My Tech Blog

Reset a Cisco Router to Factory Default

2011-12-02T17:10:00.001-05:00

If you have console access:

router#configure terminal
router(config)#config-register 0x2102
router(config)#end

Erase the current start-up configuration on the router with the write erase command.

Reload the router with the reload command. When prompted to save the configuration, DO NOT save.

Cannot mount an Exchange 2010 database after a dirty shutdown

2011-11-11T09:26:00.001-05:00

After a power outage, our Exchange 2010 server could not mount the mailbox database with an error about corrupt or missing log files.

I found the solution on the excellent blog of Mike Pfeiffer.

Here is the link: http://www.mikepfeiffer.net/2010/04/getting-an-exchange-database-into-a-clean-shutdown-state-using-eseutil/

In short I used "eseutil /r /l /d /a" to replay the logs into the database and "eseutil /mh" to make sure that it was in a "Clean Shutdown" state. After that I was able to mount the database again from the EMC.

After the repair, my backup software, ArcServe v.15 could not backup the Exchange mailbox database. It failed with the "AE9708 Check integrity failed. Check the Exchange server status." error message.

However, the "new-MailboxRepairRequest" PowerShell cmdlet did not detect any corruption on the database.

Solution: https://support.ca.com/irj/portal/solndtls?aparNo=RI36088&os=WINDOWS&actionID=3

Disable integrity check !

SonicWall CFS blocks SEPM 12 LiveUpdate

2011-10-12T15:01:00.000-05:00

Hi,

Just to share that on my SonicWall TZ200, enabling the Content Filter Service blocks the LiveUpdate from the SEPM 12 server.

The easy solution is to add an exception for the server IP address in the CFS configuration page on the firewall.

HP Proliant server - Multiple Logical Drive Creation with single R5 array

2010-07-06T15:09:00.003-05:00

I got a new HP ProLiant DL160 G6 server to replace my aging ML150 G2 file server. It is equipped with the Smart Array P212 controller and 4x 1 TB SAS drives. The OS is Windows Server 2008 R2.

I had to create 2 logical drives (LUNs) from the usable 3 TB RAID 5 array because the disk where Windows is installed must be a MBR disk, which is limited to 2 TB. By having 2 LUNs (100 GB for the OS and the rest for storage) Windows sees them as separate disks, so you can configure the bigger volume as a GPT disk, bypassing the 2 TB limit.

When you press F8 at boot time to access the P212 setup program, you do not have the option to create logical drives inside your RAID array. To enable this function, you must boot on the provided "Easy Set-Up" CD, and access the ACU there.

After that you install the OS on the smaller volume. When Windows is installed, you can convert the second logical drive as a GPT disk, with full access to the disk space.

Thanks to gregersenj from HP ITRC forums for pointing me in the right direction !

See his post at http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1420815

GPO to disable password protection of Microsoft Office files

2010-02-04T15:28:00.006-05:00

We do not want our employees to password-protect Microsoft Office files in case they forget the password or they leave the company. If you use AD, there is a GPO to disable this feature in Office.

First you must download the "Administrative templates" for the version of Office you use. Here are some links:

Office 2003: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=ba8bc720-edc2-479b-b115-5abb70b3f490

Office 2007: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=92d8519a-e143-4aee-8f7a-e4bbaeba13e7

Office 2010 beta: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=c3436a99-5c80-48ce-83e8-481f9c3d2288

Extract the files to a temporary folder.

Launch "Active Directory Users and Computers" (aka ADUC) and right-click the domain or OU you want to add the policy to. Select Properties and go to the "Group Policy" tab. You can then edit an existing policy or create a new one.

Once inside your GPO, right-click "Administrative templates" and select "Add/Remove Templates...". Click Add and browse to the temporary folder where you extracted your templates. The name of the template you need to load varies with the version of Office. For Office 2007 the file you need is "office12.adm". Click Close.

Back in your GPO, you will see settings that were not listed before. Browse to "Microsoft Office System 2007", Security Settings and the policy you need to enable is the third last.

