Tag Archives: application

Sure, Wbemtest.exe is pretty neat, and it gets points for being built-in. http://blogs.technet.com/b/chad/archive/2012/03/08/tip-45-wbemtest-the-underappreciated-tool.aspx

Microsoft's Wbemtest.exe displaying a WMI query

Microsoft’s Wbemtest.exe displaying a WMI query

But when it comes to building WMI queries for use in scripting languages, Microsoft’s WMI Code Creator is even slicker. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2006.01.utilityspotlight.aspx

The WMI Code Creator tool allows you to generate VBScript, C#, and VB .NET code that uses WMI to complete a management task such as querying for management data, executing a method from a WMI class, or receiving event notifications using WMI.
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/scriptcenter/dd823314.aspx

Microsoft's WMI Code Creator displaying a WMI query and VBScript

Microsoft’s WMI Code Creator displaying a WMI query and VBScript (click for full-size)

The tool also allows you to browse through the available WMI namespaces and classes on the local computer to find their descriptions, properties, methods, and qualifiers.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8572

The WMI Code Creator utility can be downloaded from microsoft.com at WMI Code Creator v1.0.

I recently reinstalled Windows 7 and then VM Workstation 7 on a machine that I’d been using as a VMware Workstation host running an XP virtual machine. The VM is named “XP-Office2007” and it resides on a separate physical hard drive in the machine. Since the reinstall, upon clicking the “Power on this virtual machine” link, VMware returns a cryptic “Internal error.” and fails to start the VM.

VMware Workstation - Internal error.

VMware Workstation - Internal error.

The vmware log in %temp% had the following entries:

Mar 01 09:28:46.750: vmui| CVMUIStatusVM::OnPowerVM clicked
Mar 01 09:28:46.920: vmui-1176| /vm/#6f7088f493f32788/: VMHSVMCbPower: Setting state of VM to powerOn with option hard
Mar 01 09:28:46.921: vmui-1176| VMHSGetVMX failed: Empty vmxFilePath
Mar 01 09:28:46.921: vmui-1176| VMHSLaunchVM failed: VMDB failure
Mar 01 09:28:46.957: vmui| Internal VMDB error: VMDB failure
Mar 01 09:28:46.957: vmui| Internal error.
Mar 01 09:28:46.957: vmui| VMDlg::ShowDialog: Internal error.

Of course, I immediately started Googling these errors and failure messages, but found very little. At least one page indicated that a similar sounding problem wasn’t resolved by re-installing VMware. I like to think I’m pretty decent with VMware, so I decided I’d roll up my sleeves, dig into the VM, and try to figure it out.

Trying to get lightning to strike twice, I tried my old standby fix of editing the name of the hard drive in the *.vmx file. Instead of pointing the IDE drive to the “XP-Office2007-000001.vmdk” file, I moved that file out of my VM directory and then changed the ide0:0.fileName value to point to the older *.vmdk file, named “XP-Office2007.vmdk”. The IDE lines now looked like this:

ide0:0.present = "TRUE"
ide0:0.fileName = "XP-Office2007.vmdk"
ide1:0.present = "TRUE"
ide1:0.fileName = "E:"

When the machine was powered on, it still failed, but with a different and more descriptive error:

VMware Workstation - Unable to open file

VMware Workstation - Unable to open file

VMware Workstation
Unable to open file “D:\VMware\Virtual Machines\XP-Office2007\XP-Office2007.vmdk”: One of the disks in this virtual machine is already in use by a virtual machine or by a snapshot.

The more verbose message from the vmware log in %temp% read:

Mar 01 10:31:22.814: vmui| CVMUIStatusVM::OnPowerVM clicked
Mar 01 10:31:23.016: vmui-3992| SNAPSHOT: SnapshotDiskTreeAddFromSnapshot: Trying to add snapshot XP-Office2007-Snapshot2.vmsn to disk D:\VMware\Virtual Machines\XP-Office2007\XP-Office2007.vmdk which already has snapshot currentState.
Mar 01 10:31:23.016: vmui-3992| Cannot open D:\VMware\Virtual Machines\XP-Office2007\XP-Office2007.vmdk of type disk: One of the disks in this virtual machine is already in use by a virtual machine or by a snapshot.
Mar 01 10:31:23.016: vmui-3992| Cmd /vm/#6f7088f493f32788/cmd/##94/op/checkMissingFiles/ failed: Unable to open file "D:\VMware\Virtual Machines\XP-Office2007\XP-Office2007.vmdk": One of the disks in this virtual machine is already in use by a virtual machine or by a snapshot.
Mar 01 10:31:23.016: vmui| Unable to open file "D:\VMware\Virtual Machines\XP-Office2007\XP-Office2007.vmdk": One of the disks in this virtual machine is already in use by a virtual machine or by a snapshot.
Mar 01 10:31:23.016: vmui| VMDlg::ShowDialog: Unable to open file "D:\VMware\Virtual Machines\XP-Office2007\XP-Office2007.vmdk": One of the disks in this virtual machine is already in use by a virtual machine or by a snapshot.

I copied only the *.vmx and *.vmdk files into a new folder and tried to launch the *vmx as a new VM, but got the Internal error message again. This was something of a relief, as it suggested that the problem wasn’t with the VM itself.

