Network Audit and Documentation, CENTREL Solutions Blog

With the development of version 4.1 XIA Configuration is able to store external documents within the XIA Configuration database. This has been asked for to allow manual free form information such as word documents and visio network diagrams to be stored along side existing automated information generated by the XIA Configuration Client Details can be automated extracted for many document types Access control and version control are automatically available for all external resources managed by XIA Configuration. New resources can be created easily by selecting the resource file from the file system using the same interface as with other manual item types.

For more information on the Windows Server documentation abilities of XIA Configuration please see the following Document and Audit User Rights Assignment with XIA Configuration We've recently been asked about the auditing of User Rights Assignment as seen in the Local Group Policy Editor. Having looked into this issue it is apparent that this cannot be done with any high level API such as WMI and requires the use of P/Invoke and the Win32 method LsaEnumerateAccountsWithUserRight. I've seen many posts on the Internet on the topic but I haven't seen a simplified example of this in use so have writen a quick C# sample application to enumerate the various rights and privileges and display the users assigned to that right in a grouped listview as per the screenshot below. This can be downloaded from our web site in Visual Studio 2010 format http://www.centrel-solutions.com/support/tools.aspx?feature=auditrights The sample supports the following Pr...

With the development of XIA Configuration version 4.1 we are adding support for network switches This will help customers in a number of ways including detecting incorrectly configured port and duplex settings, finding out what devices are connecting to a network switch and how switches are linked to each other as well as being able to audit the manufacturer, model and serial number of supported devices. As with all item types within XIA Configuration customers can expect Change tracking Version control PDF output  Item level security The agent uses standard SNMP to communicate with network switches and can be configured to detect the devices using a broadcast address or network range. For more information see Document and Audit Network Switches with XIA Configuration

XIA Configuration Server 2012 Release XIA Configuration Server 2012 (Version 4.0) is now being released - this is a major new release that builds on the success of previous versions of XIA Configuration and continues to expand it's agent capabilities and other functionality Version 4.0 adds support for Documentation of Remote Desktop and Remote Assistance Settings Terminal Services Configuration Improved XIA Configuration Cloud Hosting Custom Attribute Extensibility Item Creation Rules  Item History management Improved Item Comparison User Interface New Terminal Server Support      Document Terminal Server Configuration with XIA Configuration 2012 Extensibility CMDB support to extend the information you can store for items CMDB extensibility with XIA Configuration 2012

Having come accross the problem before that Visual Studio 2010 web deployment projects do not remote the App_Data folder even though you have checked the box to do exactly that I have today found myself trying to find what the resolution was again so thought I would blog about it partially for your benefit but also for my own sanity should I need this information again. Open the file C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\WebDeployment\v10.0\Microsoft.WebDeployment.targets Locate the following section and add in the missing red backslash         <!--         Removing APP_DATA is done here so that the output groups reflect the fact that App_data is         not present         -->         <RemoveDir Condition="'$(DeleteAppDataFolder)' == 'true'" Directories="$(TempBuildDir) \ App_Data"/> ...

We've often been asked how to document the Remote Desktop and Remote assistance settings on Windows PCs and Servers. These settings can pose a potential security risk. We are currently working on the documentation of full Remote Desktop (Terminal Servers) and this is forming part of that work. We intend to document the settings of each terminal including client, environment, security and network etc as well as session (connection) broker settings. More advanced Windows 2008 features such as RemoteApp are likely to be included. From here we are looking to extend this support to Citrix. A sneak preview of the support for Remote Desktop and Remote Assistance is here - this information is integrated into the UI for Windows PCs and Windows Servers. Document Windows Server Configuration

I was recently asked to help with an issue in a school running Office 2010 locked down by Group Policy. Every single time that Outlook was launched as a user and then exited / closed from the close button, file exit etc. the application crashed. After looking into the antivirus, all the plugins etc the following Group Policy setting was found to be causing the issue. User Configuration GPO Microsoft Outlook 2010/Disable Items in User Interface/Predefined/Disable Quick Steps Gallery Hopefully this may help someone