At the next policy refresh (you can force a refresh on a client computer by typing "gpupdate" at a command prompt), the "read-only password" option in the "Save as..." dialog box of Word and Excel will be grayed out !

BTW if someone sets an edit password on a document, don't worry. Open the file as read-only and copy and paste the content in a new document.

How to make a Windows 7 "universal disk"

2009-11-12T10:46:00.002-05:00

From the ISO file of Windows 7 Ultimate, any language, x86 or x64, you can make a "universal disk" that will prompt you to select which version to install (Home, Pro, etc.).

Use the excellent ei.cfg Removal Utility to edit your ISO file.

From the site: "The resulting ISO images are bit-for-bit identical with those posted on MSDN or TechNet, and their SHA-1 hashes should match the official hashes posted by Microsoft. This tool works by toggling the deletion bit in the UDF file table, eliminating the need for unpacking and rebuilding the ISO."

USB multifunction printer on a W2K3 TS

2009-10-30T14:58:00.004-05:00

First, I know that you should not install unsigned third-party printer drivers on a TS, but sometimes you just have to...

A remote user have at home a "Brother MFC-8500 USB" multifunction printer. This is the name of the driver on his XP computer. I wanted to install the driver on our W2K3 TS to enable him to print at home. I went to the Brother web site and downloaded the "Add printer wizard" XP driver for this machine, since there was no W2K3 driver available.

Alas, when I added this driver to the Terminal Server, the name was "Brother MFC8500". So when the remote user logged in I had the infamous Event 1111 on the server's event log:

"Driver Brother MFC-8500 USB required for printer Brother MFC-8500 USB is unknown. Contact the administrator to install the driver before you log in again."

The thing is that the driver's names must match exactly for W2K3 to "see" that it is the good driver and load it.

Since it was only a name issue and I knew that the binaries were OK, I opened the OEMMF01A.INF from the extracted driver files and I seached for the "Brother MFC8500" string. I edited it to read "Brother MFC-8500 USB" and I ran the "Add Printer Driver Wizard" again. As expected the name was in the list and it installed OK.

Create a Vista SP2 slipstream installation disc

2009-07-23T09:21:00.001-05:00

Here is an excellent post on how to create a Vista SP2 slipstream installation disc: http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/230249-sliptream-vista-sp2.html

2 weeks with Hyper-V

2008-06-13T07:24:00.004-05:00

I'd like to share my experience with Hyper-V. I've been using it for 2 weeks now in a production environment.

My setup:

Server:

HP Proliant DL140 G3
Intel Xeon 5160 (Dual-core 3 GHz)
9 GB RAM
2x 73 GB SAS drive in RAID1 (hardware RAID)
Dual 1 GB/s NIC
Windows Server 2008 x64 Standard

(At first I had only 5 GB RAM, but I ran short and I installed another 4 GB.)

VMs:

Windows 2003 Server (x86) with 512 MB for DC, GC, DNS, DHCP
Windows 2008 Server (x64) with 1 GB for WSUS 3.0 SP1 x64
Windows XP Pro (x86) with 512 MB for FTP server (Serv-U) and Sybase Anywhere server
Windows 2003 Server (x86) with 2 GB for Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager (SEPM)

I also installed CA ARCserve 12.0 on the host OS. The server uses about 5.6 GB RAM (out of 9) and CPU utilization is low.

My conclusion: Hyper-V is ready for prime time even though in beta. Don't forget that you need a NIC for management so at least 2 NICs are required. (I'd like to have 3 to connect one to the DMZ but my server doesn't have a free slot because of the SAS adapter for the tape backup.)

Also do not cut on RAM, you need to add up the RAM allocated for all VMs, the host OS and any apps on the host.

Windows Desktop Search returns nothing in Outlook 2007

2008-06-12T10:22:00.003-05:00

If WDS (3.01 or 4.0) returns no search results in Outlook 2007, shutdown Outlook, run fixmapi.exe (usually in the Windows\system32 folder) then rebuild the WDS index.

