Any need to run the new Internet Explorer 7 Beta to test a web app or other project? Problem is that IE 7 doesn’t officially support a standalone mode anymore and installing it removes IE 6.x - so you may be giving up a working IE browser for a buggy beta one. If you’re familiar with Microsoft’s Beta software then you may also know that they have a tendency to have poor uninstall routines that end up forcing you to manually remove “leftovers” before you can install the official release of IE 7.

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.

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

Mr. Dell Support Tech.,

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

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

While upgrading Windows 2003 servers to the new R2 feature pack, we brought a newly-imaged Windows 2000 test server into the main domain as a backup while one or more Windows 2003 servers were upgrading. About 2 days after we started the upgrades we noticed some unexpected email non-delivery (NDR) messages. The email wasn’t being delivered because the target domain wan’t found even after 2-days or retries by our Exchange servers. Yet the NDR’s primarily happened with email sent to major domains (like yahoo.com, aol.com, gmail.com, etc.) and a majority of messages to those domains were delivered successfully. Initially I expected that our own or our ISP’s DNS servers were being attacked. A type of attack know as DNS cache poisoning is used to either deny outbound services or even to redirect traffic to the attacker’s own systems (usually in hopes of searching it for personal or financial data).

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).

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

This secure, NOC-style, home network isn’t just a geek’s dream network, but a great example for small businesses. The distribution of hardware and software across several inexpensive servers (or Mac mini desktops with a few upgrades in this case) is a far better use of the small IT budgets that are typical at most small businesses I’ve worked with.

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.

Article tagged: small, business, network, server, configuration, Windows, SBS, SMB

Microsoft Office 2003 and XP have create the “local installation source” (LIS) folder during installation on individual PCs. The LIS is a hidden folder that holds ALL of the files necessary to setup, restore, and add features to the installed version of Office. During the last step of Office installation there is an option to remove “local installation files”, when chosen it deletes the LIS folder and its contents. Note that leaving the LIS in-place eliminates the need to insert the Office install CD when updates or repairs are run later, but it also uses a lot of disk space.

The path to the LIS can be modified by the free “Local Installation Source Tool” utility from the Microsoft Office Resource Kit: download LIStool.exe from MS. The LISTool instructions cover disabling, deleting, enabling and relocating the LIS folder. Actively managing the LIS location saves time when repairing and upgrading Office and it can save a great deal of disk space on older desktops.

In any environment where Office wasn’t installed with an application management suite (like Microsoft System Management Server) or via an MSI the following error often appears during repairs or updates:

Microsoft Office <version name> Edition 2003 Installation Error: File not Found A required installation file %s could not be found Original Installation Source Required: If you installed Microsoft Office <version name> Edition 2003 from a CD, please insert your CD. If you installed Microsoft Office <version name> Edition 2003 over your computer network, please browse to the installation source on your network. Once you have located your installation source, click OK.

The above error can be solved by creating a copy of the LIST folder for the correct version of Office (ie: Standard, Professional, Small Business, etc) and placing it on a network share.

After setting up a new instance of IIS on a Windows 2003 test server I found that I could connect to it via the WAN and other machines on the LAN but the server itself would’t display the new website. Both IE and FireFox displayed “Bad Request (Invalid Hostname)”, with detailed errors displayed I saw HTTP Error code 400 in both browsers.

Searching found a number of discussions about this error message, but many of them either didn’t solve the issue or simply recommended to “start over” with a new instance of IIS and/or a new virtual website within IIS. The only suggestion I found with specific steps detailed (to set IIS headers to default settings and clear custom headers & MIME types) didn’t actually solve the issue, but it did get me to think about the fact that only the local machine saw the error message.

It turns out that in the Properties dialog for the new website I had assigned a specific IP address (i.e.: 10.10.x.x), instead of leaving the default “(All Unassigned)” setting (see image below with default setting). As a result of the server being multi-homed, using both “localhost” and 127.0.0.1 to access the website in a browser allowed the server to locate itself without using DNS, but those addresses came across a different NIC than the one IIS was assigned to and IIS wouldn’t respond with anything useful (like a web page) to those IPs.

The solutions are simple, but which one is correct depends on the LAN’s configuration or the server being multi-homed (more than one active NIC in the server):

• Use the default setting “(All Unassigned)” in the IIS website properties box for “IP Address:” - this works in single- and multi-NIC servers, but may cause issues on networks with multiple subnets if a site shouldn’t be available to all of them.
• Access the website via the computername (i.e.: http://TEST_SERVER/) while a specific IP Address and not “(All Unassigned)” is selected - if DNS or WINS is running on the local LAN or domain. However, it can still fail if the server has multiple NICs and routes to the wrong one. To get the computername type “echo %computername%” at a command prompt.
• Configure the local HOSTS file (usually %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc\, “HOSTS” with no file extension) to target the correct correct local machine IP for IIS to work. Note: this may break other services or server daemons running on the box in question, so this is only a brute force option.

A new security exploit for Windows, attached to .WMF files, is floating around the ‘net, Security Focus currently has limited details on this zero-day expoit, ID’d as BID 16074. The bug is capable of remote code execution - which means it can be used to install any virus, trojan, rootkit, or program that the “publisher” sees fit to point it at. The exploit code can infect a machine by viewing a web site with an infected image, opening a folder containing infected files with Windows Explorer, or even when Google Desktop indexes an infected file (thanks to the F-Secure blog for this info). I’m guessing that the exploit code in contained in the WMF file’s headers, since it’s not necessary to open the WMF file to infect a system.

This WMF-exploit can install on fully-patched XP machines, although it appears that McAfee - Exploit-WMF, Symantec - Bloodhound.Exploit.56, TrendMicro - TROJ_WMFIOO.A, and F-Secure - W32/PFV-Exploit have already issued updates for their antivirus programs that will detect the exploit (though most of the attached viruses were already detected).

Since this is a zero-day exploit, there is no patch for the problem available for Windows systems. Vulnerable Windows versions are currently all flavors of Windows XP, that includes Home, Pro, Tablet and Media Center versions. I imagine that Windows 2000 is vulnerable and Windows Vista is probably vulnerable, especially if it has Firefox <1.5 or Opera browsers installed (since both browsers attempt to use “Windows Picture and Fax Viewer” to open WMF files).

I recommend all Network Admins block the following domains at the firewall (obfuscated so hotlinks aren’t auto-created by browser tools or desktop search engines, thanks to F-Secure for the URLs):

• unionseek (dot) com
• crackz (dot) ws
• tfcco (dot) com
• iframeurl (dot) biz
• beehappyy (dot) biz