The trial is only 5 days long, but all that’s required to create a trial account is a name and a valid email address. The trial accounts create an account populated with sample messages, calendar items, and voice mail; you’re allowed to send and receive mail, schedule meetings, and adjust your own account’s settings while connecting via Outlook, OWA, or any Exchange Active-Sync app.

Tags: Microsoft, Exchange, 2007, Exchange+2007, server, exchange+server, free, trial, demo, account, OWA, Outlook

So far there seem to be three types of solutions to solving the expiring cartridge problem. The fourth “fix” is 100% guaranteed to work: find an HP model that doesn’t use chipped cartridges:

• Use Microsoft printer drivers instead of HP drivers: The Microsoft-written printer drivers that are included with Windows XP and Vista don’t check for the expiration date like HP-written drivers do. This isn’t a fix for newer printer models, which only have HP-written drivers on the market.
• Edit the HP driver’s .INI file to NOT check for the expiration date: I wouldn’t recommend this if you’re not already comfortable editting the registry or writing windows scripts. This is more relevant to newer printers and cartridges, as they don’t have an expiration date until they’re first used. Older printers with very old cartridges that have a built-in expiration date set at the factory can’t be helped by this fix. (And, remember to make a backup of the .INI file before editting it.)
  

  Start with a new cartridge. Do not install the cartridge until you do the following.

  There is an *.ini file (hpSomethingOrOther.ini) stored in the system directory (WINNT in NT and 2000) that has a name probably associated with the driver version.

  Search for hp*.ini and edit the ones with the latest dates. If you configure the printer driver first, see below, the file date should read today.

  There are two files, one will list the one you need to change, change the other one, I think it is the smaller one.

  In it there is a parameter something like pencheck. It is set to 0100. I think this is a boolean because I tried other values without effect. Set it to 0000 in the file and save the file and REBOOT.

  You can check the value in the driver configuration dialog box (found through the Help for the HP tool box, open the last entry, I think, and click on configure).

  If the grayed out box for ink check or cartridge check or something like that is unchecked, you are in business. Cancel this dialog. Do NOT click on default or the expiration check will be reinstated and when you print with your new cartridge you will get an expiration date burned into it.

  I wouldn’t trust making any changes to this dialog box without rechecking that the parameter stays unchecked. After making sure this value is unchecked, install your new virgin cartridge(s) and the expiration date(s) will read “UNKNOWN”.

  Link to full .INI-editting article.

• Remove the printer’s internal battery to reset the memory chip in the cartridges: Removing the battery with the ink cartridge installed erases the expiration date stored on cartridges not set at the factory. Battery location and ease-of-access varies greatly by printer model. Here’s a descriptin of the problem and instructions for the d125xi printer and a Fixyourownprinter.com forum thread with details on many models of printers.

[Photo credit: liewcf]

Just like most gyms sell memberships to more people than could fit into the workout area if all those members showed up once per day, many hosting companies price their packages at levels that are only profittable if traffic stays very low. In the Seminal’s article, referenced above, they started with a shared web hosting package from iPowerWeb. That package offers 2,000 GB of bandwidth for $8/month - and I’m going to stay focused on that number because bandwidth is the number one place where shared web hosting companies fail to deliver on their promises (plus an 800mhz Pentium 3 with 1 GB RAM webserver that I run at work delivers 10-15 GB/day of web traffic for an application we only use internally, so the meagre specs on that hardware work fine for 275 GB/month [conservatively, 12.5 GB/day for 22 work days each month] over 100 mbps & 1 gbps network connections). A good price for bandwidth, for a hosting company leasing multiple OCx-class connections, is about $0.06/GB. That means that 2,000 GB of bandwidth works out to $120/month. In fact, your $8/month is only enough to pay for about 133 GB of bandwidth before the hosting company starts dropping into the red.

Yikes! The truth is there’s no way those lower-end hosting companies can make money from basic web hosting packages if even a small percentage of their clients are using a good chunk of the allotted bandwidth. It’s true that the numbers presented in the hosting package descriptions are typically loss-leaders, but the packages and services offered by any hosting company should be capable of reaching what they’re rated to. And, if the high bandwidth usage is a problem thsn companies should either ask users causing them a loss to leave (which sure would get those companies a lot of attention on Slashdot and Digg) or they should also institute and disclose a rate-cap of how much bandwidth/second can be used (for example: 2,000 GB/month over 2,592,000 seconds for a max rate of ~768 KBps).

In my experience of content sites’ daily traffic patterns, most non-rich media websites see averaged daily traffic rates that are only 5-15% of their peak daily rate. Let’s assume that a front page link from Digg will only triple your normal peak rate of visits (unlikely) and then work backward from 768 KBps to see what a realistic monthly usage would be from one of those shared hosting packages. One third of 768 KBps is 256 KBps, which represents our peak daily traffic rate when not featured on a big, linking site. Take 10% of that and get 25.6 KBps, or 26 KBps if we round to keep things clean. 26 KBps times the 2,592,000 seconds in a 30 day month is 67,392,000 KB of data, or ~67.4 GB/month when we’re talking in the same terms as those hosting plan providers. That seems more reasonable at a rate of $0.06/GB for an $8/month web hosting plan. Now only about $4/month goes to pay for bandwidth and the rest can pay for the hosting providers servers and staff.