The cause is usually the installation of Exchange management tools.

Windows XP SP3 available through Windows Update Catalog

2008-05-08T08:23:00.002-05:00

If you want to download XP SP3, go to http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/ and type xp sp3 in the search field. It is available there and dated May 6th 2008.

Office 2007 SP1 requires Windows Installer 3.1

2007-12-21T11:17:00.000-05:00

If you install XP SP2 on a computer, then Office 2007, then you try to installed the uncompressed* version of Office 2007 SP1, you will get an error message saying that the package cannot be opened.

It is because the MSP files need Windows Installer 3.1 to run properly. Go to Windows Update, install Windows Installer 3.1, and you can install Office 2007 SP1 after.

* : to uncompress the SP1 files from the downloadable version, run the file with the /extract:"path" command line switch.

How to remove WDS through logon script

2007-11-14T10:44:00.000-05:00

On our network, like many others, Windows Desktop Search 3.01 was installed on all XP computers even though I never approved it in WSUS.

To remove it through logon script add this line to the script:

%windir%\$NtUninstallKB917013$\spuninst\spuninst.exe /quiet /norestart (on one line)

Credits to Kurt Falde from the WSUS newsgroup for the tip.

Enabling SATA Native Mode after XP Install

2007-10-11T14:17:00.003-05:00

If you want to enable SATA Native Mode on your computer AFTER installing Windows XP follow this procedure.

For whatever reason, you may have installed Windows XP on your new laptop with SATA Native Mode disabled in the BIOS. Once XP is installed, enabling it in the BIOS will result in a BSOD upon loading Windows because XP doesn't have the correct drivers.

Enabling SATA native mode will give you a slight performance increase and slightly increased battery life.

Download the Intel Matrix Storage Manager software for your computer from the manufacturer's web site
Run it, by default it will save some files to C:\ before it runs setup and tells you that the software is not supported (alternatively you can uncompress the files to a temporary folder with a compression software like 7-Zip)
Now open up a command prompt, go to the folder where the files were extracted and run the following command to extract the driver files: "setup -A -P"path of the extracted files" (without the quotes and there may be a space or not between -P and the path, depending on your version of the driver)
Accept the license agreement, it extracts some files. The files you're interested in are now in a "Driver" subfolder of the original folder and include the following :iaahci.cat, iaahci.inf, iastor.cat, iastor.inf, iastor.sys, TXTSSETUP.OEM
Now go to Device Manager, under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers you should see something like : Intel 82801GBM (ICH7-M Family) Serial ATA Storage Controller
Right-Click on that and select Update Driver
Say no to connecting to Windows Update to search, hit Next
Select Install from a list or specific location (Advanced), hit Next
Select "Don't search. I will choose the driver to install", hit Next
Select Have Disk
Browse to the Driver folder and highlight the iastor.inf file, hit Open
Select OK
Now you should have a list of controllers. **WARNING** Selecting the wrong controller for your computer will prevent it to boot, causing BSOD. Make sure you select the right controller for your particular computer ! See this thread on HP forums for the controller inside some laptops: http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-HP-ProBook-Compaq-Slate/Enabling-SATA-Native-Mode-after-XP-Install/m-p/695231/highlight/true#M104270
You'll get warned that installing the device driver is not recommended, click Yes to continue installing
Click Finish
Click Yes to restart your computer
When your computer boots up, you need to to enter the BIOS. Change SATA Native Mode to Enabled, save changes and exit.
After you log into Windows, your computer will find the "new" hardware. Wait until you get the popup message to restart your computer, say Yes to restart one last time.

Credits to Jamie Rybarczyk from HP support forums for this procedure.

Information store does not mount when you restart an Exchange 2003 server

2007-10-11T07:46:00.001-05:00

Microsoft KB875427 says " The installation of Exchange on a domain controller may affect the performance of that domain controller. In some scenarios, this performance effect prevents the Exchange-related services from starting successfully when you start the computer. In these scenarios, you must manually start the Exchange-related services. "

I had one of these servers. Its shut down time was really long (15 minutes) and after restart the information store service did not start automatically.

