I was writing some more backup scripts. I wanted to save the files by the date.

This will format the date in a command line as MM/DD/YYYY

%date:~4,2%-%date:~7,2%-%date:~10,4%

Attached is a document from AppDeploy.com with the InstallShield commands. Very useful.

InstallShield Setup Parameters.pdf

Command Line to Schedule Tasks in XP:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313565

For example, to run test.bat everyday at 11:00PM:

at 23:00 /every:M,T,W,Th,F c:\test.bat

I’m working on a couple of batch files for backups and I needed a way to send logs if it fails. This looks very promising and will be looking into it further.

http://www.blat.net

Syntax for my purposes:

blat.exe -server [SERVER[:PORT]] -u [USERNAME] -pw [PASSWORD] -f [FROM_ADDRESS] -to [RECIPIENT] -subject "[SUBJECT]" -body "[BODY]"

I have been working on several family members computers lately. Many of them having either expired AntiVirus and/or no AntiSpyware. As a general rule here is the software that I install to protect personal computers. General rules for Windows XP.

Grisoft AVG 8.0 Free Edition
http://free.grisoft.com

Microsoft Windows Defender
http://www.microsoft.com/defender

McAfee SiteAdvisor
http://www.siteadvisor.com

Mozilla Firefox
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox

Your family would have to be looking at porn everyday to get infected after these changes. I haven’t had a problem. The AVG is set to run its full scan at 11PM so it doesn’t interfere with anything.

One problem I have had is that many websites require Internet Explorer instead of Firefox. An addon “User Agent Switcher” for Firefox will fool the website into thinking that you are using Internet Explorer and show the content anyways. I’m still testing but I think its an interesting, and very useful addon.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59

Simply run:

echo y|chkdsk c: /x > NUL

Now when the computer retarts it will run a CHKDSK on drive C: and restart.