~sanjayd/gear_indicator.pdf

once I know it works might paste it on gstwin.com
here is the code - let me know if I need to pastebin

// assume 7segment anode common
// might need pulldown resistors on the gear inputs 8-13
// might need  a filter,etc for the inputs
// would really like to use a 4 bit to 7 segment toget away from using 1,2,13 inputs


int Gear1 = 8;
int Gear2 = 9;
int Gear3 = 10;
int Gear4 = 11;
int Gear5 = 12;
int Gear6 = 13;
int buttonState1 = 0;
int buttonState2 = 0;
int buttonState3 = 0;
int buttonState4 = 0;
int buttonState5 = 0;
int buttonState6 = 0;


void setup()
{
  pinMode(0,HIGH);
  pinMode(1,HIGH);
  pinMode(2,HIGH);
  pinMode(3,HIGH);
  pinMode(4,HIGH);
  pinMode(5,HIGH);
  pinMode(6,HIGH);
  pinMode(Gear1,INPUT);
  pinMode(Gear2,INPUT);
  pinMode(Gear3,INPUT);
  pinMode(Gear4,INPUT);
  pinMode(Gear5,INPUT);
  pinMode(Gear6,INPUT);

 }

void loop()
{
 PORTD=B0111111; // clear for no data aka netural
 buttonState1 = digitalRead(Gear1);
 buttonState2 = digitalRead(Gear2);
 buttonState3 = digitalRead(Gear3);
 buttonState4 = digitalRead(Gear4);
 buttonState5 = digitalRead(Gear5);
 buttonState6 = digitalRead(Gear6);
 if (buttonState1>0){PORTD=B1111001;} // 1
 if (buttonState2>0){PORTD=B0100100;} // 2
 if (buttonState3>0){PORTD=B0110000;} // 3
 if (buttonState4>0){PORTD=B0011001;} // 4
 if (buttonState5>0){PORTD=B0010010;} // 5
 if (buttonState6>0){PORTD=B0000010;} // 6
 delay(500);        // delay in between reads for stability
}

Updated MP4 to MP3 Script

Wanted to add some metadata to the mp3 I created from mp4s.
so. But for some reason yet to be investigated windows 8 cant seem to find my metadata.
VLC is happy.


REM FORMAT REQ <name-nospace><space><minus><space><songname><.mp4ext>
REM EG 'coolkids - i like to rock.mp4'
for /f "tokens=1,* delims=-" %%a in ('dir *.mp4 /b') do (call :makemusic %%a "%%b")
goto :eof

:makemusic
set str=%2%
set artist=%1%
REM %str:~2,-5% is used to strip the quotemarks and filename
set title=%str:~2,-5%

REM UPDATE WITH YOUR CORRECT PATH TO FFMPEG
G:\music\ffmpeg.exe -i "%1 - %title%.mp4" -vn -ar 44100 -ac 2 -ab 192000 -f mp3 -metadata title="%title%" -metadata artist="%artist%" "%1 - %title%.mp3"
REM <need command that will allow normalise the sound levels> :eof

Chrome shockwave flash Plugin Not Responding

As per http://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=108086
love the known issues !
been getting issue at home and work where it would not respond. @#$@#$
so I have switch over to the system version of flash. (do at ur own risk !)

if you are missing the extra flash (ie only see the pepperflash)
need to download the opera\firefox version of flash

1. Do you have a different operating system or browser?
2. Step 1 - choose Windows...
3. Step 2 - choose Flash Player for Other Browsers
4. download install,etc
5. then enable it in chrome://plugins as above
6. 
   

HyperV Expand Disk powershell

Expand Disk

# Assumes that there is only 1 'disk' and 1 object
$TVM = get-vm | where-object { $_.vmelementname -like "*wallace1"}
#Shut down server so that we can expand disk
shutdown-vm  $TVM -wait
#locate the disk
$TDisk=$TVM | get-vmdisk | where-object{ $_.drivename -eq "Hard Drive"}
#Expand the disk
Expand-VHD $TDisk.diskpath 25gb -wait
#Power server back online 
$TVM | Start-vm -wait

next step is to set it to loop thru each server, then power down, expand the C: drive only to 45GB.


$TVM = get-vm
$TVD = $TVM | get-vmdisk | where-object{ $_.drivename -eq "Hard Drive" -AND $_.Controllername -eq "IDE Controller 0" -AND $_.DriveLUN -eq 0}
$TVM |Foreach-object {Shutdown-vm -wait}
$TVD |Foreach-object {Expand-VHD $_.diskpath 45GB -wait}


Expand Disk on Windows 2012 (of course the commands change)

get-vm | get-vmharddiskdrive | foreach-object {resize-vhd $_.path -sizebyte 80GB}

till next time.

Powershell - remove user from list of groups

#
# remove user from list of groups
#
#

get-content "C:\app\lols.txt" | % {get-adgroup $_ | remove-adgroupmember  -Member dgoodlif -Credential $myadmin -confirm y}

String Stuff with Powershell UNC

Striping servername from a UNC path
PS> $path = \\chicken\scrambled

PS >$servername=$path.Substring(2,$path.Substring(2).indexof("\"))

PS>$servername
chicken

2,$path.Substring(2).indexof("\")
=
2 # start cut @ position 2
$path.Substring(2) #then search from 2 position
.indexof("\") # search for \ in postion

My regex query to get server name
$path -match "[^/\\\]\[]+"
$matches.Values