Small Business Technology & other IT stuff

DNS MalWare & the FBI

2012-02-06T09:05:00.000Z

Sometime back the FBI broke a malware network and replaced it's dodgy DNS servers with valid ones - all good.
The bad news is that they will be killing off the good DNS servers and thus anyone still infected with the malware won't be able to browse the web from 8th March when the switch off occurs.

Avira, an anti-virus/internet security vendor has release a tool help non-techies fix the problem, see details: http://techblog.avira.com/2012/01/23/avira-dns-repair-tool-released/en

Download – Free 2008 R2 Virtualization eBook

2011-12-25T22:48:00.000Z

Description:

Learn about the benefits of the latest virtualization technologies and how to plan, implement, and manage virtual infrastructure solutions based on these technologies. Updated for Windows Server 2008 R2

Title: Understanding Microsoft Virtualization Solutions – From the Desktop to the Datacenter (Second Edition)

Author: Mitch Tulloch w/ the Microsoft Virtualization Teams
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Published: © 2010 by Microsoft Corporation
Pages: 480
File size: PDF 10.5 MB / XPS 22.6 MB
Price: FREE
Download URL: Click here for PDF or XPS

Activate iPhone without creating iTunes accounts

2011-12-16T12:05:00.000Z

We had to activate and configure 12 iPhone 4 handsets for a client today, we didn't want to be setting up iTunes accounts so needed to run in Activation Only mode

Ensure iTunes is installed and isn’t running
Open a Command Prompt window
Enter command:

32bit

C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe” /setPrefInt StoreActivationMode 1

64bit

C:\Program Files (x86)\iTunes\iTunes.exe” /setPrefInt StoreActivationMode

You can now connect the iPhones and they will register and start working

Browsing SharePoint libraries from Windows Explorer

2011-11-16T17:04:00.000Z

Browse SharePoint in Windows Explorer, select the required library from the left navigation pane and then from the toolbar click on LIBRARIES and select “Open with Explorer”:

You might want to give users a direct drive mapping via Group Policy or for adhoc use from command prompt on a system enter:

net use X: "https://remote.externaldomain.co.uk:987/Shared Documents" /user:DOMAINHERE\userhere passwordhere

Sage Excel integration not available

2011-11-14T09:06:00.000Z

Strange one with Sage Line 50 Accounts on a client system where the Sage addin for Excel just disappeared. Fortunately it's quite common and simple to fix, we used the instruction from http://helpdesk.yourofficeanywhere.co.uk/KB/a128/the-sage-excel-integration-add-sgxladdindll-is-not.aspx and the bookkeeper is working again.

Unable to open attachments in Outlook?

2011-10-06T09:33:00.000+01:00

There's a nice new feature with Outlook and Exchange server where Outlook shows that a message has an attachment but won't let you open it, not very useful.

There are lot's of things you can try or perhaps the better option is to ensure that you have the latest updates applied - it worked for us:

Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 3 Rollup 4 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2543879

Relaying denied. IP name possibly forged

2011-09-23T17:51:00.002+01:00

We had a client today who moved ISP, having sorted thr router, LAN & WAN settings and the firewall we were good to go, then the email tests failed, generating the error:

#5.7.1 smtp;550 5.7.1 <email address>...Relaying denied. IP name possibly forged [xx.xx.xx.xx]

We worked through but couldn't see that we'd done anything wrong, restarting the SMTP service didn't make any difference. This was an SBS2003 server so we ran the CEICW, which bought down the defult website so we then rebooted, post reboot and everything is good.

Merging gmail email accounts

2011-08-24T17:40:00.000+01:00

We set a small business up on Google Apps and needed to ensure that email went out from their domain and not gmail - this is fairly straightforward with some validation of control and DNS changes.
We then needed to move all the email from a gmail email account into the new domain based account - there isn't a tool that directly does this for you so we need to tell gmail to import from the original account using POP so we keep the messages headers along with date/time stamps.