Before we forget the whole point of this, 768 KBps means that an average content site with a 250 KB front page, JS, CSS, and images will take about 1/3rd of a second to transfer. Add another half second of latency, I know average latency isn’t that high but the server and browser take a little while to deal with each individual HTML, CSS, JS, and image to be transferred, and the total page load time is about 5/6ths of a second. Now grab this Browser statistics Firefox extenstion and check your own shared host website. This site has a 156 KB page load, is happily hosted on a 1and1 shared server, and has a 4.5 sec. average page load time and 1.8 sec. minimum page load time according to Google’s webmaseter tools and the large number of page loads their spider does of this site. Odds are you’re looking at a download time a lot higher than 5/6ths of a second. If that’s the case then how can your shared webserver ever stand up to the traffic experienced when being Dugg or Slashdotted?

Plain and simple, that shared web server won’t cut it when you’re Dugg or Slashdotted. The artificial statistics I’m using above, of 768 KBps peak and 26 KBps sustained, make it clear that shared host webservers aren’t capable of profittably delivering the 1,000+ GB/month that most of them advertise. Real world page load times indicate that most shared hosting companies can’t realistically sustain a 768 KBps peak rate or 67 GB/month of traffic to your site. All the caching and HTML/CSS-tweaking in the world won’t save a website when it still has to get squeezed through a skinny pipe.

Sadly, many shared hosting companies are generally happy save money offering poor service and then by allowing higher bandwidth users (costing them $0.06/GB) to move elsewhere. I really hope this practice goes the way of selling CRT monitors based on the tube size instead of the viewable size. Since I’m not a fan of government regulation, I hope some of the bigger or higher-quality shared hosting companies start offering throughput guarantees to compete with the cheap shared hosting packages that can’t deliver.

This site, Command Windows, provides a complete list of the available commands with a description of each. Also included is documentation on some preventative measures (as usual, registry edits) that can be taken before Windows crashes to remove some of the restrictions on the Recovery Console later on. The restrictions that can be removed include disallowing Recovery Console from writing to a floppy disk, blocked access to some system folders, and not being able to use wildcards on the command line.

Everyone knows why (bugs, bugs, bugs), but Robert McLaws makes some great observations in “Vista Needs More Time” and compares the buggy Vista Bets 2 with Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2. One of them was basically production-ready with Beta 2, the other still has issues with the 3D interface that seems to be the main selling point in a lot of “get users excited ads”. Whether the interface, or anything else, is working right I think Microsoft should ship the Vista RTM version to software developers, OEMs and corporate customers regardless.

Robert is right, Vista isn’t ready to launch in retail, but he justifies the possible slipped ship date with the same-old argument about “shipping a great product”. Inveterate Windows commentator Ed Bott even wants Microsoft to push Vista’s ship date back to March.

Despite the very sorry state of Beta 2, it would be a great thing to get a Vista RTM out the door with a LOT fewer features and then release a service pack, or even a feature pack, a month later. After all, whether customers are actually buying the operating system or not, Vista will probably need to be out a good 6-9 months before most IT shops really start to get on the upgrade path.

This shiny, new OS is a hardware hog and is going to force many companies, including the majority of the companies I deal with and have friends at, to either speed their upgrade cycle or wait through at least one, if not two, budget cycles. Of course, one good way to force operating system or office-suite upgrades is to give software developers plenty of time to test and patch around it - which gets IT departments testing it and pushing it out to higher-end machines sooner - which puts it on the CFOs desk - which gets a budget decision made sooner.

Then again, with MSFT sunk for 2007 already and a $30 billion stock-buyback planned - maybe Microsoft should knock the date back to next summer and save themselves some of that money.

Tags: Windows, Vista, operating, system, Beta, 2, RTM, final, ship, date, slip, slipped, miss, Robert, McLaws, budget, upgrade, 2007

No, I’m not an affiliate of this website and I won’t earn anything if you click through, buy, don’t buy, etc.

Update: Looks like the price was updated (now $1,150), sorry to anyone who was hoping to pick Visual Studio up cheaply. Link removed.

While it’s less and less likely for PC users to get infected by a virus, I expect that the outcome of any infections will become increasingly severe. Organized criminals will be able to hire better and better commercial programmers as the value of these extortion efforts increase. With better programmers, you can expect the same improvements being made to encryption and software-registration systems (available free via open source) to be integrated into viruses several generations from now.

