I recently had a SharePoint server in a RAID 1 configuration lose one of its hard drives.  Since the server was approaching it’s hard drive storage limitations anyway, I decided to install 2 new larger drives rather than rebuild the current array.  An added benefit of this approach is that I can archive the drive we’re using now and have a fairly failsafe recovery point.

The following steps outline how to use the Stsadm.exe utility to backup a Windows SharePoint Services 3 installation.  This tutorial assumes you will be logged onto the SharePoint server when you run this command, and that your SharePoint site is set as the default website in IIS.

Step 1:  Open a comman prompt and find Stsadm.exe
There is a chance that this location is already part of your PATH variable, but if not you will find Stsadm.exe at:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN

Step 2: Run the Stsadm.exe utility with parameters

stsadm -o backup -url http://localhost -filename mybackup.bak

I’m not sure why Microsoft thinks that normal users shouldn’t be able to adjust their own power settings – especially laptop users – but they do.  Here is how to grant the appropriate permission to the power settings while keeping everything else locked down.

This walk through assumes that you are logged onto the machine as the non administrative user.

Step 1:  Launch the registry as the administrator
Navigate to Start > Run and issue the following command:

runas /user:localhost\administrator regedit

A command window will appear and prompt you for the administrator password.  You will not see the password on the screen as you type.

Step 2: Modify permissions on the PowerCfg registry key

1. Browse  to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Controls Folder\PowerCfg
2. Right-click on the “GlobalPowerPolicy” key and choose “Permissions”
3. Click on the “Advanced” button
4. Click “Add”
5. Type INTERACTIVE and click “Check names”, then OK
6. Check the “Set value” and “Create Subkey” checkboxes in the “Allow” column, and click OK to apply your changes all the way out
7. Repeat the above steps for the “PowerPolicies” registry key

I won’t go into whether or not it is a good idea to grant rights to non-administrative users of a PC to change the system time and time zone settings, but if you need to do it without logging on locally as a computer administrator, here is how you do it.

Step 1:   Grant the SeSystemtimePrivilige to the user
You can perform this step on the command line with the NTRights application or via the GUI.  We will perform the steps using the Windows GUI.

1. Navigate to the Control Panel > Administrative Tools
2. Hold the shift key while right clicking the Local Security Policy applet and choose the Run As option
3. Specify that you want to run the applet as the local administrator and provide the appropriate password.
4. From the menu on the left hand side, navigate to Security Settings > Local Policies > User Rights Assignment
5. Double click the “Change the system time” policy located in the right side of the screen.
6. Click the Add User or Group button and locate the user you wish to grant permission to.  Click OK to apply your changes all the way back out.

Step 2: Launch the registry editor as the local administrator
To begin, click Start > Run and type the following:

runas /user:localhost\administrator regedit

A command prompt window will open and prompt you for the local administrator credentials.  Enter the password and hit Enter.  You will not see any characters appear in the command window while typing the password.

Step 3:  Grant permission to the user on the TimeZoneInformation registry key
It should go without saying, but messing around in the registry can cause system problems, so be careful.  Use this link to create a backup of the registry before continuing.

1. Locate the HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation registry key.
2. Right click on the key and choose the Permissions option
3. Click the Advanced button
4. Locate the appropriate user or group you wish to delegate permissions to.  Click on the user or group and hit the Edit button
5. Modify the permissions so that the Query Value, Set Value, Create Subkey, Enumerate Subkeys, Notify and Read Control permissions are applied.
6. Click OK to apply your changes all the way out

Step 4:  Reboot
Once you reboot the machine the non-administrative user will be able to adjust the time and time zone settings on their machine.