First, you need to log into your original Gmail account and enable POP3 access:
     Click Settings
     Click Forwarding and POP
     tick Enable POP for all mail
     Click Save Settings

Now go to your new domain Gmail account:
     Click Settings
     Click Accounts
     Select Add another mail account.
     In the window that opens type your old Gmail address and press Next Step.
     You need to fill out the form on the next page by entering your old Gmail account username and password, selecting pop.gmail.com

The setup will ask you if you would like to use this email address in a way that you are able to send email from your new account as you were sending it from the old one, if you select this then you'll need to validate via an email link.
Now just wait for your old emails will slowly start popping up in your new domain Gmail account

Unable to access website (DNS)

2011-08-16T12:53:00.000+01:00

Sometimes clients report problems loading a website from their PC but can access it from their smartphone, these problems are generally caused by the Domain Name Servers (DNS) not being updated or holding invalid addresses for a site.

First thing is to ensure that you are using live data and not an old record that has been cached (stored) on your system:
From a command prompt enter the command:
ipconfig /flushdns

If that doesn't sort the problem you may need to use different DNS servers, we normally use OpnesDNS or Google:
From Control Panel, select network connections, right click on the network adapter being used and click properties
Select Internet Protocol v4 and clock properties
make a note of the current DNS servers addresses if set
Under Use this DNS servers enter 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4, then okay twice and close

This normally sorts any issues by using frequently updated servers.
NOTE - if you are on a business network you may not be able to change this DNS entry or may lose access to local network resources if you change away from those set by your administrator

Windows XP End of Life Widget - won't work on XP

2011-07-13T17:16:00.000+01:00

This article from the Guardian identifies a blunder by Microsoft where the widget that counts down until the Windows End of Life date won't run on Windows XP. Nothing changes for those of us that spend our time fighting things MS break with their updates and upgrades

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2011/jul/13/microsoft-xp-widget

Credit card Fraud - CNP

2011-07-01T17:08:00.001+01:00

Had an email requesting pricing on printer supplies from an email domain that was trying to pass off as a large west-end fashion retailer. I didn't twig until they wanted to pay by credit card - fine by us but we'll add charges and won't ship until payment has cleared - don't expect we'll hear from them again.

Indian scammers from www.ammyy.com?

2011-07-01T16:33:00.000+01:00

Just spent an entertaining 30 minutes being told I have major system problems and slow performance on my computer by someone calling from www.ammyy.com - she couldn't tell me which computer on the network had the problem and kept on reading her script. I don't know what the ultimate aim was, I'm guessing to install some backdoor trojan, as I had to take a call from a client.
Don't let these or any other unsolicated people have access to your system or install anything they recommend - find yourself a trusty local IT support company if you're having problems.

Apple to support reps: Don't confirm Mac infections

2011-05-20T11:17:00.000+01:00

Many mac users believe that they are immune to virus/malware attack, while certainly they are at lower risk than Windows users they should still take measures to protect themselves.
Read the Register article here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/20/apple_malware_attacks/

Sophos, our preferred security software vendor offer free Mac AV software: http://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-tools/sophos-antivirus-for-mac-home-edition.aspx

Hosting your business on Google?

2011-02-28T21:48:00.000Z

Google deleted the gmail accounts of an estimated 150,000 users today - what would you do if that was your business email? Do you have a business continuity plan?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12600179

Problems activating Windows 7 after clean install using upgrade media

2011-02-21T13:24:00.000Z

Installing Windows 7 upgrade on a clean disk today and it fails with 0xC004F061 when trying to activate as it failed to find a qualifing product - older Windows version used to ask for a disk to check you were entitled to an upgrade but Windows 7 doesn't.
The answer is a quick registry edit - so only proceed if you're happy with that.