Our “custom-configured” Windows world has a lot to learn from the design of these little machines. By standardizing both hardware and software configurations they’ve managed to implement 802.11 wireless-mesh networking and a minimal-IT-required Linux system. Should the operating system or software get messed up or infected (…however unlikely that is on Linux) - the whole system can be reimaged without worries of data loss. How do they manage to store data without any expensive servers? Each machine only has 512MB of FlashRAM/non-volatile storage and is designed to share data via a community (the local mesh, I think) wiki system. Sounds a little like Windows roaming profiles, except without the bloat and ability for users to still store data on the local drive; also way ahead of the server-centric network PC/thin client systems encouraged by Oracle, Citrix, Wyse and many hardware manufacturers.

The whole project is well documented at laptop.org, so take a look for yourself.

Tags: $100, MIT, media+lab, OLPC, one+laptop+per+child, project, laptop.org, laptop, network+PC, thin+client

Here’s and example: PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 8 ): 554 5.1.0 Sender Denied

In this case it’s easy to see that the message was returned because of an SMTP error. The “Sender Denied” comment on the end means it’s probably because the sending mail server was blacklisted by a spam filter. In most cases it’s not that clear and you need to use the status codes to figure out what happened. The status code in this message is the “554 5.1.0″ part. The format is always *** x.x.x, with the x.x.x part being a return code and the *** being an ESMTP status code. A chart of their meanings is below:

x.x.x, Server Return Codes:
The first value indicates the status of the communication between the sender and recipient server. Possible values are:

• 1 - Server accepted the command, but no action taken. Confirmation message is required.
• 2 - Server successfully completed the task.
• 3 - Server understood the request. More information is required to complete.
• 4 - Server encountered a temporary failure on that request. The command may complete if it’s repeated.
• 5 - Server encountered an error.

The second value is an extra level of detail, which indicates the type of error or communication:

• 0 - Syntax error has occured.
• 1 - Message is an informational reply.
• 2 - Message refers to the connection status.
• 3 - Unspecified, may be used for custom messages.
• 4 - Unspecified, may be used for custom messages.
• 5 - Status message refers to the entire mail system or server.

***, ESMTP Status Codes:
In the event of a failure ESMTP codes can indicate even more detail than server return codes. They can indicate status of either the recipient mail server or your local mail server in response to a problem with your mail client. Possible values are:

• 211 - System status message.
• 214 - Help message formatted for human reader follows.
• 220 - SMTP service ready.
• 221 - Service/connection closing.
• 250 - Successful request. Action completed.
• 251 - Recipient is not local to the server, but the server will accept and forward the message.
• 252 - Recipient can’t be verified, but the server will accept the message and attempt delivery.
• 354 - Start message input now, end with <crlf>.</crlf>. Indicates the server is ready to accept a message once you’ve given it From: and To: information
• 421 - Service is not available and connection will be closed.
• 450 - Requested command failed because the recipient’s mailbox is unavailable.
• 451 - Command has been aborted due to a server error. Possibly notify your SysAdmin.
• 452 - Command has been aborted because the server has insufficient system storage.
• 500 - Server could not recognize the command was due to a syntax error. (usually due to mail client error)
• 501 - Syntax error was found in command arguments. (usually due to mail client error)
• 502 - Command was not implemented. (usually due to mail client error)
• 503 - Server has encounterd a bad command or sequence of commands. (usually due to mail client error)
• 504 - Command parameter is not implemented. (usually due to mail client error)
• 550 - Command failed because the user’s mailbox was unavailable (or you did not have permissions to send to this mailbox)
• 551 - Recipient is not local to the server. Server responds with a fowarding address that should be tried.
• 552 - Action was aborted because storage allocation was exceeded.
• 553 - Action was aborted because the mailbox name was invalid.
• 554 - Transaction failed, without a clear reason.

There is an easy way to run the IE 7 browser in standalone mode, thanks to Jon Galloway. Below in Step #3, I’ve added a VBS script that hides the DOS window that needs to be kept open in his version. Here are the steps:

1. Download the IE 7 Beta installer, “IE7B2P-WindowsXP-x86-enu.exe” is the current version. Extract the files in the installer by opening a command line to the folder it’s saved in and type “IE7BETA2-WindowsXP-x86-enu.exe -e” to extract it to a temporary folder (something like C:\abcdefghijklmnop\), or use WinRAR if you have it installed already. Before closing the popup notification message, copy all the extracted files from the temporary folder to a permanent folder, I’ll use C:\IE7\ in the example. You can change the folder name, but edit the attached scripts if you’re going to change their filenames.
2. Create a file named IE7.bat in the folder C:\IE7\ and paste in Jeff Galloway’s IE7 script:
   

   @ECHO OFF
   TITLE IE7 Launcher 1.4

   ECHO IE7 STANDALONE LAUNCHER 1.4
   ECHO Updated for IE7 Beta 2 Preview
   ECHO.
   ECHO Do not close this window or it will not clean up after itself properly.
   ECHO You can pass a URL into this batch file, like this:
   ECHO ie7.bat www.microsoft.com
   ECHO.
   ECHO More info here: http://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway/archive/2005/12/28/434132.aspx
   ECHO.
   ECHO When you close IE7, this will remove the registry key and shut itself down.
   ECHO.
   ECHO Setting up IE7 for standalone mode…
   PUSHD %~dp0

