Two Tools for Friday: CPAU and Powercfg

CPAU: "Command line tool for starting process in alternate security context. Basically this is a runas replacement. Also allows you to create job files and encode the id, password, and command line in a file so it can be used by normal users."

This is an awesome little tool. Worth adding to your toolkit. Also has it's own forum for help from the user community.

Powercfg: Enables an administrator to control the power settings on a system.

This is a great command-line tool to control those bloody power options. In the past I posted about the GPO solution from EneryStar, but it turned out to just be too much trouble. This .exe is built into Windows XP SP2, so no software installation is necessary. It allows you to list the power schemes, query thier settings, create, delete, change, and more. You can configure via command line everything that you can configure via the GUI. This has really saved me a ton of headaches, since I have over 150 systems that require always on (no hibernation/standby) and the user is locked down to the point that it is impossible to change the power config without changing the GPO settings for all the machines. A little Powercfg and logon script and it's problem solved!