Ensure that there are no Windows Updates pending that would require a system reboot. (You'll see an orange shield icon next to Shutdown in the Start Menu if this is the case).
Then, open regedit.exe with Start Menu Search and navigate to HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE/
Change MediaBootInstall from "1" to "0"
Open the Start Menu again and type cmd to display a shortcut to the Command Line utility. Right-click this shortcut and choose "Run as administrator."
In the command line window, type: slmgr /rearm
Then tap ENTER, close the command line window and reboot.
When Windows 7 reboots, run the Activate Windows utility, type in your product key and activate windows.

http://www.winsupersite.com/blogs/tabid/3256/entryid/75587/clean-install-windows-7-with-upgrade-media-the-answer.aspx

Problems restoring on Windows 7 / Server 2008 (Element not found 0x80070490)

2011-02-19T16:00:00.000Z

We like the recovery tools builtin with Windows 7 / Server 2008 but came unstuck when trying to roll back a server build that had gone bad- we couldn't get the restore to run and got error Element not found 0x80070490

The answer was very simple, reboot from the recovery disk and don't load the USB device until you get to the browse for backup dialogue - a few minutes later and it's fully restored.

How can I import addresses from my Windows Address Book (WAB) file into Microsoft Outlook?

2011-01-31T15:51:00.000Z

Part 1 – Extract the Contacts
Outlook cannot directly import from a Windows Address Book File (WAB) but Outlook Express can export to a pab-file or csv-file which Outlook can import directly. If you have changed machine to one running Windows 7 and only have the wab-file, then all is not lost as you can still import the wab-file into Outlook via the built-in Contacts folder in Windows 7.

To do this, browse to the Contacts folder in your Personal Folder. A quick way to get there is by pressing opening the Start Menu of Windows and click on your name at the right top.

Open the Contact folder and press on the Import button. Here you’ll have the option to import the wab-file by choosing the format: Windows Address Book File (Outlook Express contacts).

Part 2 - Windows Contacts folder into the Outlook Contacts folder
Microsoft don’t make things easy but the import process fromthe Windows Contacts folder is compatible with the Windows Mail import feature that Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010 have. If you are using Outlook 2003, you’ll have to export the Windows Contacts folder to a csv-file first and import that in Outlook.

Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010 have native support for importing from the Windows Contacts folder.
1. Start the Import and Export Wizard;
    Outlook 2007
         File-> Import and Export…
    Outlook 2010
        File-> Open-> Import
2. In the Import and Export Wizard dialog choose “Import Internet Mail and Addresses”
3. Click Next.
4. Set your selection to; Outlook Express 4.x, 5.x, 6.x or Windows Mail
5. At the bottom set your selection to “Import Address book” only.
6. Click Next.
7. Select how you want the import wizard to treat duplicate items.
8. Click Finish
9. The import process will now start and you’ll get a Import Summary dialog which you can close by pressing OK.

Sophos Security Threat Report: 2011

2011-01-26T18:26:00.000Z

Identify malware threats, what's at risk and how to get the best malware protection

http://www.sophos.com/security/topic/security-threat-report-2011.html

Sophos is our preferred security solution - it's reliable, robust and doesn't kill systems, oh it's well priced too.

Rogue Facebook apps can now access your home address and mobile phone number

2011-01-18T00:24:00.000Z

Worrying article on more issues with Facebook security posted by Graham Cluley @ Sophos
http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/01/16/rogue-facebook-apps-access-your-home-address-mobile-phone-number/

VMWare error: Failed to lock the file

2011-01-14T12:44:00.000Z

One of the lab systems closed down after applying Windows updates but didn't close the running vm's which resulted in the error:
Cannot open the disk xxxxxxxx.vmdk or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.
Reason: Failed to lock the file.