   ECHO Removing IE7 registry key and set the version vector to “7.0000″.
   > %TEMP%.\IE7Fix.reg ECHO REGEDIT4
   >>%TEMP%.\IE7Fix.reg ECHO.
   >>%TEMP%.\IE7Fix.reg ECHO [-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{C90250F3-4D7D-4991-9B69-A5C5BC1C2AE6}]
   >>%TEMP%.\IE7Fix.reg ECHO [-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface\{000214E5-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}]
   >>%TEMP%.\IE7Fix.reg ECHO [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Version Vector]
   >>%TEMP%.\IE7Fix.reg ECHO “IE”=”7.0000″
   >>%TEMP%.\IE7Fix.reg ECHO.
   :: Merge the REG file to delete the IE7 standalone entry
   REGEDIT /S %TEMP%.\IE7Fix.reg

   REN SHLWAPI.DLL SHLWAPI.DLL.BAK
   TYPE NUL > IEXPLORE.exe.local
   ECHO Running IE7…
   iexplore.exe “%1″

   :: Merge the REG file to delete the IE7 standalone entry
   REGEDIT /S %TEMP%.\IE7Fix.reg
   :: Delete the temporary REG file
   DEL %TEMP%.\IE7Fix.reg

   ECHO Removing IE7 standalone files…
   REN SHLWAPI.DLL.BAK SHLWAPI.DLL
   DEL IEXPLORE.exe.local

   :: Set the old version vector “6.0000″.
   > %TEMP%.\IE7Fix.reg ECHO REGEDIT4
   >>%TEMP%.\IE7Fix.reg ECHO.
   >>%TEMP%.\IE7Fix.reg ECHO [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Version Vector]
   >>%TEMP%.\IE7Fix.reg ECHO “IE”=”6.0000″
   >>%TEMP%.\IE7Fix.reg ECHO.
   REGEDIT /S %TEMP%.\IE7Fix.reg
   DEL %TEMP%.\IE7Fix.reg

   POPD
   ECHO Complete, closing…

3. Create a file named IE7.vbs in the folder C:\IE7\ and add the following VBS script:
   

   Set oShell = CreateObject(”WScript.Shell”)
   oShell.Run “ie7.bat”, 0, True

4. That’s it. To run IE 7, just create a shortcut to the IE7.vbs file and don’t worry about cleanup or keeping any DOS windows open.

Tags: Internet+Explorer+7, IE7, beta, beta2, standalone, fix, test, script, hack,

Wireless range is directly related to the amount of power sent through the antenna. Since laptop devices usually have less powerful antennas than base stations plugged into the wall, early reports of inferior range in USB wireless devices were because the USB bus supplied less power (ref. #1 below) than the PC Card bus (ref. #2 below). Now that the antennas on both types of devices are very similar and most Windows XP drivers allow Windows to manage the power used by the wireless device automatically it’s rare for either USB or PC Card devices to either be run at full power or for one type to have a better range than the other.

An internal wi-fi card is a big improvement over the above options, because the antenna are much larger and more sensitive. Most laptops with internal wireless devices have an antenna wire in around the outside edge of the screen, making a big improvement over any external options, regardless of power output.

Also, PC Card technology has more power-saving modes (handled automatically by the PC Card controller, ref. #2 below) than USB does. Before Windows XP started to manage power via the driver - PC Card wireless devices went into low-power mode more often and depleted the battery less than USB devices did. Now there is little to no noticable difference in battery use by either device. …although, when a laptop is put to sleep either device will continue to consume a small amount of battery power if it is left in the laptop. Since USB has slightly better hot-plug support (ie: it can be removed and reinserted without causing errors on the PC) it is usually easier to remove it when putting the PC to sleep. …so, maybe USB is the way to go for you.

Note on Wireless-B, -G, and -N: It’s worth paying attention to the type of communication that a wireless device uses. All Wi-Fi devices “speak” some form of the 802.11 “language”. The letter after the 802.11 indicates the “flavor” of the language - and some are much better/faster than the other flavors. 802.11G deals with radio “noise” (like microwaves and cordless phones) better than 802.11B. Also, if you can find a “pre-N” (pre-802.11N) wireless device choose it (if it’s in your budget). The pre-N technology may not work with the final 802.11N, but all N-flavor devices have much better antennas than the B or G flavors. So, the “best” flavor is “pre-N”, followed by “G”, and then by “B”.

References:

1. http://www.usb-port.com/usb_faq.html - USB supplies 500mA @ 5V
2. http://www.pcmcia.org/pccard.htm - PC Card supplies 660mA @ 5V, 1000mA @ 3.3V

This article is based on a recent, real-life scenario using the Internet Explorer executable, “iexplore.exe”, as the blocked program. The recent release of the IE 7.0 beta software and some freetime playing around by one of my client’s employees provided a chance for plenty of hours watching ESPN and YouTube videos on a warehouse floor and even slowdowns in getting and filling order downloads because of the use of all WAN bandwidth.