I tried to create a new, empty virtual machine using the New Virtual Machine Wizard, but the process didn’t complete. After setting up the basic machine, I clicked the Finish button in the wizard, but the window did not close. The *.vmx and *.vmdk files were created, however. When I closed the window with the red X and tried to power on the VM, I got the same Internal error message.

I found a VMware community article suggesting that I needed to run Windows Updates on the host. This seemed logical, as perhaps the old host had more recent updates, but I found that the current host was up to date.

As I was running out of ideas, I decided that maybe re-installing Workstation was worth a shot, so I first checked in SCCM Software Center and found it had a Failed status. I then looked in Windows Programs and Features and found it wasn’t listed at all.

I reinstalled Workstation from Software Center and lo and behold, the VMs powered up normally. If I’d just kept my self-confidence in check, I would probably have gotten around to verifying the install much sooner.

As part of a migration from Windows XP to Windows 7, I was asked to come up with a way to export the network printers installed on the XP machines such that they could be reinstalled on the Windows 7 machines. We did not want to capture local printers (printers installed via TCP/IP or connected via USB) or virtual printers (like the Adobe PDF virtual printer or the Microsoft XPS Document Writer). I thought that migrating the printers was less attractive because the source machines are 32-bit Windows XP but the destination machines are 64-bit Windows 7 and the drivers are therefore different.

There are a number of ways to export print queues, printer settings, and printer ports, but for my purposes, I decided that all I wanted was to determine the name of each printer (eg.: \\SERVER\Printer) on the XP machine, export that to a text file on a network share, and then run PrintUI.exe /ga on the Windows 7 machine, looping through the lines from the text file as input.

(Check out the Printer Migration wizard by launching PrintBrmUI.exe, or the command line version %WINDIR%\System32\Spool\Tools\Printbrm /?, for alternatives to printui.exe.)

As an added benefit, I’m also exporting the name of the default printer so that it can be set programatically in the new environment.

The code is a work in progress, but I hope it helps get your started.

The VBScripts

Here are the scripts I’ve pieced together.

exportPrinters.vbs

The exportPrinters.vbs script creates two text files in H:\PRINTERS, so adjust your path accordingly.

Const ForWriting = 2

Set objNetwork = CreateObject("Wscript.Network")

strName = objNetwork.UserName
strDomain = objNetwork.UserDomain
strUser = strDomain & "\" & strName

'strText = strUser & vbCrLf

strComputer = "."

Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")


' Export a list of network printers to a text file

Set colPrinters = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
    ("Select * From Win32_Printer Where Local = FALSE")

For Each objPrinter in colPrinters
    strText = strText & objPrinter.Name & vbCrLf
Next

Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

strFolder = "H:\PRINTERS"

If Not objFSO.FolderExists(strFolder) Then
    objFSO.CreateFolder(strFolder)
End If

Set objFile = objFSO.CreateTextFile _
    ("H:\PRINTERS\printers.txt", ForWriting, False)

objFile.Write strText

objFile.Close


' Export the default printer separately

Set colPrinters = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
    ("Select * From Win32_Printer Where Default = TRUE")

For Each objPrinter in colPrinters
    strText = objPrinter.Name
Next

Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

Set objFile = objFSO.CreateTextFile _
    ("H:\PRINTERS\default.txt", ForWriting, False)

objFile.Write strText

objFile.Close

importPrinters.vbs

Note that, if your users in Windows 7 are not administrators, you will need to run the script as an administrator (there are a few different ways) or else you’ll get a UAC prompt for each printer installation and the restarting of the print spooler.

Again, watch the paths. This is a home-grown script for my specific environment.

Option Explicit

'This script must be run with administor privileges
'If it is not run with administrator privileges, it will launch a UAC prompt for each printer as it loops through the list
'Here's an interesting article about running VBS as a different user:
'http://blogs.technet.com/b/heyscriptingguy/archive/2006/04/28/how-can-i-use-the-runas-command-to-run-a-script-under-alternate-user-credentials.aspx

'For example:
'runas /profile /user:[username]\[password] "cscript.exe \"F:\Printer Driver Research\Automation\printers-import.vbs"\"

Dim objNetwork, strComputer, strName, strFolder, objFSO, strTextFile, strData, strLine, arrLines, strRunCmd, WshShell
CONST ForReading = 1

'Create a Network Object
Set objNetwork = CreateObject("Wscript.Network") 

'Get the local machine name from the Network Object
strComputer = objNetwork.ComputerName 

'Get the user's username from the Network Object
strName = objNetwork.UserName

'Create a File System Object
Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

'Save the name of the text file as a variable 
'Note that the script must be run as an administrator and that invoking the script with
'Run As causes the script to run as though it's located in the same directory as "%SystemRoot%\System32\WScript.exe"
'Hence the need to pass the full path to the printers.txt file
strTextFile = "H:\PRINTERS\printers.txt"

'Open the text file - strData now contains the whole file
strData = objFSO.OpenTextFile(strTextFile,ForReading).ReadAll

'Split the text file into lines
arrLines = Split(strData,vbCrLf)

'Initialize the wshShell
Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WSCript.shell")

