Misc

Better IIS Logging

Brad — Fri, 16 May 2008 10:36:58 GMT

I was recently trying to check if IIS's SMTP sever was working correctly. To help I turned on the logging, leaving the default "W3C Extended Log Format" selected. I sent the test email and checked the log - to say it was unhelpful is an understatement! I was wrongly assuming that "extended" format meant it would have more information than the other logging formats which didn't have "extended" in their name!

Enter Steve who suggested I change the format to Microsoft IIS Log File Format (shown in the image below). I did, and the log file was suddenly completely what I was expecting and I could straight away see what I needed (the 'TO' email address in this case).

The above principle also works for normal web site logging to!

RDP: Keyboard Shortcuts

Brad — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 13:29:36 GMT

I recently stumbled across these Remote Desktop keyboard shortcuts so thought I'd share them...

RDP Session	Local Equivalent	Description
CTRL + ALT + END	CTRL + ALT + DEL	Windows Security Dialog
CTRL + ALT + BREAK	(none)	Toggle RDP from window to Full Screen
ALT + INSERT	CTRL + ALT + TAB	Cycle through running programs
ALT + HOME	WINDOWS	Open Start Menu
ALT + DELETE	ALT + SPACEBAR	Open Control Menu
CTRL + ALT + (num pad) MINUS	ALT + PRNT SCREEN	Places image of active window on Clipboard
CTRL + ALT + (num pad) PLUS	PRNT SCREEN	Places image of entire desktop on Clipboard

If anyone has any others let me know...

Connect to console using RDP

Brad — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 09:47:33 GMT

If you've ever got the following annoying message when trying to RDP to a remote server:

"The terminal server has exceeded the maximum number of allowed connections. The system cannot log you on. Please try again or consult your system administrator"

Then normally you've got to either ask another user to log off (not easy if its a remote server) or wait for them to. A little known trick is to use the following command line parameter when launching remote desktop: /console

From the command prompt type:

mstsc /console

This will launch it in console mode, which in layman's terms means you'll be connecting to the server as if you were sat right in front of it, not a terminal server session which is the default (its worth noting that bar a registry hack XP doesn't allow virtual sessions - you always connect to the console - which is why if you remote desktop to an XP machine it will log off any other users)

If you find this useful it might be worth changing the shortcut in your start menu to include the parameter /console, otherwise you'll need to remember to launch RDP from the command line each time.