To troubleshoot failed software restriction policies I prefer to start on the client machine. To determine both whether a policy is applied correctly and the version of an executable blocked by software restriction:

• Open regedit
• Open the following key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Safer\CodeIdentifiers\
• Inside that key will be one or more numbered branches related to the software restriction policies applied to that machine. To see what program each policy covers, open the numbered branch, then open the Hashes branch and click on each GUID.
• Inside each GUID key will be a string value with the data “program.exe (#.#.####.#) … and so on”. The numeric value #.#.####.# describes the program version. In my case the policy applied to “iexplore.exe (6.0.2900.2180)”
• Then, go check the version of the same executable that’s now installed on the system. In this case, I right-clicked on the iexplore.exe file and selected “Properties” and then the “Version” tab. Right at the top was the file version: 7.0.5335.5.

In this case, that was the answer - the IE 7.0, iexplore.exe was blocked with a new policy and everything was back to normal. In case the solution isn’t that simple, the best thing to do is to gether more data. Enable software restriction policies advanced logging by reopening the registry and:

• Navigate to the following key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Safer\CodeIdentifiers\
• Create a new string value named LogFileName
• Enter the full path and filename of a text file that can be used for logging, ie: C:\sres_log.txt

Now, every executable run on the system will be logged to the file with a reason for wy it was or wasn’t allowed to run. Details include the executable name, PID number, GUID, path name, and an allowed/disallowed/unrestricted comment with a short reason why. Since EVERY program is logged each time it is run, the log can get quite long. To keep it from getting out of control, either disable advanced logging by deleting the key or add a batch script that will truncate the log file periodically.

• Unable to access special folders like “My Documents” or “My Pictures”.
• Microsoft Office applications may stop responding when you attempt to save or open Office files in the “My Documents” folder.
• Office files in the “My Documents” folder are not able to open in Microsoft Office.
• Opening a file through an application’s File / Open menu causes the program to stop responding.
• Typing an address into Internet Explorer’s address bar has no effect.
• Right-clicking on a file and selecting Send To has no effect.
• Clicking on the plus (+) sign beside a folder in Windows Explorer has no effect.
• Some third-party applications stop responding when opening or saving data in the “My Documents” folder

Unfortunately Microsoft neglected to mention several of the third-party apps that are also broken by this hotfix. These include, but probably aren’t limited to: nVidia drivers with shell extensions, Roxio DragToDisc or Adaptec DirectCD, Hewlett Packard’s Share-to-Web software, Kerio Personal Firewall, and SolidWorkds 3D CAD products. Thankfully someone else has spent the time on the phone with Microsoft tech support to resolve these issues and posted the registry fixes not included in KB #918165.

The support for Linux on Virtual Server does make sense. Microsoft’s denial that their customers were using Linux was driving the same customers to actively search for non-Microsoft and open source replacement programs. This could continue to keep Windows Server relevant as open source OS’s improve and reduce Windows’ feature/ease-of-use advantage - provided that Microsoft can provide a decent level of support for Linux guest servers (virtual systems running inside Virtual Server) and create a good set of tools to manage those Linux systems. With Red Hat and Novell, parent of SuSe Linux, relying on support fees for income it will be interesting to see how they respond to Microsoft’s added Linux support. With the licensing and support fees for both companies’ Enterprise Linux versions this move puts all these server OS players on even closer footing.

One minor player who has responded is VMWare. A new “VMWare Server” product is now free, though it lacks a lot of the failover features and load balancing capabilities that make VMWare’s higher-end versions so useful. It will be interesting to see how VMWare Server and Virtual Server compare to each other, though VMWare has a strong lead in supporting the widest range of guest operating systems.

Tags: Microsoft, Virtual, Server, 2005, R2, Linux, guest, OS, support, operating+system, VMWare, virtualization, Red+Hat, Novell, SuSE

Solving the errors used to involve juggling PID’s from the Windows Task Manager and repeated use of Microsoft’s kill.exe process. Even scripting the kill.exe process at boot or from Safe Mode is common. Here’s a list of utilities to automate the process and make manual cleanups a bit faster.

I’ve always liked SysInternals’ stable and well thought-out tools and here are two great utilities: the freeware Process Explorer and PS Kill. PS Kill adds support for scrubbing networked PCs to kill.exe, while Process Explorer tracks all tied processes, DLLs, and other open files. That makes Process Explorer useful - to find everything you actually want to close and delete. The good interface makes it good even when tossing out PS Kill and using any of the cleanup tools below.

One I like is the freeware MoveOnBoot. Just right-clicking on a file lets you choose to Copy/Move/Delete a file on the PCs next boot. It’s also recommended in “How To Override “Access Denied” and “Sharing Violation” Roadblocks”, along with Unlocker Gotcha. Unlocker Gotacha is also freeware and their interface looks pretty fast. They’ve added a bit of Process Explorer’s functionality, so you just need to right-click a folder and a list of all open/locked files will pop up.

