NiXC's I.T. Take-Away

Direct Links to get Adobe Flash Player and AIR

noreply@blogger.com (NiXC) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 10:34:00 +0000

Adobe have changed things, again, and now you can't get the flash players for IE and FireFox (et al.) as easily as you used to if you don't want to use the terrible DLM system they impose on you - which doesn't work with proxies (fantastic job guys).
And what's the point of a download manager for something that's less than 2MB in size? Idiots.

When you go to get the flash player you'll find the link that used to be at the bottom of the install page which gave you the direct link to the .exe for installing has now vanished. You must go to the troubleshooting page instead, and it's near the bottom of that.

Here's the troubleshooting page: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/191/tn_19166.html

But you don't need that necessarily as the following links are likely not to change since they are generic.
Latest Flash player for IE: download
Latest Flash player for FireFox, Chrome, Opera, etc.: download
Latest AIR player: download

Hope that helps someone :)

Here are the links if you want to keep them somewhere:

http://fpdownload.adobe.com/get/flashplayer/current/install_flash_player_ax.exe
http://fpdownload.adobe.com/get/flashplayer/current/install_flash_player.exe
http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/win/download/latest/AdobeAIRInstaller.exe

Hybrid, New Album: Disappear Here

noreply@blogger.com (NiXC) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:17:00 +0000

Slightly off the usual topic of my blog - but I am obsessed with the band "Hybrid" (thanks to my friend Dave who originally introduced their music to me) and I have just discovered that they are releasing a new album on 29th March 2010 called "Disappear Here".

The album is available to pre-order on Amazon and there's a really good teaser for it on their site (www.hybridsoundsystem.com).

First impressions... AMAZING! Hints of their original and best quality work with lots of drum and base and their usual thick globules of classical. Fantastic. I can't wait for the release date!

Signing a freeware un-signed app for a Symbian phone

noreply@blogger.com (NiXC) — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 16:53:00 +0000

When you install an app on a Nokia phone these days it won't install unless it's been signed with a trusted certificate. Problem is you have to pay to get a certificate you can use to allow anyone to install software. That's why you get a lot of free software for Nokias at the moment that you just can't install because they haven't been signed.

So how do we install the software?! The only easy solution is to get a certificate that only works on your phone, and is locked to your phone's IMEI number. The easiest way to do this is to use a free site in China that will give you the bits you need.

1. Go to http://cer.opda.cn/en
2. Click register at the top right
3. Fill in the details and register
4. Once you've registered click the "My Certificate" link at the top and log in
5. Now click the orange "Apply cer" button near the top right
6. Fill in the details, the only bit that matters in this page is your IMEA number (get it using *#06# on your mobile), the rest of the fields are to help you identify your certificate
7. After clicking the button you'll go to the My Certificate page where you certificates get listed. It'll show your newly applied for certificate and that it's in the 'apply' stage
8. Now go down the shops or play your favourite computer game and wait a few hours. It took about 3 hours for my first one to get approved. Perhaps they're running the system on a 486 or maybe it's a manual approval thing, either way it takes a while. I've heard it 'can' take 24 hours sometimes. So keep coming back every few hours. The site will time our after a little while so you'll need to log in again.
9. When your certificate is approved you will be able to click the "Signing" link on the certificate line that's been approved. You can then upload your .sis file that you want signed and then download a signed version.

Easy! Pity the Symbian Foundation or Nokia couldn't make it that easy.

How to update your Forefront Client Security deployment share

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:37:00 +0000

Microsoft recently created up to date Forefront Client Security installation packages. According to KB976669 these are only available within WSUS. So at least existing installs can get the latest version of the client via WSUS. But what about newly installed clients? Why should we have to install an out of date 2007 version and then do an update just to get the latest client. I want the latest version installed right at the beginning dammit!!!

Well there's a way of finding the install files if you're prepared to crawl the WSUS SQL database.

