Exchange 2003, Purge and Reconnect greyed out

Ok, so I'm a total noob with this exchange stuff.  I recently had an issue where a mailbox didn't delete when a user was deleted.  I was able to locate the mailbox in the Exchange System Manager.
(btw the path to the user store is admin groups, location, exchange server the account resides on, storage group, mailboxes)
When I would right click on the broken email box, I had Reconnect and Purge greyed out.  Turns out you have to run the cleanup agent first.
Right click on Mailboxes and the top option is Run Cleanup Agent.  When its done, you'll see a red x by the disconnected mailbox, you can now reconnect or purge the account.

Excel formula to get percentage for the last value in column Excel 2007

Recently I was working on an excel sheet that needed to compare the current value to the start value.  The list is updated monthly so the column is constantly expanding.  After some searching I came up with the following formula:
=INDEX(A:A,MATCH(9.99999999999999E+307,A:A))/A#

Replace the red letter A's with the column you are working with.
Example, if the data is in column E, the formula would look like this:
=INDEX(E:E,MATCH(9.99999999999999E+307,E:E))

Replace the green A# with the static reference cell.

The way I had this setup was to have the original data along with the % up at the top of my page, the cells below would have the running data.

this creates a dynamic formula that can replace:
= (cell1) / (cell2).

How do I get Contacts at the bottom of the Task window in outlook you ask?

Its quite simple actually.
These directions are using Outlook 2007
Tools>Options>Preferences Tab>Contact Options>Contact Linking>put a check in Show Contact Linking on all Forms

Boom
You now have Contacts on the bottom of the Task window.  I had a user request this, otherwise I would never have known this was something you can do, or would want to do, in Outlook.

Forwarding user mail Exchange 2003

First, be connected to the exchange server.
Go into Active Directory Users and Computers
Locate user (right click domain>find)
Right click user>properties
Exchange General tab
Select the Delivery Options button
under Forwarding address, select Forward to: and click modify
type in the name the emails should go to and click Check Names
Ok out and you're all done.
You also have the option to Deliver messages to both forwarding address and mailbox, if you want both people to receive the emails, select this option.
You have now forwarded emails from the located user to the selected user.

boom goes the dynamite

Dell Server, F1 to continue F2 to enter setup utility

System: PowerEdge700
Problem: Beeps really loud and says F1 to continue, F2 to enter setup with no reason why.

F1 will go straight to windows no problem.  Every reboot I get this beep and F1...F2...
After some searching I found out it was because I moved the drives from the onboard SATA to a PCI card so I could add more drives in the server.
I simply had to disable the onboard port I was not longer using.  The server was originally using 2 drives, in both the onboard SATA ports.  This could have saved me a ton of reboot headaches if I found it out sooner, that BEEP is really loud...

Oh, so to disable the port, hit F2 to get into the setup menu, then arrow down to the Sata Port you're no longer using, hit the Space bar to change it, then Space again to turn it off, then Esc out.

"There are other users logged on to this computer."

"There are other users logged on to this computer.

If you uninstall this program while another user is running it, the program might not uninstall completely."

I'm working on a server that is currently out of space.  So I'm going through programs and seeing what I can uninstall when I get that message about other users being logged in and the uninstall might not run correctly.
So I tried to log off, and couldn't.
I checked with everyone else and no one was logged into the server.
I found that I can see who is logged in through the Terminal Services Manager
(click Start, click Control Panel, double-click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Terminal Services Manager. (and yes I'm a noob))
I was able to log everyone off (there was one disconnected session) and continue with my uninstallation.  This time no error.
To log off the other user, you simply right click the user and select Log Off.
This may have happened by disconnecting RDP sessions instead of logging off first.
Hope this helps someone out there!

Updating root hints on the DNS server

As I mentioned in my previous post, root hints are easier when you have DNS servers in multiple locations.  You set all the root hints you want manually on one server, and you can pull that list to each of the other servers instead of manually entering in all the addresses.  There might be a newer, better way to do this, but I work in a 2003 environment, so this is how I did it.

Copied the following directions from here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc757965(v=ws.10).aspx

To update root hints on the DNS server

1. Open DNS.
   
2. In the console tree, click the applicable DNS server.
   
3. On the Action menu, click Properties.
   
4. Click the Root Hints tab.
   
5. Modify server root hints as follows:
   
   
   • To add a root server to the list, click Add, and then specify the name and IP address of the server to be added to the list.
     
   • To modify a root server in the list, click Edit, and then specify the name and IP address of the server to be modified in the list.
     