'Step through the lines
For Each strLine in arrLines

    If Len(strLine) > 0 Then
		'Only run the process on lines that aren't blank
		
'		strRunCmd = "rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /ga /c\\" & strComputer & " /n" & strLine & ""
		strRunCmd = """printui.exe"" /ga /q /c\\" & strComputer & " /n" & strLine & ""
		
		'Echo back the command to be run
'		WScript.Echo strRunCmd

		'This launches printui.exe
'		strRunCmd = """printui.exe"""

		'Run the command, display the window, and wait for the command to complete before continuing
		Dim result
		result = WshShell.Run(strRunCmd, 1, True)
		
'		WScript.Echo result
		
		'Write to the application log that the printer was installed
		If result = 0 Then 
			WshShell.LogEvent 0, "User: " & strName & " - Event: attempted to install printer " & strLine & " with [" & strRunCmd & "] (success unknown)"
		End If
		
'		WScript.Echo "Processed printer: " & strLine
    End If

Next

'Cleanup
Set objFSO = Nothing

'Wait 10 seconds
WScript.Sleep 10000

'Restart the Print Spooler
RestartService "Print Spooler", True

Sub RestartService( myService, blnQuiet )
' This subroutine restarts a service
' Arguments:
' myService     use the service's DisplayName
' blnQuiet      if False, the state of the service is displayed
'               every second during the restart procedure
'
' Written by Rob van der Woude
' http://www.robvanderwoude.com

    ' Standard housekeeping
    Dim colServices, colServicesTest, objService
    Dim objServiceTest, objWMIService, strQuery, strTest

    ' Create a WMI object
    Set objWMIService = GetObject( "winmgmts:\\.\root\CIMV2" )

    ' Query the services for "our" service
    strQuery = "SELECT * FROM Win32_Service WHERE DisplayName='" & myService & "'"
    Set colServices = objWMIService.ExecQuery( strQuery, "WQL", 48 )

    ' Loop through the "collection" of returned services
    For Each objService In colServices
        ' See if we need to tell the user we're going to stop the service
        If Not blnQuiet Then
            WScript.Echo "Stopping " & myService
        End If

        ' Stop the service
        objService.StopService

        ' Wait until the service is stopped
        Do Until strTest = "Stopped"
            ' Create a new object for our service; this work-around is required
            ' since otherwise the service's state information isn't properly updated
            Set colServicesTest = objWMIService.ExecQuery( strQuery, "WQL", 48 )

            ' Loop through the "collection" of returned services
            For Each objServiceTest In colServicesTest
                ' Check the service's state
                strTest = objServiceTest.State
                ' See if we need to show the progress
                If Not blnQuiet Then
                    WScript.Echo "State: " & strTest
                End If
                ' Wait 1 second
                WScript.Sleep 1000
            Next

            ' Clear the temporary object
            Set colServicesTest = Nothing
        Loop

        ' See if we need to tell the user we're going to (re)start the service
        If Not blnQuiet Then
            WScript.Echo "Starting " & myService
        End If

        ' Start the service
        objService.StartService

        ' Wait until the service is running again
        Do Until strTest = "Running"
            ' Create a new object for our service; this work-around is required
            ' since otherwise the service's state information isn't properly updated
            Set colServicesTest = objWMIService.ExecQuery( strQuery, "WQL", 48 )

            ' Loop through the "collection" of returned services
            For Each objServiceTest In colServicesTest
                ' Check the service's state
                strTest = objServiceTest.State
                ' See if we need to show the progress
                If Not blnQuiet Then
                    WScript.Echo "State: " & strTest
                End If
                ' Wait 1 second
                WScript.Sleep 1000
            Next

            ' Clear the temporary object
            Set colServicesTest = Nothing
        Loop
    Next
End Sub

setDefaultPrinter.vbs

Finally, we want to set the default printer. The printer will have to already exist (obviously). If you’ve just fired off the printui.exe /ga command to install the printer, it won’t be available until the print spooler is restarted. So wait a minute or two before running the script.

Option Explicit

Dim objNetwork, strComputer, objFSO, strTextFile, strData, strLine, arrLines, strRunCmd, wshShell
CONST ForReading = 1

'Create a Network Object
Set objNetwork = CreateObject("Wscript.Network") 

'Get the local machine name from the Network Object
strComputer = objNetwork.ComputerName 

'Save the name of the text file as a variable 
strTextFile = "H:\PRINTERS\default.txt"

'Create a File System Object
Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

'Open the text file - strData now contains the whole file
strData = objFSO.OpenTextFile(strTextFile,ForReading).ReadAll

'Split the text file into lines
arrLines = Split(strData,vbCrLf)

'Initialize the wshShell
Set wshShell = WScript.CreateObject ("WSCript.shell")

'Step through the lines
For Each strLine in arrLines

    If Len(strLine) > 0 Then
		'Only run the process on lines that aren't blank
		
'		strRunCmd = "rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /y /c\\" & strComputer & " /n" & strLine & ""
		strRunCmd = """printui.exe"" /y /c \" & strComputer & " /n """ & strLine & """"
'		wscript.echo strRunCmd
		wshShell.Run strRunCmd
		
'		wscript.echo "Processed printer: " & strLine
    End If

Next

'Cleanup
Set objFSO = Nothing

As the migration proceeds, I’ll come back and tweak the scripts. Please feel free to leave comments and suggestions.

