Windows 2008 Remove Shutdown / Restart Reason

So I've been working with a Windows 2008 VM and was finding it a real pain to keep typing in a message every time I needed to restart / shutdown the VM, and as we know Windows loves restarting after every patch / update / software installation.

This quick fixed removed the required to input a shutdown/restart reason -> http://www.win2008r2workstation.com/disable-shutdown-event-tracker/

NetIQ / Novell IDM 4.0.2 Engine Patch 3

I was getting the following error when trying to install engine patch 3:

"Script for patch install,patchUpgrade.sh,does not have correct permissions,exiting the installation.."

You need to make the following files executable on Linux for the install to work:

- install.sh
- config/patchUpgrade.sh
- config/NonRootPatcher.sh

Since when do you put executable files in the config directory? Especially when there is already a bin folder as part of the patch. Really sad to see the lack of quality control on patches being released.

McAfee Registry Madness

Just had to make a quick note about this.

So I could not seem to get Explorer to show hidden files. Eventually I found out it was an issue writing to the following registry tree:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

Checked numerous online posts about registry permissions. Eventually I found out the McAfee was blocking me writing to this specific part of the registry. I have now decided to can McAfee and go back to MS Security Essentials. What an absolute waste of time just to fix something so simple.