Platform: Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP

As a cross platform guy, I spend a lot of time wishing this OS has that OS's feature, etc. Occasionally, I find myself looking for a basic lsof function in Windows. 'lsof' is the "list open files" function on Linux and UNIX type systems. For my particular need today, I was assessing which files are open on a Windows Server 2003 box and how to deal with them in a backup. I did some Google searching and eventually found out the command "openfiles" was added to the most recent Microsft OS's. To determine local file's that are open, go to a command prompt and use this command. One warning: You first have to issue a "openfiles /local on" command to enable a system global flag called 'maintain objects list' and reboot (yes, it's Microsoft). Then after reboot you can issue "openfiles /query" to see them. Note that openfiles will tell you which files are opened from remotely without the use of this flag, giving you the same information you would get from Computer Management -> Shared Folders -> Open Files. More details are available at the Microsoft Server 2003 Techcenter.

Platform: Windows XP SP2 or Windows Server 2003 SP1

Occasionally, your IP stack can get really goofed up. When trying odd antispyware apps that hook into the IP stack, sometimes things just plain go wrong, not to mention the spyware that needle in there. There is an easy way to clean this up. Issue the command:

netsh winsock reset catalog

and this clears out all the things that are hooked into the IP stack.