Thanks go to Rob van der Woude for his terrific Command Line Printer Control page, as well as many others.

I have a Windows XP guest running in VMWare Workstation 7 on a Windows 7 Ultimate host machine. This is working pretty well. The XP guest is nice and responsive. I have only one gripe. I’d like all of the buttons on my Logitech MX510 (the best mouse ever) to be mappable in the guest.

Starting from square one, I decided to try installing the current version of SetPoint in the guest OS. The installation went fine, but the usual functionality of the SetPoint settings utility was absent.

SetPoint Settings in an XP virtual machine

SetPoint Settings in an XP virtual machine

As shown in the screenshot, the SetPoint Settings utility displays only the Tools tab. It is missing the My Mouse tab (and if a keyboard were installed, I presume it would be missing the Keyboard tab, too).

After some Googling around, it appears to be a due to the way VMware approximates the physical mouse. VMware seems to treat USB mice connected to the host as PS/2 devices in the guest. SetPoint, then, doesn’t detect any Logitech hardware that it can configure.

The question of how to obtain SetPoint functionality in virtual machines is one that has been asked many, many times before, without a satisfactory answer. More on that in a little bit.

The best work around

Thankfully, it seems that, at least in the case of a Windows host and a Windows guest, installing SetPoint inside the virtual machine is not necessary. Installing it on the host seems to make all of the functionality available in the guest. This is the solution that I’m implementing now, and it is what I would recommend, provided you have rights to install software on the host.

Paths to follow if you want to pursue installing SetPoint inside a VMware virtual machine

I applaud your courage. There are a few settings that can be tweaked that may get you closer to a working installation.

Possible setting number one

From the post at http://coreygilmore.com/blog/2008/04/30/better-multi-button-mouse-support-with-vmware-fusion-and-workstation/

Add the following line to the virtual machine’s .vmx file:

mouse.vusb.enable = "TRUE"

From what I can tell, this setting allows me to use the Forward and Back buttons on the mouse, but does not make the mouse detectable by SetPoint. The remaining mouse buttons do nothing.

Possible setting number two

From the post at http://superuser.com/questions/35830/back-forward-mouse-buttons-do-not-work-in-vmware-workstation-6-5-guest-os/304583#304583

The solution given (which did not work for me) is to:

First add the following line to the virtual machine’s .vmx file:

usb.generic.allowHID = "TRUE"

An explanation of what this does, by a VMware associate, can be found in the thread at http://communities.vmware.com/thread/110919?start=15&tstart=0

If you’re feeling really adventurous and/or desperate, you can take out the mouse.vusb.enable line and add this option instead:

usb.generic.allowHID = “TRUE”

Then, you’ll notice that your main mouse and keyboard (if they are USB) are available to pass through into the guest via the USB devices menu.

The dangerous part here is that once you pass through the mouse, it is actually disconnected from the host, so you won’t be able to ungrab from the guest just by mousing out of the Fusion window. You can still ungrab with the keyboard (ctrl-cmd I believe is the shortcut?). If you actually pass through your keyboard and your mouse, you’ll be stuck in the guest and you’ll have to shut it down (or worse, reboot your physical machine).

This sounded like a great idea, and I was willing to set up a second, PS/2 mouse to control just the host, if necessary. Without connecting a second mouse, I tried passing the Logitech mouse as a USB device to the VM, just as I would an external hard drive, but VMware prevented this, with a warning message:

[Machine Name] – VMware Workstation
Cannot connect “Logitech USB-PS/2 Optical Mouse” to this virtual machine. The host requires this device for input.
[OK]

The second step would have been to go into Device Manager, click Actions, and then choose “Scan for hardware changes”.

I didn’t get to the second step, as I was too lazy to track down a PS/2 mouse to keep attached to the host, and I still wanted to find a software solution. I suspect, though, that this would be were to begin, were I to need to get SetPoint running in the guest OS.

Summary

While I wasn’t able to figure out how to install SetPoint on a guest OS, the workaround of installing SetPoint on the host OS seems to accomplish my goal.

If there is one thing that bothers me about Dreamweaver’s default settings (other than its annoying habit of rewriting valid code as camelCase), it is that double-clicking .php and .asp files launches Dreamweaver in Design view. Who on earth thinks that people generally want to open these kinds of files in anything other than code view?

Well, thankfully, this ridiculous behavior can be changed with a quick registry tweak. Just add an extension to the “Open As Text” value to cause Dreamweaver to always open that file type in code view. The .reg file below assumes you’re running Dreamweaver CS5.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Dreamweaver CS5\Helper Applications Preferences]
"Open As Text"=".js .asa .css .cs .config .inc .txt .as .asc .asr .vb .htaccess .htpasswd .php .asp .html"

It would be nice if Dreamweaver were smart enough to realize that, if your preferred layout is Coder, any file should be opened in Code view.

The link below explains how to do the same thing via Edit | Preferences.

