Automate PDF printing from batch file command line

Adobe Reader is not suitable for printing PDF files using a batch file because it remains open after the print is done and there is no simple, safe & reliable mechanism to close it.  Instead use Ghostscript commandline as shown below:

gswin32c -dPrinted -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -dNOSAFER -q -dNumCopies=1 "C:\test.pdf"

*Must be a recent version of Ghostscript, e.g. 9.x

Can't access local resources when VPN connected (Vista & Win7)

Windows Vista introduced a new feature that allows PPTP VPN credentials to access resources on remote servers when the VPN is connected. The side effect is that access to local resources then fails.  The feature can be disabled per VPN as follows:

Locate the .pbk file that contains the entry that you dial:

%AppData%\Microsoft\Network\Connections\Pbk

 

Open the file in Notepad.  Locate and change the setting for each VPN: UseRasCredentials=0

Windows Vista & 7 Disconnected drives

Windows Vista & Windows 7 with UAC enabled always show mapped drives as disconnected after login. 

The workaround is a registry setting documented here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937624

iPhone has wrong name in Windows Explorer (Digital Camera)

Windows remembers a USB devices name and fails to update if the iPhone's name is changed.  Use regedit to search for the name starting at HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet.
 Edit the device names & labels as found - multiple may be found.

Vista Home Disk Image Backup

Vista Home Premium doesn't support Full Image backups with the supplied backup tool.  However, you can use Disk2VHD tool from Sysinternals to manually create a Virtual PC VHD image.  This is slightly different from the MS PC Backup image, but should be able to read it using Gizmo Central, or Virtual PC & Hyper-V mount tools.

Note:
* Disk2VHD is slowwww..... (20GB took approx. 1hr)