Also take a look at EMCO’s Unlock IT. Instead of adding files to a list and rebooting, Unlock IT integrates the ability to kill processes within the interface and copy, move, or delete related files immediately. Instant gratification is great - and even better when it means not needing to wait through a boot process slowed by too many viruses and trojans.

Tags: Windows, utility, trojan, spyware, malware, virus, clean, cleanup, fix, repair, access+denied, error, sharing+violation, message, SysInternals, kill.exe, PS+Kill, Process+Explorer, Unlock+It, MoveOnBoot

…think like a UNIX admin and use Windows mounted drives to create a heirachical tree of drives. It’s simple, no more drive letters to remember or map in a startup script. Just create one lettered drive and then map each type of data, NAS device, or however else you want to segment it, to a folder in that one drive. No need for expensive LUN-aggregation software, just use the Disk Management tools in Windows. It’s even possible to migrate all the data in C:\Program Files\ to a NAS device and then use a mounted drive to make the Windows-OS see the NAS as that “Program Files” folder. Having some performance issues with Exchange or SQL Server? You can use move or add a mounted drive to a separate NAS device to separate the log and database files for both server systems.

1. Open the Computer Management control panel, then the Disk Management sub-panel.
2. Right-click the volume you want to mount and choose “Change Drive Letter and Paths”
3. Click Add, select Mount in the following empty NTFS folder and then choose one of the following options:
   • Already have a folder created: type the path to an empty folder in an NTFS-formatted volume or Browse to it
   • No empty folder created yet: click Browse and find where you’d like to place the new folder, then click New Folder and create away

Drive Number Limits: Technically you can have an unlimited number of drives when they’re mapped to folder names instead of drive letters. In reality, approaching 100 separate mounted drives can start to bog down most stock 1U or 2U servers. More RAM and a faster OS-drive (C: drive) are needed to optimize support many more mounted drives.

Tags: Windows, Server, NAS, SAN, drive+letters, mapped, mounted, drives, extend, add, migrate, data, compress+drive, SQL+Server, Exchange, separate, database, log, files, performance

The 0×80040707 error code has become more common recently, as the Data Execution Prevention (DEP) controls (screenshot link) installed by Windows XP SP2 also interfere with InstallShield’s operations and can block its access to the Windows shell folders mentioned earlier. If your shell folder paths are all correct, the likely culprit of the error is Windows’ DEP and these steps should resolve the issue:

1. Find the primary installation file for the program you were installing. If it’s not a single-file installer it’s usually “setup.exe” on a CD, but you can either check the AUTORUN.INF file to see what program it’s calling or dig through the folders on the CD (/bin/, /eng/, and /driver/ are common folders where the true installer program is nested when the setup.exe is just a fancy GUI program).
2. Right-click the installation program and select “Run As…”. If it doesn’t show up the then file may not be an executable > start over at step #1 and look for other files.
3. Uncheck the “Protect My Computer And Data From Unauthorized Activity” box, this deactivates DEP for this executable and its child processes, and click the “OK” button.

For just $5 (current and regular price is $495) the 5-user version of OnTime was worth a test as a replacement to our current mixed system of customized (and fragile) Exchange Forms in a Public folder and the non-customizable and no-longer being updated Intuit Track-It software. Only an hour after purchasing OnTime it was running from our existing SQL Server instance with both several Windows clients and a working web interface installed. The installation process was as simple as it can get without not prompting you for any information. The basic installations of Track-It and FrontRange’s Heat helpdesk software were more far complicated and fragile, and neither of those products’ base versions even included the installtion of a web-based client or reporting system.

Customization of OnTime was equally as impressive as installation. Field names, like “bugs” - in the interface here, can be changed within the program’s interface and persist everywhere (data labels, in reports, even menu names and items). With multiple related data categories I quickly configured the system to track Help Desk calls, ongoing tasks, and a basic KnowledgeBase. All three are displayed separately, but with the Projects tree view setup to match our current Exchange forms heirarcy of the network (ie: desktop-, networking-, server-issues, and their sub-items) we can tie them together and better track resources and the cost/benefit of hardware, patches, etc.

Despite all the benefits I forsee, we haven’t fully implemented OnTime yet. A lot of SQL DTS work is required to migrate data from our current systems and the normal management bureaucracy has raised issues related to documenting, training for the help desk staff (aka: documenting the reporting interface for supervisors), and support (I think many are due to the low cost). …but that’s OK, because despite the “incomplete rollout” the Help Desk technicians are already using OnTime to log and answer new calls - they took to it pretty quickly once I installed OnTime’s email-to-OnTime module. The free add-on automatically imports user support requests from Exchange into the OnTime queue. I also expect AxoSoft’s support to be better and less necessary than the $5 price might indicate to my supervisors. I’m also happy to see that AxoSoft’s Hamid Shojaee has his own blog. It’s a good sign that AxoSoft is bound to be far more responsive to requests and error reports than larger software companies, such as my own experiences with Intuit and FrontRange. The software is already serving our small help desk well and I firmly recommend it, even at the regular 5-user price of $495.