Source: Open files in Code view by default

Update 2015-01-02: About a month ago, in early December, 2014, Google announced that it was working on a new anti-spam API that is intended to replace the traditional CAPTCHA challenge as a method for humans to prove that they are not robots. This is very good news.
This week, I noticed that Akismet is adding a hidden input field to the comment form that contains a timestamp (although the plugin’s PHP puts the initial INPUT element within a P element set to DISPLAY:NONE, when the plugin’s JavaScript updates the value with the current timestamp, the INPUT element jumps outside of that P element). The injected code looks something like this:
<input type=”hidden” id=”ak_js” name=”ak_js” value=”1420256728989″>
I haven’t yet dug into the Akismet code to discover what it’s doing with the timestamp, but I’d be pleased if Akismet is attempting to differentiate humans from bots based on behavior.
Update 2015-01-10: To test the effectiveness of the current version of Akismet, I disabled the anti-spam plugin described in this post on 1/2/2015 and re-enabled it on 1/10/2015. In the span of 8 days, Akismet identified 1,153 spam comments and missed 15 more. These latest numbers continue to support my position that Akismet is not enough to stop spam comments.

In the endless battle against WordPress comment spam, I’ve developed and then refined a few different methods for preventing spam from getting to the database to begin with. My philosophy has always been that a human visitor and a spam bot behave differently (after all, the bots we’re dealing with are not Nexus-6 model androids here), and an effective spam-prevention method should be able to recognize the differences. I also have a dislike for CAPTCHA methods that require a human visitor to prove, via an intentionally difficult test, that they aren’t a bot. The ideal method, I feel, would be invisible to a human visitor, but still accurately identify comments submitted by bots.

Spam on ardamis.com in early 2012 - before and after

Spam on ardamis.com - before and after

A brief history of spam fighting

The most successful and simple method I found was a server-side system for reducing comment spam by using a handshake method involving timestamps on hidden form fields that I implemented in 2007. The general idea was that a bot would submit a comment more quickly than a human visitor, so if the comment was submitted too soon after the post page was loaded, the comment was rejected. A human caught in this trap would be able to click the Back button on the browser, wait a few seconds, and resubmit. This proved to be very effective on ardamis.com, cutting the number of spam comments intercepted by Akismet per day to nearly zero. For a long time, the only problem was that it required modifying a core WordPress file: wp-comments-post.php. Each time WordPress was updated, the core file was replaced. If I didn’t then go back and make my modifications again, I would lose the spam protection until I made the changes. As it became easier to update WordPress (via a single click in the admin panel) and I updated it more frequently, editing the core file became more of a nuisance.

A huge facepalm

When Google began weighting page load times as part of its ranking algorithm, I implemented the WP Super Cache caching plugin on ardamis.com and configured it to use .htaccess and mod_rewrite to serve cache files. Page load times certainly decreased, but the amount of spam detected by Akismet increased. After a while, I realized that this was because the spam bots were submitting comments from static, cached pages, and the timestamps on those pages, which had been generated server-side with PHP, were already minutes old when the page was requested. The form processing script, which normally rejects comments that are submitted too quickly to be written by a human visitor, happily accepted the timestamps. Even worse, a second function of my anti-spam method also rejected comments that were submitted 10 minutes or more after the page was loaded. Of course, most of the visitors were being served cached pages that were already more than 10 minutes old, so even legitimate comments were being rejected. Using PHP to generate my timestamps obviously was not going to work if I wanted to keep serving cached pages.

JavaScript to the rescue

Generating real-time timestamps on cached pages requires JavaScript. But instead of a reliable server clock setting the timestamp, the time is coming from the visitor’s system, which can’t be trusted to be accurate. Merely changing the comment form to use JavaScript to generate the first timestamp wouldn’t work, because verifying a timestamp generated on the client-side against one generated server-side would be disastrous.

Replacing the PHP-generated timestamps with JavaScript-generated timestamps would require substantial changes to the system.

Traditional client-side form validation using JavaScript happens when the form is submitted. If the validation fails, the form is not submitted, and the visitor typically gets an alert with suggestions on how to make the form acceptable. If the validation passes, the form submission continues without bothering the visitor. To get our two timestamps, we can generate a first timestamp when the page loads and compare it to a second timestamp generated when the form is submitted. If the visitor submits the form too quickly, we can display an alert showing the number of seconds remaining until the form can be successfully submitted. This client-side validation should hopefully be invisible to most visitors who choose to leave comments, but at the very least, far less irritating than a CAPTCHA system.

It took me two tries to get it right, but I’m going to discuss the less successful method first to point out its flaws.

Method One (not good enough)

Here’s how the original system flowed.

  1. Generate a first JS timestamp when the page is loaded.
  2. Generate a second JS timestamp when the form is submitted.
  3. Before the form contents are sent to the server, compare the two timestamps, and if enough time has passed, write a pre-determined passcode to a hidden INPUT element, then submit the form.
  4. After the form contents are sent to the server, use server-side logic to verify that the passcode is present and valid.

The problem was that it seemed that certain bots could parse JavaScript enough to drop the pre-determined passcode into the hidden form field before submitting the form, circumventing the timestamps completely and defeating the system.

Because the timestamps were only compared on the client-side, it also failed to adhere to one of the basic tenants of form validation – that the input must be checked on both the client-side and the server-side.