Here are the direct links to the install files with their associated language and architecture.

fcsclientpackage language 2052 x64
fcsclientpackage language 1028 x64
fcsclientpackage language 1033 x64 English
fcsclientpackage language 1040 x64 Italian
fcsclientpackage language 3082 x64
fcsclientpackage language 1041 x64 Japanese
fcsclientpackage language 1031 x64 German
fcsclientpackage language 1042 x64
fcsclientpackage language 1036 x64 French
fcsclientpackage language 1033 x86 English
fcsclientpackage language 2052 x86
fcsclientpackage language 1028 x86
fcsclientpackage language 1041 x86 Japanese
fcsclientpackage language 1040 x86 Italian
fcsclientpackage language 3082 x86
fcsclientpackage language 1031 x86 German
fcsclientpackage language 1042 x86
fcsclientpackage language 1036 x86 French

Basically download the one/s you want and extract to a folder by using /extract
You will then have a folder with the files you should use to overwrite your FCS deployment share.

Of course it's possible these links might change, in which case you will have to crawl WSUS yourself. The secret is to query the dbo.tbFile table for a value like %fcsclientpackage% in the FileName column. Reasonably easy when you know what to look for :)

How to install Adobe Flash 10.1 beta on Windows 7 x64

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 17:54:00 +0000

Thought I'd try out the new Adobe Flash ActiveX control for IE, and naturally I wasn't expecting a smooth installation process - this is Adobe after all - and low and behold the plug-in would not install on Windows 7 x64.

In a normal administrative user account (hint hint), and running 'as admin' the setup process will get to 100% and then gets killed by Windows with the familiar "program unresponsive" dialog. Even setting compatibility settings on the installer or running it from an administrative command line interface will produce the same results. Plus I did the install on 2 completely different machines with different anti-virus, same thing.

The answer? Enable your proper "Administrator" account, login as that and then do the install. It works perfectly. That sort of points the finger at Adobe not know how to handle UAC again. Yes it's only a beta, but that's still quite lame.
I don't doubt running the installer as the system user would probably work too :)

Windows Biometric Service stops preventing fingerprint logon

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:53:00 +0000

Recently I setup one of my work laptops to allow me to login using my fingerprint without the need for any client software other than a driver. A handy new feature built-in to Windows 7, and it works fabulously well. One finger on each hand for different things, one for admin, one for my normal user. Love it!

However I have been finding occasionally that when I switch the laptop on (usually after being in hibernation or standby) that I can't login with a fingerprint and have to resort to legacy means (typing!).

I think that this is because the "Windows Biometric Service" service has stopped. There are events notifying that it's happened but no explanation why. I made sure the service was set to automatic (it was) and I've added recovery options to the service telling it to restart if it stops. Seems that hasn't fixed it because the problem cropped up immediately afterwards when I tested it. I'm not quite sure what else to do yet...

Just thought I'd blog this in case someone else runs into it.

Outlook 2007 - Faulty policy for deleting items on a delegated mailbox

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:59:00 +0000

When you have been delegated the right to delete items from someone else's mailbox the default functionality is to have the deleted items go into your mailbox's deleted items folder instead of the owners mailbox.
This functionality can be changed with a registry key, see here: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA100750921033.aspx

HOWEVER, there is a group policy introduced with Office 2007 that can alter this functionality for all users. It's located here:
"User Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\Microsoft Office Outlook 2007\Tools | Options...\Delegates"
The policy is called:
"Store deleted items in the owner's mailbox instead of delegate's mailbox"

The help text says it needs to be enabled to set the functionality to have deleted items remain in the owner mailbox.
Guess what, it's WRONG! Yes Microsoft have not tested it properly. It turns out if you enable the policy you enforce the default, to have deleted items go into the delegates mailbox, not the owner's mailbox.
To get this policy to work properly you must set it to DISABLED.

When disabled, a policy key is created that enforces the alternate functionality for deleting mail.
HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Options\General
DelegateWastebasketStyle = 4

Hope this helps someone else!

PowerShell 2 for XP, Server 2003, Vista and Server 2008 is available!