It’s not possible to manually force full-duplex or half-duplex settings on ANY gigabit ports from ANY manufacturer.

Yes, those same ports can still be forced to 10Mbit or 100Mbit full-/half-duplex, only 1000Mbit speed doesn’t support it. No, Dell switches have not been “revised” since your training - they never supported this. Please tell whomever is writing your troubleshooting documentation to revise it; it’s just not correct.

-Mr. Tweak

Tags: Dell, phone, tech, support, gigabit, gigE, 1000mbps, 1000Mbit, network, networking, switch, port, force, full-duplex, half-duplex

After a good deal of time dealing with our ISP and getting nowhere, one of our sysAdmins found an obscure note that Windows 2003’s DNS server supports Extended DNS (EDNS - UDP packets of more than 512 bytes) by default. Windows 2000 server doesn’t support EDNS (also, some older routers or severely hardened firewalls refuse to pass UDP packets over 512 bytes) and the recently installed Windows 2000 server was acting as a backup DNS server for our WAN. The sysAdmin removed the Windows 2000 DNS services and the NDR’s stopped immediately.

In this case we had actually caused our own problem by adding an older system to backup “non-essential” domain services. With Windows 2003 installed throughout the domain we were advertising that we could handle EDNS, but the Windows 2000 server couldn’t handle it. The few email messages that, by chance, repeatedly requested DNS info from the Windows 2000 server failed to be delivered to domains that had probably cached our EDNS usage.

Note: It’s also possible to disable EDNS on Windows 2003 server to make them compatible with older router and firewall systems that don’t support large UDP packets, or with firewall policies that don’t allow those large UDP packets. Just run “dnscmd /Config /EnableEDnsProbes 0” at the command line (click for details).

Tags: Windows+Server, 2000+server, 2003+server, windows, 2000, 2003, DNS, EDNS, DNS+server, Exchange, message, mail, routing, failure, NDR, non-delivery

Stupid jokes and viral videos aside, developers and IT staff spend a lot of time rethinking the “best” ways to solve the 20+/- similar problems. Each time slight differences in the exact situation (often vendor- or service provider-related) and resources available force you to put in so much extra effort. Just an informal posting of this rule on the intranet, code repository, and in conference rooms would server as an excellent reminder to keep things constructive. Taken one step further with the support of management and the concept to learn, contribute, or move on could help even the most junior staff members to gracefully refocus a discussion if starts a too frequent death-dive into a gripe-fest.

Tags: IT, development+method, IT+department, developers, productive, productivity, focus, learning, contributing, help+desk

The easiest method I’ve heard of (even easier than my method of using msconfig to force a reboot prompt) is to click on a blank area of the remote machine’s desktop and then press Alt + F4. Assuming you have Admin rights on the remote PC this brings up the “normal” Windows XP/2000 Shut Down/Reboot dialog. …but there’s a catch - the Remote Desktop window to the remote machine has to be in full screen mode or Alt + F4 will just close something on your own PC. …odds are that if you run an extremely high screen resolution (I do) or have a wide-screen monitor (I have that too), then you’ll have a hard time running the RDC in full screen mode.

There is also a “shutdown” command that I wasn’t aware of. Try entering “shutdown -r -f” on the remote PC’s command line (Start button > “Run…” option > enter in the text box & click “OK”) to force-close open programs and reboot. Other parameters are available for user logoff, shut down, and even logging the reson for shutting down into the event log, see them here: in the online Windows XP documentation. Like the other options it only works if you have Admin rights on the remote PC.

Tags: Windows, XP, 2003, Pro, Home, remote+desktop, remote, desktop, RDC, RDP, Windows+XP, managment, admin, administration, shutdown, reboot, logoff, command+line

Unlike most Microsoft Beta software, Windows Defender Beta 2 automatically detects an earlier version of Microsoft Antispyware and upgrades it without the need to uninstall the earlier version first.

Tags: Microsoft, Windows, Defender, AntiSpyware, Beta, 2, software, upgrade

As for real features added to R2: Microsoft’s hype-machine-generated list of features added to R2 highlights several technologies, including the .NET 2.0 libraries and upgraded identity managment (Active Directory Federation Services), as “new”. Nonetheless, it looks like R2 does have some hype-worthy features that should have been better marketed. These features include the new WAN communication algorithms, for better network synchronization with less bandwidth use, and more granular storage management & SAN configuration tools.

Buying the single biggest, fastest server that can be afforded may seem attractive to small business owners (who may also brag about how fast their server is later). The big problem with having only one big server is that it usually leaves no alternatives when there are conflicts between important software tools, can create contention for hardware (usually disk drive access), and a frequent need to kick everyone entirely off the system whenever a patch requires a reboot. Even for companies running on Windows Small Business Server software it’s usually cheaper both up front and, especially, in the long run to install two less expensive servers running different features from the Small Business Server package. Of course, even on a budget the one thing worth spending extra on in any server is for multiple, fast hard disks and a simple hardware RAID setup. Hard drive space is reduced, but speed and data protection is far greater with RAID.