Method Two (better)

Rather than having the server-side validation be merely a check to confirm that the passcode is present, method two compares the timestamps a second time on the server side. Instead of a single hidden input, we now have two – one for each timestamp. This is intended to prevent a bot from figuring out the ultimate validation mechanism by simply parsing the JavaScript. Finally, the hidden fields are not in the HTML of the page when it’s sent to the browser, but are added to the form via jQuery, which makes it easier to implement and may act as another layer of obfuscation.

  1. Generate a first JS timestamp when the page is loaded and write it to a hidden form field.
  2. Generate a second JS timestamp when the form is submitted and write it to a hidden form field.
  3. Before the form contents are sent to the server, compare the two timestamps, and if enough time has passed, submit the form (client-side validation).
  4. On the form processing page, use server-side logic to compare the timestamps a second time (server-side validation).

This timestamp handshake works more like it did in the proven-effective server-side-only method. We still have to pass something from the comment form to the processing script, but it’s not too obvious from the HTML what is being done with it. Furthermore, even if a bot suspects that the timestamps are being compared, there is no telling from the HTML what the threshold is for distinguishing a valid comment from one that is invalid. (The JavaScript could be parsed by a bot, but the server-side check cannot be, making it possible to require a slightly longer amount of time to elapse in order to pass the server-side check.)

The same downside plagued me

For a long time, far longer than I care to admit, I stubbornly continued to modify the core file wp-comments-post.php to provide the server-side processing. But creating the timestamps and parsing them with a plug-in turned out to be a simple matter of two functions, and in June of 2013 I finally got around to doing it the right way.

The code

The plugin, in all its simplicity, is only 100 lines. Just copy this code into a text editor, save it as a .php file (the name isn’t important) and upload it to the /wp-content/plugins directory and activate it. Feel free to edit it however you like to suit your needs.

<?php

/*
Plugin Name: Timestamp Comment Filter
Plugin URI: //ardamis.com/2011/08/27/a-cache-proof-method-for-reducing-comment-spam/
Description: This plugin measures the amount of time between when the post page loads and the comment is submitted, then rejects any comment that was submitted faster than a human probably would or could.
Version: 0.1
Author: Oliver Baty
Author URI: //ardamis.com

    Copyright 2013  Oliver Baty  (email : obbaty@gmail.com)

    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
    the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
    (at your option) any later version.

    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
    GNU General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
    along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
    Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA
*/

// http://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/6723/how-to-add-a-policy-text-just-before-the-comments
function ard_add_javascript(){

	?>
	
<script type="text/javascript" src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function(){
    ardGenTS1();
});
 
function ardGenTS1() {
    // prepare the form
    $('#commentform').append('<input type="hidden" name="ardTS1" id="ardTS1" value="1" />');
    $('#commentform').append('<input type="hidden" name="ardTS2" id="ardTS2" value="1" />');
    $('#commentform').attr('onsubmit', 'return validate()');
    // set a first timestamp when the page loads
    var ardTS1 = (new Date).getTime();
    document.getElementById("ardTS1").value = ardTS1;
}
 
function validate() {
    // read the first timestamp
    var ardTS1 = document.getElementById("ardTS1").value;
//  alert ('ardTS1: ' + ardTS1);
    // generate the second timestamp
    var ardTS2 = (new Date).getTime();
    document.getElementById("ardTS2").value = ardTS2;
//  alert ('ardTS2: ' + document.getElementById("ardTS2").value);
    // find the difference
    var diff = ardTS2 - ardTS1;
    var elapsed = Math.round(diff / 1000);
    var remaining = 10 - elapsed;
//  alert ('diff: ' + diff + '\n\n elapsed:' + elapsed);
    // check whether enough time has elapsed
    if (diff > 10000) {
        // submit the form
        return true;
    }else{
        // display an alert if the form is submitted within 10 seconds
        alert("This site is protected by an anti-spam feature that requires 10 seconds to have elapsed between the page load and the form submission. \n\n Please close this alert window.  The form may be resubmitted successfully in " + remaining + " seconds.");
        // prevent the form from being submitted
        return false;
    }
}
</script>
	
	<?php
}

add_action('comment_form_before','ard_add_javascript');

// http://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/89236/disable-wordpress-comments-api
function ard_parse_timestamps(){

	// Set up the elapsed time, in miliseconds, that is the threshold for determining whether a comment was submitted by a human
	$intThreshold = 10000;
	
	// Set up a message to be displayed if the comment is blocked
	$strMessage = '<strong>ERROR</strong>:  this site uses JavaScript validation to reduce comment spam by rejecting comments that appear to be submitted by an automated method.  Either your browser has JavaScript disabled or the comment appeared to be submitted by a bot.';
	
	$ardTS1 = ( isset($_POST['ardTS1']) ) ? trim($_POST['ardTS1']) : 1;
	$ardTS2 = ( isset($_POST['ardTS2']) ) ? trim($_POST['ardTS2']) : 2;
	$ardTS = $ardTS2 - $ardTS1;
	 
	if ( $ardTS < $intThreshold ) {
	// If the difference of the timestamps is not more than 10 seconds, exit
		wp_die( __($strMessage) );
	}
}
add_action('pre_comment_on_post', 'ard_parse_timestamps');

?>

That’s it. Not so bad, right?