   • To remove a root server from the list, select it in the list, and then click Remove.
     
   • To copy root hints from a DNS server, click Copy from server, and then specify the IP address of the DNS server from which you want to copy a list of root servers to use in resolving queries. These root hints will not overwrite any existing root hints.

 

That last one is what you would do to all the additional DNS servers.  Copy from server.

DNS Root Hints and Forwarders

I work in a small office with multiple remote offices.
The offices are connected by MPLS, but each office holds its own ISP.
I found that using Root Hints, and no fowarders worked just fine.
I used the following public servers in Root Hints:
a.root-servers.net
b.root-servers.net
c.root-servers.net
d.root-servers.net
e.root-servers.net
f.root-servers.net
g.root-servers.net
h.root-servers.net
i.root-servers.net
j.root-servers.net
 k.root-servers.net
l.root-servers.net
m.root-servers.net

I like this way because I can set the DNS on one server and pull it to all the other servers without having to manually enter each address or forwarder.

list of other Root Hint DNS servers:
MIT:
4.4.4.1
4.4.4.2
4.2.2.3
4.2.2.4
4.2.2.5
4.2.2.6

SpeakEasy Nameservers
66.93.87.2
216.231.41.2
216.254.95.2
64.81.45.2
64.81.111.2
64.81.127.2
64.81.79.2
64.81.159.2
66.92.64.2
66.92.224.2
66.92.159.2
64.81.79.2
64.81.159.2
64.81.127.2
64.81.45.2
216.27.175.2
66.92.159.2
66.93.87.2

ORSC Public Access DNS Nameservers
199.166.24.253
199.166.27.253
199.166.28.10
199.166.29.3
199.166.31.3
195.117.6.25
204.57.55.100

Sprintlink
204.117.214.10
199.2.252.10
204.97.212.10

Cisco
128.107.241.185
192.135.250.69

Google:
8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4

Outlook new message envelope missing

When a new message comes in, there will be an envelope in the system tray.  Users can hide this notification by accident.
To bring it back, follow this path:
Tools>Options>Preferences Tab>Email Options button>Advanced E-mail Options button
Under "When new items arrive in my inbox" make sure "Show an envelope icon in the notification area" check box is checked.

If this is checked and its still not showing, the icon is probably hidden, click the arrow to expand the system tray.

Pull computer information remotely in cmd, using WMIC

I recently had a request to pull the serial number for one of our remote workstation.  I wouldn't be able to get hands on the machine, and figured I should be able to do this without calling the user and asking them to flip over their machine.
Enter WMIC
My first search "serial number through cmd" brought me to this site:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/aviraj/archive/2010/08/13/how-to-find-a-machine-serial-number-from-command-prompt-using-wmi.aspx
where I learned the run command was
wmic bios get serialnumber

So I tried it on my computer, success, I got my serial number.  Now... how do I go about getting another computers serial number?  Remember, I would like to avoid calling the user in this scenario.

So I looked up WMIC and found Microsoft's write up on the subject.
Here is Microsoft's write up of WMIC and what it can do:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb742610.aspx

Under the "Putting WMIC to work" section they have this bit of scripting:
LISTING 1: Code to Display
Results at the
Console from a WMIC Batch File
wmic /node:SERVER1, SERVER4
     cpu get name, caption,
     maxclockspeed, systemname
     /format:textvaluelist.xsl

The part I bolded contained my answer.
The script I ran looked like this:
wmic /node:(computer's ip address) bios get serialnumber
I tried going through the computer name here, but it didn't work.

UPDATE:
I've been poking around with this wmic and figured I could get HDD processor and memory information to start building an upgrade list.
I used these commands to get the info I wanted:

HDD size: wmic /node:(ip address) diskdrive get size

Total installed memory: wmic /node:(ip address) computersystem get totalphysicalmemory

Processor Type:wmic /node:(ip address) cpu get name

Installed Software: wmic /node:(ip address) product get name,version

I had to get software for multiple computers, so instead of copying everything out of the command prompt, I ran this script:

Installed software export to file: wmic /output:c:\(path) /node:(ip address) product get name,version

I supposed one day I'll be able to script these better, but for now I'm running CMD as a network admin account (instead of just running normal, or running as admin, I ran as other user)

Word stacks letters on top of each other

Or, why does word say I have more characters than I can see?
I came across a strange one today.
User had a word document that showed it had 100s of words, but only took up about a page.  And the page looked like one of those secret government files where names and locations have been blacked out.  Or word was showing strange characters or something like that.
After a little google-fu I found highlighting all the text and changing the font or font size brought everything back.