The fix: simply remove the lck directories and then restart the VM

“ASN1 bad tag value met” error when processing a certificate request in IIS 7

2010-12-21T10:37:00.002Z

We got stuck today loading a pending certificate request for a clients web server. This solution from http://blogs.msdn.com/b/webtopics/archive/2009/01/03/asn1-bad-tag-value-met-error-when-processing-a-certificate-request-in-iis-7.aspx works

Complete Certificate Request
There was an error while performing this operation.
Details:
CertEnroll::CX509Enrollment::p_InstallResponse: ASN1 bad tag value met. 0x8009310b (ASN: 267)

Begin by importing the .crt file into the Personal certificate store for the local computer. (Start button > Run: MMC > File Menu > Add/Remove Snap-in > highlight Certificates snap-in and click the ADD button > select Computer Account and click Finish > Click OK > drill into Personal > Certificates > right-click and select All Tasks > select Import > guide to the .crt file.) At this point your certificate is basically a half-certificate. It is still missing its private key.

Second, double-click the crt certificate file you just imported, select the Details tab, scroll all the way down to Thumbprint and highlight Thumbprint. In the lower pane, block and copy all the letters of the thumbprint. Paste the thumbprint characters into notepad. Open the command prompt and run this command: Certutil /?
The command you’ll want to run is:

certutil -repairstore "My" "insert all of the thumbprint characters here"

When you see the response: “CertUtil: -repairstore command completed successfully” you should have a private key associated with the .crt file in the personal store. There should no longer be any need to run through the “Complete Certificate Request…” wizard. The certificate should show up in the IIS Manager’s list of server certificates at this point. It should also be available in the SSL Certificates drop-down list when attempting to edit the https binding for a website.

24 cores and 32Gb RAM

2010-12-13T21:41:00.003Z

This is what 24 cores and 32Gb RAM look like a new Dell PowerEdge R905, boy is it fast

Office 2010 PKC Download

2010-11-16T10:47:00.003Z

Want to use an Office PKC license (these replace the old OEM licenses) on a system that didn't ship with Office 2010 Trial preloaded - all is not lost:

People who have a PKC without Office can download it from: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/buy/using-the-product-key-card-FX101853163.aspx
There's also an option to download a backup: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/microsoft-office-2010-backup-FX101828860.aspx?CTT=5&origin=HA101847520

So although this might not be what Microsoft intended, at least people who have purchased PKC packages can still use Office 2010.

SQL 2005 Error 17658 Express stuck in single user mode

2010-11-01T15:11:00.002Z

We've got a server that has been running fine for ages that has started to throw single user errors - probably related to an update.
"SQL Server started in single-user mode. This an informational message only. No user action is required. Error 17658"

You can set a database to multi-user using the following statement:
ALTER DATABASE db SET MULTI_USER

However, that won't work if the database is in single-user mode and a
user is currently connected to it. You need to disconnect that user
first (maybe it's even you, so close Management Studio and open it
again before retrying).

Recovering damaged Vista system BSOD c0000135 unable to locate component

2010-09-09T23:53:00.005+01:00

A Dell Inspiron 1525 running Vista had us thinking hard today - BSOD on boot and fails to load normal repair or recovery tools.
Recovered users data by removing the drive without issue making us think the drive was okay - we now know it wasn't.
After much faffing and repeated attempts we dropped the UBCD disk in and booted, we ran the fixmbr and chkdsk /f tools an the system booted cleanly into Vista - so don't think for too long and more respect for UBCD, have a look at
http://www.ubcd4win.com/

HP Photosmart c6180 ink system has failed 0xc18a0201

2010-09-08T15:19:00.004+01:00

This was looking quite terminal for a clients printer, but there's a hidden reset feature burried in the menus that saved the day:

details of the hidden reset on the HP PhotoSmart printer:

1. Press and hold the “*” key.
2. Press the “#” key and release both keys.
3. Display should say “Enter Special Key Combo”
a. Press and release in sequence the “1”, “2” and “3” buttons.
b. screen says "support" R0631M
4. Press and release the right arrow button until the display says “System Configuration Menu”.
5. Press and release the “OK” button.
6. Display should say “Hardware failure status”. If not there already, Arrow Key over to “Hardware failure status”,
7. Press and release the “OK” button.
8. Display should say “Hardware failure status: Clear. Press OK to clear”.
9. Press and release the “OK” Button. Message changes to “Hardware failure status Cleared. Press Cancel to continue”.
10. Press and release the “CANCEL” button as many times as necessary, so that, either the “Welcome to Photosmart Express” screen appears, or, the “Ink System Failure” screen appears. PLEASE DO NOT TRY TO PRINT AT THIS STAGE.
11. Using the Power Button, turn the unit OFF and unplug the power cable from back of the printer and wall outlet
12. Wait 30 seconds for the power to get discharged and then plug the power cable into the wall outlet first and then into the back of the printer
13. Turn the unit on. The printer may display message “USE POWER BUTTON TO SHUTDOWN THE PRINTER” followed by “PRESS OK TO CONTINUE”. Press OK. The Printer will start the “ONE TIME INK INITIALIZATION PROCESS”. Allow this process to complete and do not interrupt. Once the initialization process is complete, the printer will print out a Diagnostic Page.
14. Print a self test page to check the functionality of the printer.
a. Press Setup menu on the All-in-One then scroll using the arrow key and select Print Report then select Self Test Report.

Depolying software the easy way

2010-08-21T11:16:00.003+01:00

We needed a simple guide to deploying software out to a distributed network using group policies for a client and a really clear and simple article here:
http://www.advancedinstaller.com/user-guide/tutorial-gpo.html

SBS2008 and DNS

2010-07-06T16:42:00.004+01:00

Syham had a strange issue with a new workstation that wouldn't join an existing SBS2008 domain, it was getting it's IP address and DNS setting from the SBS box and was able to access the Internet but not connect or companyweb.

We don't know when things changed but it transpired that DHCP was no longer supplying the required DNS suffix -Syham added it in and http://connect resolved and the workstation successfully joined the domain.

There is an article on the MS knowledge base here 957708:

Windows XP/Vista workstations using http://connect fail to join the domain when using static IP addresses.
Internet Explorer displays the following error.
______________________________
This page cannot be displayed
The page you are looking for is currently unavailable. The Web site might be experiencing technical difficulties, or you may need to adjust your browser settings.
Cannot find server or DNS Error
Internet Explorer
______________________________

• If you attempt to ping "connect" from command prompt it fails with:
"Ping request could not find host connect."
• If you attempt to ping the "FQDN" it resolves successfully.

There's simply nothing better than ShadowProtect...

2010-06-30T16:01:00.000+01:00

PC Magazine has named ShadowProtect v4 their Editors' Choice saying "...for drive-imaging software, there's simply nothing better than ShadowProtect 4.0, our Editors' Choice".

The article continues “ShadowProtect Desktop 4.0 features unchanged core features as well as new features that make it easier and faster to get your system up and running from a backup even after a complete hardware breakdown makes your original hardware unusable.”

See the complete PC Magazine article here :

HP Pro 3015 and Windows 7 Installation

2010-06-20T21:18:00.003+01:00

We got 7 of these in last week for a client who wanted Windows 7, great they ship with it and downgrade rights to XP if required. When they arrived they have Windows XP loaded with Windows 7 on recovery disks, so off we go to reload them - great.

Then it all goes horribly wrong as the HP recovery install process is broken, requiring far too much time to try different things to get it to load, there's lots more tales of woe here on the HP forums.

RedScreen!!! – Factory Processing Error
FBI Error!
Summary: SpawnProgram()...fatal TimeAction
UIAInfo: 945, FBI Preos processing error.

We got ours to load by changing the partition structure.
Nice one HP, not

SBS2008 & Office admx files

2010-06-16T23:59:00.003+01:00

This proved more of an issue to sort than expected, we have a new office going in and wanted to get as much as possible set via the group policy but got stuck on where to put the admx/adml files downloaded from MS.