Final thoughts

The screen-shot at the beginning of the post shows the number of spam comments submitted to ardamis.com and detected by Akismet each day from the end of January, 2012, to the beginning of March, 2012. The dramatic drop-off around Jan 20 was when I implemented the method described in this post. The flare-up around Feb 20 was when I updated WordPress and forgot to replace the modified core file for about a week, illustrating one of the hazards of changing core files.

If you would rather not add any hidden form fields to the comment form, you could consider appending the two timestamps to the end of the comment_post_ID field. Because its contents are cast as an integer in wp-comments-post.php when value of the $comment_post_ID variable is set, WordPress won’t be bothered by the extra data at the end of the field, so long as the post ID comes first and is followed by a space. You could then just explode the contents of the comment_post_ID field on the space character, then compare the last two elements of the array.

If you don’t object to meddling with a core file in order to obtain a little extra protection, you can rename the wp-comments-post.php file and change the path in the comment form’s action attribute. I’ve posted logs showing that some bots just try to post spam directly to the wp-comments-post.php file, so renaming that file is an easy way to cut down on spam. Just remember to come back and delete the wp-comments-post.php file each time you update WordPress.

Overview of classes and objects

Objects are the building blocks of the application (ie: the workers in a factory)
Classes can be thought of as blueprints for the objects. Classes describe the objects, which are created in memory.
So, the programmer writes the classes and the PHP interpreter creates the objects from the classes.

A class may contain both variables and functions.
A variable inside a class is called a property.
A function inside a class is called a method.

Instantiation

To create an object, you instantiate a class (you create an instance of the class as an object).
For example, if we have a class named ‘person’ and want to instantiate it as the variable $oliver:

$oliver = new person();

The variable $oliver is referred to as the ‘handle’.

Accessing properties and methods

To access the properties and methods of a class, we use the object’s handle, followed by the arrow operator “->”.
For example, if our class has a method ‘get_name’, we can echo that to the page with:

echo $oliver->get_name();

Note that there are no single or double quotes used in instantiating a class or accessing properties and methods of a class.

Constructors

A class may have a special method called a constructor. The constructor method is called automatically when the object is instantiated.
The constructor method begins with two underscores and the word ‘construct’:

function __construct($variable) { }

One can pass values to the constructor method by providing arguments after the class name.
For example, to pass the name “John Doe” to the constructor method in the ‘person’ class:

$john = new person("John Doe");

! If a constructor exists and expects arguments, you must instantiate the class with the arguments expected by the constructor.

Access modifiers and visibility declarations

Properties must, and methods may, have one of three access modifiers (visibility declarations): public, protected, and private.
Public: can be accessed from outside the class, eg: $myclass->secret_variable;
Protected: can be accessed within the class and by classes derived from the class
Private: can be accessed only within the class

Declaring a property with var makes the property public.

Methods declared without an explicit access modifier are considered public.

! If you call a protected method from outside the class, any PHP output before the call is still processed, but you get an error message when the interpreter gets to that call:

Fatal error: Call to protected method...

Inheritance

Inheritance allows a child class to be created from a parent class, whereby the child has all of the public and protected properties and methods of the parent.

A child class extends a parent class:

class employee extends person {
}

A child class can redefine/override/replace a method in the parent class by reusing the method name.

! A child class’s method’s access modifier can not be more restrictive than that of the parent class. For example, if the parent class has a public set_name() method and the child class’s set_name() method is protected, the class itself will generate a fatal error, and no prior PHP output will be rendered. (In the error below, employee is the child class to person):

Fatal error: Access level to employee::set_name() must be public (as in class person) in E:xampphtdocstesteroopclass_lib.php on line 38

To differentiate between a method in a parent class vs the method as redefined in a child class, one must specifically name the class that contains the method you want to call using the scope resolution operator (::):

person::set_name($new_name);

The scope resolution operator allows access to static, constant, and overridden properties or methods of a class, generally, a parent class. This would be done inside the child class, after redefining a parent’s method of the same name.

It’s also possible to use ‘parent’ to refer to the child’s parent class:

parent::set_name($new_name);

(I’m still a bit vague on this and am looking for examples of situations in which this would be used.)

Classes inside classes

Just as it’s possible to instantiate a class and use the object in a view file, it’s possible to instantiate an object and call its methods from inside another class.

Static properties and methods

Declaring class properties or methods as static makes them accessible without needing an instantiation of the class. A property declared as static can not be accessed with an instantiated class object (though a static method can).

Resources
http://us2.php.net/manual/en/language.oop5.php
http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/php/oop-in-php/
http://www.phpfreaks.com/tutorial/oo-php-part-1-oop-in-full-effect
http://www.killerphp.com/tutorials/object-oriented-php/

The other day, I needed to extract a 7 GB zip file containing a VMware virtual machine onto the hard drive of a nearly stock 64-bit Windows 7 Professional machine. Because this machine did not have a third-party compression utility installed, I tried to extract it using Windows’ native zip utility, called Compressed Folders.

This failed with a pretty neat error.

You need an additional 5.99 PB to copy these files.