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:48:00 +0000

Microsoft are calling it the "Windows Management Framework" but in reality this is PowerShell 2.0 and it's now available for download: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968929

If you install over the top of PowerShell 1.0 on XP the startmenu link will go but you'll be left with the documentation links. So it might be better to uninstall 1 then install 2. Not sure yet.
Part of this is the new ISE (Integrated Scripting Environment) too and it's wonderfully good. Just go start, run, then type: powershell_ise

Note: it supports only XP SP3, Server 2003 SP2, Vista SP1+, and Server 2008 SP2.
Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 have PowerShell 2 built-in of course.

How to download individual updates when using Vista or Windows 7

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 20:43:00 +0000

If you want to get hold of updates for Windows 7 or Vista when you're running Vista or Win 7 already, you can get the updates via the updates catalog (catalogue): http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/ (the pages require IE of course).

I actually had to run up my virtual xp machine to get hold of that link! I simply couldn't remember the word "catalog". Heh.

What inspired this blog entry was that I thought I'd have a go at making a fully up to date disc of Win7 before I put it on my wife's PC, i.e. mount the wim with imagex, and use dism with the latest updates. Thought that would be fun, but then I couldn't get hold of the updates of course. Sorted.

Exchange 2007 SP2 has been released

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 08:44:00 +0000

And so to the insignificant clash of tiny mouse sized symbols Exchange 2007 Service Pack 2 has finally been released: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=4c4bd2a3-5e50-42b0-8bbb-2cc9afe3216a

According to a little very sketchy investigation I've done there's a schema change and support for PowerShell 2 - in fact they are recommending it! According to this blog post (link) PowerShell 2 is already in Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2, and sure enough if you run powershell and type $psversiontable and that proves it :)
[yes i've been running Win7 Enterprise x64 RTM for the last 2 weeks, hehe]

Beware the most addictive site on the internet! bash.org

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 22:02:00 +0000

I just found the funniest and most addictive site on the internet, surely. I've no idea why I've not seen it till now but I'll be going back again and again!

Here's a perfect example... only for the techies though!

http://bash.org/?178890

Removing Troublesome Crapware

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:14:00 +0000

My mum just got a new Dell Studio laptop. The thing completely rocks and blows even my desktop PC out of the water. There's a small problem, and that is of course that it's a Dell and it came filled with crapware! So naturally I've removed it all. However one of the applications was a real pig....

The culprit was the "Dell DataSafe Local" client. It has two components, a support component and an application component. The support part removed easily, I expect it was just documentation. However when I ran the uninstaller for the application part (elevated of course - this is a Vista x64 machine) the uninstall would begin but after a little while taskmgr shows it's using 100% of one of the CPU cores (thank god for dual-core!) and the memory usage is rising heading for infinity, a nice little memory leak. Great that's not going to work.

So I think maybe a reboot and a repair then uninstall again will help. No, can't do that as the installation source media is not on the original application support DVDs. Most likely it's buried somewhere inside a hidden .wim file on the support partition - I'm not downloading the WAIK on a brand new laptop just to get to that! OK so now what? Surgically remove it from the registry and unregister all the dll's? No way, it's hundreds of MB and I expect it'll leave crap everywhere and mess up this lovely new laptop in the process.

I'll stop wasting time...the answer with most problems like this is to use the fantastic sysinternals tools from the godlike Mark Russinovich (he has a great blog by the way). So I grab psexec, drop to an elevated command line and - the naughty bit - I run a cmd.exe as the system user... running the setup from there as system works like a charm and the crapware is dust :)
In all likelihood the problem was the usual crap installshield uninstaller and it was probably wrongly changing elevated states so couldn't gain access to the files it needed to delete.

Anyway, if you have trouble uninstalling something, try removing it as the system user using psexec, it more than often will sort the problem good and proper.

How to remove "Dell DataSafe Local":
click the start button
cmd.exe (ctrl+shift+alt return) [this runs cmd.exe as an elevated user]
cd
psexec -d -s -i %comspec% [runs cmd.exe as system, interactively, and without waiting for it to close]
- switch to the new cmd window that has opened -
"C:\Program Files (x86)\InstallShield Installation Information\{0ED7EE95-6A97-47AA-AD73-152C08A15B04}\setup.exe"

I vote: fabricland.co.uk for worst website ever made!

noreply@blogger.com (Nick) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:52:00 +0000

Some days I'm amazed at the things I see on the internet, and today I nearly split my sides laughing when a friend at work passed me a link to look at...

http://www.fabricland.co.uk/ has to be among the worst websites I have ever laid eyes upon! In all my years of surfing the web, going right back to 1995 I have never seen so many colours, flashing boxes, or miss-uses of marquees. If there's one thing it's missing it's music you can't stop when you enter the site. Hell there are even dancing santas on there!

