Vista – Configuring Updates Step 3 of 3 — 0% Complete
Last Friday I came upon a frustrating problem with a Windows Vista system that had applied updates during shutdown, but could not finish the process. This resulted in many reboots and an unusable computer; too bad it held the company’s only copy of QuickBooks.
Typically the simplest fix is to boot from the Vista install media and [...]
Network Printer Offline
Yesterday I was at a client site where everyone prints directly to the printers, rather than sharing via a print server. One of the PCs kept showing a printer as offline, even though everyone else was printing to it. From the PC you could ping the printer and even browse to the builtin web server [...]
God Mode in Windows Vista or 7
Following Paul Thurrott’s blog such as I do, today’s post listed a way to see a hidden GUI. There is quite a list, some of which are not normally exposed but via the Registry.
This is really a pretty simple hack:
Create a New Folder, rename it GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
You can actually name it whatever you want before the [...]
Deploying Your Own Root CA via Group Policy
Although it took some searching, this nugget was quite simple.
One of my clients has a Linux Certificate Authority and none of the Windows systems would give an invalid or unknown certificate authority error when visiting a company website that used a cert created by the CA.
Get your root certificate ready, then fire up the Group Policy [...]
Free Windows Server 2008 R2 eBook
Well if this isn’t the week for free books… Now there is a free eBook download from Microsoft: Introducing Windows Server 2008 R2.
The “Introducing” series of MS Press books are hardly a technical treatise on whatever subject they happen to cover, but in my opinion, free information regarding their latest products is always a good thing.
And thanks [...]
It’s Windows 7! The savior of the computing world!!!
Okay not really, but everyone else is making claims and spreading exaggerated news. Why not a catchy headline for me too?
Windows 7 has been unleashed upon the world today; enjoy!
PS. For those of us who have TechNet or MSDN, we’ve had the official release version for many weeks. Next time be one of the first with [...]
Service ‘MSExchangeTransport’ failed
A few months ago I had an Exchange Server 2007 install stop cold, caughing up this error:
Error:
Service ‘MSExchangeTransport’ failed to reach status ‘Running’ on this server.
Apparently if you disable IPv6 on a Windows Server 2008 the error will occur. Not to be picky, but how many networks are actually using IPv6 and why is it installed by [...]
Control Panel Applets from Command Line
One of my customers doesn’t allow user accounts to be in the local Administrators group, something I wish more companies would do. In fact over 90% of infections could be stopped by not logging in as an administrator; but I’ll save that “soapbox” topic for another post.
Many times I need to change settings or install/remove [...]
TechNet Subscription
Any Windows IT guy/gal worth their salt should have a TechNet subscription. The download-only version (the one to get) at $349 for the first year and $249 for annual renewal, is an incredible bargain.
As a subscriber you get a huge array of non-expiring Microsoft software covering all their operating systems (including DOS), applications, server software and early [...]
Right-Click, Registry Access Denied
Yesterday I had an odd issue with a Windows laptop. Every time the user would right-click on a file or folder, an error message would pop-up saying “Registry Access Denied“, after acknowledging the message, the context menu would appear and function normally.
I did numerous searches, examined permissions, removed/added the user from groups, nothing worked. Then [...]