We tried loading the files and it just wasn't happening, well we now know that for ADMX files you cann't add them via the Add/Remove Template wizard in Group Policy Editor. Windows looks for the ADMX files on the system from a single defined location: %systemroot%\PolicyDefinitions, normally C:\WINDOWS

If you have ADML files with the ADMX files they should be placed into a subfolder within PolicyDefinitions, named after their MUI ID. e.g. en-US ADML files would be placed into the directory %systemroot%\PolicyDefinitions\en-US

Once you have copied the files, it's simply a matter of restarting Group Policy Management Console and the files will just appear in the Group Policy Editor for you to tailor your settings.

SharePoint 3.0 (WSS) "Cannot connect to the configuration database."

2010-06-13T12:08:00.003+01:00

There you are hunmming along an M$ drop in a Windows Update that starts to break things, in this case it's a clients SharePoint 3.0 intranet which now gives the end users "Cannot connect to the configuration database."

The event logs have error 5586:
Event Type: Error
Event Source: Windows SharePoint Services 3
Event Category: Database
Event ID: 5586
User: N/A
Computer: ServerName
Description:
Unknown SQL Exception 33002 occured. Additional error information from SQL Server is included below.

Access to module dbo.proc_getObjectsByClass is blocked because the signature is not valid.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

This is a well known issue where there are steps required after the Windows Update is loaded but of course you don't know that:

Post-installation information
After you apply this hotfix package, you must run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard.

To do this, click Start, point to All Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard.

Important Because of a problem with the hotfix installation, you must not run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard to complete the installation if you are running a Windows SharePoint Services stand-alone installation that uses the Windows Internal Database Engine. Instead, you must use the Psconfig.exe command-line utility. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type cmd in the Open box, and then click OK.
2. Change to the following directory:
system drive\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\Bin
3. Run the following command:
psconfig -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b
If you ran the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard, you may experience a long delay, and the wizard may not be completed successfully.

We ran the pscondfig command on the Small Business Server and it's back working again

McAfee, Hijacked exe files and the Tech Guys

2010-05-04T11:08:00.005+01:00

Had a client bring a relations Sony laptop into the workshop that had be "cleaned" of malware by the Tech Guys, when they still had problems and were unable to run anything they took it back and were told it would be £230 for a new hard drive!

The system was running Windows Vista protected by Windows Defender and McAfee, so no surprise it had failed to detect and prevent the infection.
We installed Malwareytes which after a full scan reported that it had found instances of hijack exe which is then removed, a subsequent scan completed without finding anythig else.

Say NiNite to longwinded PC setup

2010-04-23T11:58:00.003+01:00

On our business clients networks we use our automation tools to deploy and update applications, for SOHO systems we had a batch file that pulled the apps from a NAS and installed each in turn, silently where supported - but now we have a better way from ninite.com

ninite.com is a web service that lets you pick and choose from a wide range of mainstream software applications, then enables you to bulk install all of them in one go.
Current applications offered include: Chrome, Skype, iTunes, OpenOffice, Foxit PDF, Java Runtime, Flash and dozens more too

How to Create a Windows 7 System Repair Disc for Emergency Use

2010-04-14T10:08:00.002+01:00

Lost your Windows 7 disc or more likely didn't get one one with your system?
Here's a great article on how to generate your own recovery disk from a running system - it's no good if your drive has already failed.
Most manufacturers will include heir own version of a recovery disk tool that will include any required drivers and the "free" trial software that normally ships with their systems, so this method might be a better option.

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2010/04/13/how-to-create-a-windows-7-system-repair-disc-for-emergency-use/

Force removal of McAfee

2010-04-01T17:27:00.003+01:00

Had some client systems to the workshop today that arrived with the 60 day trial of McAfee preinstalled - we don't like McAfee so remove it as a matter of course.