Decide for yourself if Bing is any good

noreply@blogger.com (NiXC) — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 12:24:00 +0000

Microsoft recently re-made and rebranded their internet search engine. Launched not long ago Bing.com seems to me to be pretty good. I always hated Live search; in fact I used to prove to my peers how crap it was simply by searching for something that had recently been made live by Microsoft themselves, such as a new Microsoft download I might need, like SQL 2008 SP1. Low and behold 9 times out of 10 Live search would find almost nothing of use, but google would give me exactly what I needed in the first result.
I never bothered to try Yahoo - I mean who the hell cares about Yahoo now anyway. To me they are like the AOL of ISPs - you only use them if you don't know better.

Well now that Bing is here there's a nice little tool some Microsoft guy has setup to help you decide if it's any good. It's a blind-search test and lets you run a query against Google, Yahoo and Bing at the same time, but doesn't tell you where the results are from until you vote for the column of results which best fits what you were searching for. I think it's a very clever idea. Try it out here: http://blindsearch.fejus.com/

Vista SP2 and Server 2008 SP2 release date announced via TechNet moderator comment!

noreply@blogger.com (NiXC) — Fri, 22 May 2009 12:38:00 +0000

Vista SP2 and Server 2008 SP2 will be released on 26th May 2009 via Microsoft's Download Centre and through Windows Update. Then on 30th June 2009 it will appear on automatic updates.

This info comes directly from TechNet - a moderator has responded to a request for info at the bottom of the SP2 Notable Changes page, found here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd335036.aspx. In so doing he has officially revealed the release dates!

(Trackback to Mary-Jo Foley's blog)

You can't add the IE icon to the Windows 7 desktop

noreply@blogger.com (NiXC) — Tue, 05 May 2009 20:37:00 +0000

Just recently discovered that it is not and will no longer be possible to add the IE icon to the Windows desktop, as of Windows 7! Detailed in KB article KB945402 Microsoft have decided to completely remove the old functionality that puts IE on the desktop as a proper desktop item - as opposed to a simple shortcut.
I guess it saves them from being sued again over IE being a part of Windows. Annoying though, damned EU courts, it's all their fault. Oh well...

Daemon by Daniel Suarez - a truly fantastic read

noreply@blogger.com (NiXC) — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 09:33:00 +0000

Today I finished reading a novel. It took me maybe a week to read, but unlike other books where I have dipped in and out, this one made me want to read through the night on and on. I had to force myself to sleep, and when my eyes opened in the morning I would leap out of bed almost drooling in anticipation of what was to come next...
That book is "Daemon" by Daniel Suarez and I can't recommend it enough.

Put simply (and it's a cruel simplification) Daemon is a techno-thriller. It follows the events that are set in motion following the death of a super intelligent game designer who has an extraordinary vision of the future for mankind, and has let loose his greatest creation.

The story is filled with plot twists, strongly believable characters, and flys along at a relentless pace, never letting go of the reader until the very last word. Best of all one of its core themes - that of the world of computers, the internet, technology, and their roles in society - is so utterly realistic and accurate, that for the technologically savvy reader there is never the slightest issue with dodgy concepts or technological hiccups that so frequently fill modern literature and films of the same genre. One thing of note with this is that the realism is so high that it could almost be a prediction of the near future!

If this book (and it's sequel) could be made into films, which would be a major struggle, simply because of the concepts it deals with, it could have the potential to rank up there with greats like The Matrix or Contact.

Here's a passage which tickled me...