As you can see in the screenshot above, Windows reported that…

Copy Folder

There is not enough space on Local Disk. You need an additional 5.99 PB to copy these files.

Local Disk
Space free: 125 GB
Total size: 232 GB

[Try Again] [Cancel]

I found the 5.99 petabyte requirement pretty amusing, but I was in a hurry, so I downloaded the excellent 7-Zip, unpacked the file, and set about building the vm.

I had meant to write a post about the error message, but some time passed and I forgot all about it. Then, about three weeks later, someone else in the department tried to extract a copy of the file on a 32-bit Windows XP Professional machine and got the same error. At that point, I had to investigate.

The Compressed Folders native Windows utility seemed to be unable to accurately calculate the free space needed to extract the file. The file was admittedly pretty large, but was size the only reason?

According to the Wikipedia page on ZIP files, there are a number of known limitations of Compressed Folders.

ZIP64, AES Encryption, split or spanned archives, and Unicode entry encoding are not known to be readable or writable by the Compressed Folders feature in Windows XP or Windows Vista.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_(file_format)#Windows_compressed_folders

None of these things applied to my file, but I found a rather telling and simultaneously ambiguous (go figure) KB article at Microsoft Support: Compressed folder becomes corrupted when larger than 2 gigabytes.

According to various threads, the popular theory is that the problem stems from size limitations on compressed files. Windows Vista and later have a 4 GB limit (compressed and uncompressed size), while XP has a 2 GB limit.

Strangely, the same error appears before a copy process when the OS encounters a file that exceeds its maximum individual file size, which I can understand, but find a bit confusing in the context of a zip file. Certainly, both Windows 7 and XP (NTFS) were able to handle the file to begin with, and only had a problem when decompressing it.

My best guess is that the file was created using the Compressed Folders feature on XP. The file exceeded the maximum size limit for that version of Windows, but due to the bug described in MS KB article 301325, the file was created anyway using 32-bit headers. When the file was later opened by Compressed Folders, the 64-bit headers were read (as a file of that size would naturally use 64-bit headers), but that information was garbage, preventing Windows from accurately calculating the space required to extract.

If anyone has a more complete understanding of the cause of this error, please leave me a comment.

So I finally watched The Social Network over the weekend, and it’s made me feel jealous and a bit guilty.

In a meager effort to console myself for so far failing to be a billionaire, I’m assembling the short list of web-application type things I’ve built here.

  1. A dice roller: rollforit. Enter a name, create a room, invite your friends, and start rolling dice. For people who want to play pen and paper, table-top RPG dice games with their distant friends.
  2. A URL shortener: Minifi.de. Minifi.de comes with an API and a bookmarklet. It really works, too! The technical explanation has more details.
  3. A social networking site: Snapbase. Snapbase is a social site that shows you what’s going on in your city or anywhere in the world as pictures are uploaded by your friends and neighbors. The application extracts location information from the EXIF data embedded in images and displays recent images taken near your present location.
  4. A trouble-ticketing system for an IT help desk or technical support center. It’s really pretty extensive, with asset management, user accounts, salted encrypted passwords, and all sorts of nifty things. I really must write a full description of it at some point, but until then, the documentation is the next best thing.
  5. An account-based invoice tracking and access system for grouping invoices according to clients, then sharing invoice history with those clients and allowing them to easily pay outstanding invoices via Paypal.
  6. An account-based invoice access system where clients can view paid and unpaid invoices, and even easily pay an outstanding invoice via Paypal. I actually use this almost every day.
  7. A simple method for protecting a download using a unique URL that can be emailed to authorized users. The URL can be set to expire after a certain amount of time or any number of downloads.
  8. An update to the above download protection script to protect multiple downloads, generate batches of keys, leave notes about who received the key, the ability to specify per-key the allowable number of downloads and age, and some basic reporting.
  9. An HTML auction template generator called Simple Auction Wizard. It helps you create HTML auction templates for eBay, and uses SWFUpload and tinyMCE.

I have another project in the works that promises to be more financially viable, but the most clever thing on that list is Snapbase. It’s in something akin to alpha right now; barely usable. I really wish I had the time to pursue it.

It’s widely known that Microsoft allows anyone to install and use any version of Windows 7 for 30 days without having to enter a product activation key. By using the slmgr -rearm command, this 30-day trial period can be extended three times for a total of 120 days before the installation must be activated to continue functioning.

It is less known, perhaps, that Microsoft has implemented a similar method for delaying the activation of Office 2010 for up to 180 days. The steps below are from the Deploy volume activation of Office 2010 instructions on TechNet.

To rearm your Office 2010 installation

  1. Make sure all Office 2010 applications are closed.
  2. Open an elevated command prompt.
  3. Go to %installdir%\%Program Files%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OfficeSoftwareProtectionPlatform. If you installed the 32-bit edition of Office 2010 on a 64-bit operating system, %Program Files% is the Program Files (x86) folder.
  4. Run ospprearm.exe.

(The italics are mine, as I was tripped up for awhile by looking for ospprearm.exe under C:\Program Files\, rather than the Program Files (x86) folder.)

The Office 2010 rearm delays the activation requirement for 30 days, and it can be used five times, for a total of 180 days of activation-free use.