November 2012

If you want to control which websites can be accessed from one or more computers a PAC file solution can be used.

The PAC file is a fairly simple file containing information on which sites can or cant be accessed – depending on what your needs are. This means you can set up a solution where all websites can be accessed except from the ones in your PAC file or you can setup a solution where all websites are blocked except from the ones in the PAC file.

In Internet Explorer you then have to enable the “Use automatic configuration script” under Tools > Internet Options > Connections > LAN Setting and then point to the location of your PAC file. The PAC file can be placed both locally or on a webserver.

Example of a PAC file where only the sites *.google.com, *.facebook.com and *.msn.com can be accessed (Proxy.pac):

function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
 {
// variable strings to return
 var access = "PROXY servername.domain.com:8080";
 var noaccess = "PROXY 127.0.0.1:80";
 if (shExpMatch(host, "*.google.com")) { return access; }
 if (shExpMatch(host, "*.facebook.com")) { return access; }
 if (shExpMatch(host, "*.msn.com")) { return access; }
 // Proxy anything else
 return noaccess;
 }

Example of a PAC file where the above sites are blocked and all other sites can be accessed.

function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
 {
// variable strings to return
 var access = "PROXY servername.domain.com:8080";
 var noaccess = "PROXY 127.0.0.1:80";
 if (shExpMatch(host, "*.google.com")) { return noaccess; }
 if (shExpMatch(host, "*.facebook.com")) { return noaccess; }
 if (shExpMatch(host, "*.msn.com")) { return noaccess; }
 // Proxy anything else
 return access;
 }

This guide will tell you how to make a bootable USB. To make the bootable USB you need to use DISKPART which comes with Windows. Its important tho that you use either Windows Vista or Windows 7 otherwise DISKPART cant detect your USB key as a drive.

Start your command prompt and type diskpart – this will open a new diskpart window. The rest is shown in the screendump below.

When doing automated reboots using shutdown.exe in my scripts i sometimes need to change back the default shutdown option so the user will have “Shutdown” as the default selection in the shutdown box.

The shutdown setting determining the default shutdown option – (log off, shutdown, restart, standby, hibernate, disconnect) can be found in the registry under current user settings.

Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
Value: Shutdown Setting
Type: REG_DWORD
Radix: Hex
Data: 00000002

The possible values for Shutdown Setting are:

00000001 = Log Off
00000002 = Shut Down
00000004 = Restart
00000010 = Stand By
00000020 = Stand By (with wakeup events disabled)
00000040 = Hibernate
00000080 = Disconnect (only available in Terminal Services sessions)