"Let's stop kidding ourselves. We all know we're going to build these things - so why go through the theatrics of feeling bad about it?" McCruder grabbed a grease pencil and turned to a whiteboard. He started drawing a casualty list with little human stick figures. "If we don't make them, someone else will and people will die - along with us. That's X number of people plus three. If we do make them, then people will die, but not us. That's X number of people plus zero." He looked up, vindicated by mathematics. "So we take the course that harms the least number of people."

Check out the author's website for more info: http://www.thedaemon.com/

Download Orca for Vista

noreply@blogger.com (NiXC) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:21:00 +0000

There's a new version of Orca available (4.5.6001) that is suitable for Vista. You get it by downloading and installing the Windows Installer 4.5 SDK, available here (6.79 MB).

After the SDK is installed it will have delivered the installer for Orca into the program files folder ("%ProgramFiles%\Windows Installer 4.5 SDK\TOOLS\orca.msi"). At this point you install it by double-clicking.
I recommend you archive the orca.msi file somewhere for the next time you need it.

Enjoy :)

Put Internet Explorer back on the Vista desktop

noreply@blogger.com (NiXC) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 18:33:00 +0000

Microsoft keep being forced into how we are allowed to use Windows. With each new version of Windows and IE they've been removing IE from the desktop and making it harder to put it back.
I keep seeing the same thing all the time on users' computers - they want IE on the desktop, can't find out how to do it properly, and end up creating a shortcut to it. It does the job but they've lost the right-click functionality they had before
By properly of course I mean that like the Outlook icon (which they also took away - which I show how to fix here), you can right click on the Internet Explorer icon and get to your internet options easily.
Here's how you get it back:-
Copy the following text into notepad, save it as a .reg file somewhere, right-click and import...

For all users on the computer:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel]
"{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}"=dword:00000000
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\ClassicStartMenu]
{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}"=dword:00000000

For just the current user:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel]
"{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}"=dword:00000000
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\ClassicStartMenu]
"{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}"=dword:00000000

After you've done that, just refresh the desktop (click on it and press F5) and IE is back.

New version of Adobe Digital Editions (1.7)

noreply@blogger.com (NiXC) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 18:40:00 +0000

Adobe have recently (2nd Feb 2009) released a new version of Digital Editions, this one is version 1.7, and they have finally made available a version that they 'support' for installing by administrators.

Here are some links...
Install on a single client (web installer)
Acquire the stand-alone installer the way they want you to (you need an Adobe account)

DigitalEditions 1.7 for Windows (direct link)

DigitalEditions 1.7 for Mac PowerPC (direct link)

DigitalEditions 1.7 for Mac Intel (direct link)

Photoshop CS3 hangs when you exit

noreply@blogger.com (NiXC) — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 14:46:00 +0000

Got myself a new laptop recently with Vista preinstalled and when I installed Adobe Photoshop CS3 I found when I tried to exit the program it would always hang during the exit process. I'd never seen it do that before, but after searching the net I found I wasn't alone - perhaps I had been lucky up to now.

Anyway after much messing about, reinstalling, trying various things (like turning off UAC and system restore before installing) I found a forum post from someone talking about the FLEXnet Licensing service and how it could be to blame for this stupid behaviour.

Some people said if the service was running it needed stopping and/or removing, others said if it was not running you should start it. Mine was set to manual but was running, so I was suspicious...if it's manual then something has started it - therefore it must be needed. I wasn't about to delete it then, and clearly it needed to run.

So I started searching for updates specifically for Macrovision FLEXnet - it is a 3rd party product after all. And low and behold I found a patch on Adobe's site which nobody had mentioned - in this case for Adobe Acrobat 8 and 8.1. After installing the patch (which I believe replaced a dll) all was well again! Well done Macrovision and Adobe for making crap software.

Here's the patch: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3750

Since finding the patch I did find a forum post which explains it as something to do with SATA drivers:

http://www.phwinfo.com/forum/macromedia-dreamweaver/274241-flexnet-licensing-doesnt-work.html

'Target Principle Name is incorrect' error with ISA 2006 using a certificate with a SAN

noreply@blogger.com (NiXC) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 19:45:00 +0000

I recently put together a PKI and I decided it was time to experiment with certificates with subject alternative names (SANs) today. I immediately fell into an easy trap!