In the cited article “Mini Network with a Big XServe Style” the author, Ken Collins, separates the most important functions of his systems on to three separate servers; with a database, web, and mail/DNS/router/everything else server. Only one change is necessary in an average business, especially when running Microsoft’s Exchange Server, the e-mail server should be on its own box because mutiple email client programs checking for mail continuously can really be hard on a server. The other important thing Ken does is to run separate internal and external networks which adds a huge level of security, plus some speed in a busy office, beyond what a non-customizable firewall (ie: Cisco Pix or similar programmable systems) provides.

The one huge shortcoming of Ken’s described system is the use of WiFi networking to connect the servers together. In a business use cabling for both security and speed (which is quite slow with this setup, since WiFi shares it’s 45mbps speed between all connected systems). With gigabit switches getting much cheaper there is no reason not to at least install a small gigabit switch just to connect the servers together - I’ve seen disk and memory usage drop on server communicating via gigabit connections because there is less data sitting in queues each time files are saved or transferred.

Tags: small, business, network, server, configuration, Windows, SBS, SMB

An Outlook 2003 .PST is capable of going way beyond 2GB in size (details below). These bigger .PST files no longer lock you out at 2GB - they just slow the system down more as they get ever larger. Regardless of file size you should know about the scanpst.exe utility in order to correct any problems with corrupt .PST’s, details below.

If you do experience frequent corruption in a .PST file near 2GB in size it’s likely due to the hard disk (and other PC “things” that cause file access and string-processing latency) being too slow to store all those big message attachments at the same time you’re viewing, writing, and downloading other messages from/to the .PST. The quick solution to cut .PST file size - make a new .PST file, call it “archive2002-5″, load it as an Archive folder in Outlook 2003’s folder view, and drag all those worthless, old messages over from your primary .PST’s set of folders.

Fixing .PST corruption: Corrupt .PST files can be repaired using the ScanPST utility. It is usually installed when Outlook is first installed and can be found at one of these locations:

• C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\Mapi\1033\scanpst.exe
• C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSMAPI\1033\scanpst.exe

To use scanpst.exe, just close Outlook, make sure you have about 2GB of free hard disk space, and then run the scanpst.exe file. It is generally able to rebuild corrupted .PST files without much, if any, data loss. The biggest drawback is that any items it does recover from corrupted areas have to be manually dragged from the “Deleted Items” folder later. Here is Microsoft’s KB article on running scanpst.exe.

Fixing older .PST’s at the 2GB limit: Pre-2003 .PST’s the have hit the 2GB file size limit usually need a second tool, PST2GB, to be completely repaired. Microsoft’s PST2GB download and details on running it are here. BEWARE that this utility “fixes” a 2GB .PST by deleting messages until the file is about 1.98GB - and you do not have control over what messages are deleted.

Size Limit of Outlook 2003 .PST’s: Using a Unicode database, instead of ANSI, allows the 2003 .PST file to reach a size of about 32TB (yes, terabytes!). The problem is that this is a file-based database and not a database server that properly indexes, caches, and allocates memory carefully. The result is that larger files just require more and more system resources to deal with. I am not aware of any utility currently available for dealing with 32TB Unicode .PST’s hitting their maximum file size (or any system that could efficiently use a .PST file that large either).

Scanning SharePoint Team Service .PST’s with scanpst.exe: The error “Internal errors found…” message is because ScanPst always looks for a “Deleted Items” folder, which SharePoint .PST’s don’t have. You can safely ignore the message, Microsoft KB details here.

Tags: Outlook, scanpst, pst2gb, pst, size, limit, 2gb, corrupt, corruption, sharepoint

Working with Microsoft systems I prefer to find the fastest method to work around a problem that doesn’t require ANY custom clients or moving data/files across the network. The first option, custom clients, I avoid because I dislike be slowed down when I’m working from an unfamiliar system or even when my own system(s) crash and are waiting for a rebuild (the client’s systems always come first). The second reason, moving data/files across the network, is best avoided because it’s inevitable that a private or heavily filtered network will restrict access to those files when they’re needed most. So, the best option would seem to be scripts that can be typed in from within the RDC or just finding ways to

I do know one administrator who types so fast that he claims he can manually type a reboot script for Windows XP onto the remote client faster than this method. Personally though, without that typing speed and having a memory that always seems to fail when I try to work too fast, forcing a reboot via the GUI on the remote Windows system is my option of choice. And, here it is, just one command and five clicks to remember long:

• Start > Run… > type “msconfig” and click OK
• Go to the “Startup” tab and uncheck the top box on the list, now check the same box again, so there are no effective changes
• Click OK — you’ll be presented with a “System Configuration” popup with a “Restart” option

• After the restart you’ll also get a popup window promtping you to make the changes permanent or go back into the “msconfig” utility - on a remotely supported system I can’t think of many reasons not to check the “Do not show this again” option