I found out that the problem was that this server was the only GC (global catalog) server in the affected site. It is KB829361 that gave me a clue. Adding the GC role to another DC at this site solved the problem.

Edit to answer a question:

To add a Global Catalog in your domain:

Start Active Directory Sites and Services
Sites - Site your Exchange server is in - Servers - DC you want to become GC -NTDS Settings
Right-click NTDS Settings - Properties and check "Global Catalog"

Monitor the "Directory Service" event log of the server to validate that it becomes a GC. It may take a while depending on your domain size.

Install IE7 on non-genuine (not) Windows XP

2007-10-05T12:37:00.000-05:00

Sometimes when I try to install IE7 on Windows XP SP2, my OS is detected as "non-genuine" by WGA, even though it has been installed with the CD key that is on the sticker on the machine.

I could phone Microsoft to solve the problem, but I found an easy way to bypass WGA and install IE7 anyway.

Here it is: http://fmshaon.blogspot.com/2006/10/how-to-install-internet-explorer-70.html

Thanks Ferdous Mahmud Shaon for the tip.

Error when you upgrade to Office 2007 from 2003

2007-10-04T09:12:00.000-05:00

I encountered the "The windows installer service cannot update one or more protected windows files" error upgrading some computers to Office 2007 from 2003.

Event viewer reveals the culprit: the fp4autl.dll file is missing. Just copy it from another computer and put it in %SystemDrive%\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\40\bin\ and restart the installation.

The "common files " folder can be different if you use a non-english Windows XP. E.g. on a french XP it is "fichiers communs".

Thanks to http://blogs.developerfusion.co.uk/blogs/thushan/archive/2006/11/25/1493.aspx for the tip.

Profile vs GPO based logon scripts

2007-07-16T17:50:00.000-05:00

Since Windows 2000 server and Active directory, there is 2 ways of running logon scripts for users, one profile-based "à la" NT, one GPO-based.

There is some pluses and some minuses to migrate your profile-based scripts to GPO-based scripts:

Advantages of Group Policy based scripts:

The script runs hidden, so there is no chance for the user to terminate it before completion

When you create a new user, you only have to put it in the right OU for the logon script to run
You do not only have a logon script, but also logoff, startup and shutdown scripts.

One of these days, Microsoft will remove support for legacy i.e. profile-based scripts and you will be ready for that

Disavantages of Group Policy based scripts:

If you want to have a script for a single or a few user(s) you have to create an OU just for them

They are not available to not AD-aware clients

Where are these settings located ?

GPO-based scripts are in Active Directory Users and Computers aka ADUC, right-click on your domain or OU, Properties, Group Policy tab, Add a Group Policy Object or edit an existing one. Startup/shutdown scripts are under Computer Configuration, Windows Settings, Scripts and logon/logoff scripts are under User Configuration, Windows Settings, Scripts.
Profile-based scripts are in ADUC, right-click an user and select Properties, Profile tab and enter the script in the Logon script field. The script may be a batch file (.bat or .cmd) or an executable. It must reside in the NETLOGON share of your domain(s) controller(s).

RDP from Vista slow after Windows 2003 Server SP2 installed

2007-06-15T12:47:00.000-05:00

After installing W2K3 SP2 on one of my servers, the RDP session was awfully slow, especially mouse clicks.

It appears that Vista TCP/IP "Receive Window Auto-Tuning " is the culprit.

To disable it, open a command prompt and type:

netsh interface tcp set global rss=disabled
netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled

and reboot .

Credits to: http://msmvps.com/blogs/bradley/archive/2007/04/04/vista-slow-after-sp2-installed.aspx

Slow file copy/move in Vista ? Here is the solution !

2007-04-05T13:53:00.001-05:00

One of the main complain I had about Vista is the slow file copy or move operations. It seems that it is the new "Remote Differential Compression" who is the culprit.