If you make a certificate with a SAN, you MUST have the address you use for the CN in the SAN field too. It seems if you have a SAN then ISA server will see this and only look for the DNS identity of the website it's going to in the SAN field, instead of looking in the CN field too.

This leaves you with a "500 Internal Server Error – The target principal name is incorrect" error which is somewhat confusing!

So say you want a certificate that is valid for the following addresses:

site1.com

site2.com

site3.co.uk

What you must do is ensure you have the following field entries in your certificate:

cn=site1.com

san:dns=site1.com&dns=site2.com&dns=site3.co.uk

In that way the CN is used as an identifier, and the san's are used in the validity verification checks by ISA. Note however that IE and Firefox will still use the CN for validity checking as well.

OutlookTools (free)

noreply@blogger.com (NiXC) — Fri, 23 May 2008 06:53:00 +0000

Recently I've been having serious problems with my install of Outlook 2007. I'm on Vista x64 SP1 and after running perfectly for about two weeks Outlook started crashing shortly after opening it. After a complete reinstall of Office the problem got worse and now Outlook will not open at all....but I digress...I'm posting to mention that I've found a really handy tool...

Called "OutlookTools" it's a simple app that will let you cleanup and clearout some of the harder to reach depths of Outlook. If you ever have problems with Outlook (ok I've caught 99% of people here) all I can say it download it and give it a go! It is free after all :-)

Download
Also why not check-out the origin site HowTo-Outlook.com - it seems to be quite good.

Get internet radio on a Nokia N-series phone!

noreply@blogger.com (NiXC) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:05:00 +0000

I've been waiting for this for YEARS! Finally, I can now listen to my favourite radio station wherever I am, purely by plugging into my phone. Nokia have at last released "Nokia Internet Radio" for N-series users. It may be in beta at the time of writing but it sure works well.

Here's the link to it: http://europe.nokia.com/explore-services/music/fm-and-internet-radio (updated 31-08-2009)
The N95 and E-series phones are supported.

There are masses of different stations to choose from and it looks like Nokia are plugging into the same internet radio station directory that the popular mp3 player WinAMP uses.

So far I'm very happy with it, ETN.fm is working like a dream, and with my monthly quota of 2GB of 3G lovliness from T-mobile for only £7.50 a month I can happily listen for over 90 hours! Doubt I'll use that up any time soon :)

Thankfully for those of you who don't get a good data package from your mobile provider (let alone a good signal all the time - which I don't) it does support WiFi if your phone has it built-in and will adjust the data-rate upwards accordingly.

So we can now use our bluetooth headphones and wander around the office listening to endless trance and never need to rip a single track. Fantastic!

Find a computer's model using the command line or in a batch file

noreply@blogger.com (NiXC) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:13:00 +0000

Say you've got a script and you want to run something in that script that only runs if you're on a specific type of machine, what can we do to find out what machine we are on?
Some might say "use vbscript and do a wmi call". Well yes you could do that, but that's needlessly hard! Use this simple command instead...

wmic csproduct get name

On my machine that returns two lines, one saying Name and another with my machine's model name: HP Compaq dc7600 Small Form Factor
How cool is that!! Basically here we're using a WMI command line tool. There's lots too it, just type: wmic /?

So to use this in a script we'll need to check for the existence of a particular machine name being returned, we can use the find command a different way and return the number of lines with a specific word in it. If we get 1 or more lines with that word then we're on the machine we're looking for.
Here's the answer:

wmic csproduct get name | find /c /i "7600"

On my machine that returns a 1, so we just need to parse that into a variable and use a simple if statement and we're there:

@echo off
for /f "delims==" %%a in ('wmic csproduct get name ^| find /c /i "7600"') do set /a machine=%%a
if %machine% geq 1 (
echo Running on a 7600 machine
) else (
echo Not running on a 7600 machine
)

[script now works, thanks to the comment pointing to the pipe-char issue]

You could modify that to do a goto to jump to another part of your script I guess. Just change the "7600" part for something that uniquely identifies the machine you're looking for in your environment.

Ths works on XP and Vista. I think it should work in WinPE too as long as you have the WMI add-in installed.