To turn it off go in Control Panel / Programs and features / Turn on or turn off Windows features and uncheck "Remote Differential Compression".

I found out that Vista TCP/IP "Receive Window Auto-Tuning " slows network access too.
To disable it, open a command prompt and type:

netsh interface tcp set global rss=disabled
netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled

and reboot .

How to install W2K3 server on a floppyless server

2007-02-19T10:29:00.000-05:00

Most servers today comes without a floppy drive.

If you want to install Windows Server 2003 on one of these servers and you have a hard drive controller that is not supported by default in W2K3 server, like most RAID controllers, the only way to install the driver through the standard setup program is from a floppy drive.

I have a floppyless server (HP Proliant DL140 G3) with the "HP 8 Internal Port SAS Host Bus Adapter with RAID" and I did not want to buy an USB floppy drive only to install the OS, especially after I read this post which says that you must use a HP branded USB floppy drive.

A HP forum search gave a link to this web site, where you can download a program called nLite, a "Deployment Tool for the Bootable Unattended Windows". Definitively recommended.

With this program you can make a bootable CD with you Windows setup files, integrate service packs and add your RAID drivers in advance so the controller is detected by Windows Server 2003 at setup time, without using the F6 option.
------
Edit on 2007/04/24:

I used nLite to install Windows XP on a floppyless ThinkPad T60 with a 120GB SATA drive and it worked like a charm.

How to resize the desktop icons in Vista

2007-01-30T14:38:00.000-05:00

If, as I do, you find the Vista desktop icons too big, click anywhere on the desktop and hold CTRL while you move the mouse wheel backwards.

Latest Exchange 2003 IMF update causes problem with scan to e-mail

2007-01-23T13:09:00.000-05:00

Since the latest Exchange 2003 IMF update (January 23rd 2007), some users were unable to send to their Exchange inbox the pdf files created with a scan-to-email multifunction printer.

The printer uses SMTP (port 25) to send the file to the Exchange server.

When I disabled the IMF from the SMTP virtual server the problem was solved, but I didn't want to keep it disabled.

So I added a second port in the SMTP virtual server (port 26), enabled IMF on it, and I configured the firewall to forward traffic to this port instead of standard port 25.

This way, internal e-mail goes to port 25 and is not filtered, but messages from external systems are forwarded to port 26 and filtered by IMF.
------
Edit on 2007/04/24:

Finally I found a "cleaner" solution. Connection filter has an "IP accept" list. If you add the IP of the printer in this list and enable Connection Filtering on the SMTP virtual server, it will bypass IMF.

How to install XP in DOS mode on a large SATA drive

2007-01-18T11:22:00.000-05:00

Since Windows NT4, I always installed NT the same way: create a FAT32 partition on the C: drive, format it, copy the \i386 folder from the NT installation CD and start winnt.exe from C:\i386. It always worked for me that way until today, with NT4, 2000, XP and Server 2003.

I have a brand new HP Compaq dx2200 desktop with a 80 GB SATA drive. I create a 80 GB FAT32 partition with Smart FDISK (from the very nice Hiren's boot CD) and copy the \i386 folder from a XP with SP2 CD (from HP) and start the winnt.exe. It goes through the first part of the setup OK, but at the first reboot, "operating system not found".

I format the FAT32 partition again and "sys c:" from a Windows 98 boot CD and same thing, "operating system not found" even though I can access the partition and I see that command.com is there.

The solution:

I create a 5 GB partition, format it as FAT32, "sys c:" from my trusted Windows 98SE boot CD, copy the \i386 from the HP Windows XP CD, start winnt.exe and all the setup goes well. No need for the F6 part. I have a fully functionnal XP Pro, on a 5 GB partition.

I resize the partition with Partition Magic 8, again from Hiren's Boot CD, to 80 GB. It warns me that the partiton will go over 1024 cylinders, so that it may be unbootable, but it works with XP. I **think** that it is the reason why I cannot do as usual, DOS (and the DOS part of XP setup) can't "see" the 80 GB partition because of the 1024 cylinder limit.