When we came to load the Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 we encountered the legacy of the poor McAfee installers and resorted after much searching to this rather aggressive cleanup:

Click on START
Click RUN
Type RegEdit and press enter

Look for this registry entry and delete it and any other registry entry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ that start with “mfe”

The one below is the one that will delete McAfee’s File System Filter Driver which was our issue, though several others existed too.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\mfeavfk

As with anything involving the registry you should only attempt this after a verified system backup and if you know what you're doing!

Can't get your BT Broadband connection to work with your own router?

2010-03-18T17:04:00.004Z

Need a username and password for your router but BT support tell you you don't need one but the router says you do?

This works: broadbanduser@btinternet.com and any password you like as BT don't care

iTunes compability mode on WIndows 7

2010-03-12T15:27:00.002Z

Had a system today with the annoying iTunes compatability error every time you start it even though there are no options set, it turns out that APple have modified the registry on install

"iTunes.exe has been set to run in compatibility mode for an older version of Windows. For best results, turn off compatibility mode for iTunes before you open it"

If you're okay with regedit then it's a quick and simple fix:
Locate: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers
and delete the itunes.exe entry

Office Assistant hammers cpu on Sony Vaio

2010-03-10T09:30:00.002Z

We've had a client with a problematic Office installation who ran the Office 2003 installer in repair mode and ended up with more than they bargained for.

The Sony Vaio Office 2003 installer installs officeassistant.exe which is designed to give a trial license, the problem is that it doesn't remove itself and will happily consume all available cpu resources.

You need to look at the target properties for each Office application icon and remove the first part that related to officeassistance.exe and that's the end of it.

Moving Windows Internal Databases

2010-02-17T14:53:00.001Z

Microsoft products such as Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) 3.0 and Windows Sharepoint Services (WSS) 3.0 ship with SQL Server 2005 Embedded Edition, replacing the old MSDE database instances. Rather than call it by it's real name MS opted to refer to it as the Windows Internal Database and it doesn't include any manage tools. For SBS2008 servers there is a wizard that will move the databases for you but for SBS2003 or standard server systems - so how do you manage the Windows Internal Database?

The Problem
The Windows Internal Database is an embedded data service that can only be used by a handful of Windows Services. It is designed in such a way that you are not allowed to connect to and use this particular database service for non-Microsoft products. By default, installing either WSUS 3.0 or WSS 3.0 will create the databases in C:\WINDOWS\SYSMSI... and will cause administration issues such as insufficient disk space.

The Answer
You can install a copy of SQL Server Management Studio Express on the server running your WSUS 3.0 or WSS 3.0. You then register this instance using Named Pipes as this is the only configuration for connectivity. Use this server name when you register this instance

\\.\pipe\MSSQL$MICROSOFT##SSEE\sql\query

BlackBerry and Exchange Server

2010-02-05T16:46:00.001Z

Most of our clients use BlackBerries with the BlackBerry Professional Server (BPS is baby BES)or Windows Mobiles to connect to their Exchange Server, today we had to connect a BlackBerry running the basic Internet Services (BIS) and it took far longer than it should have.

First of all, the setup wizard doesn't ask you for any OWA details to start out with. It will ask for the email address and password first, and when it fails to connect, you'll get the option to configure the account manually. At this point you'll see the OWA option, which is where you want to be entering all the user's details.

The next common problem is the Mailbox name. This is not always the same as the username or email address, and will be defined on your Exchange server. If you get the Mailbox name wrong, the connection doesn't work and the error wont't help much "bis cannot connect to email server or invalid server name"

The easiest way to check your Mailbox name is to log on to your OWA inbox, and mouse-over one of your emails. The URL will be displayed as your OWA address /Mailbox name. So for example an OWA account with Mailbox name Fred on server https://www.bizname.com/exchange/ will be displayed as https://www.bizname.com/exchange/Fred in the status bar of your browser when mouse-overing on your emails.

Once we'd sorted the mailbox name it went straight through, so one to remember for next time

Acer Apsire One fails to boot

2010-01-30T17:36:00.001Z

Had a client bring in an Aspire Apsire One that wasn't booting, indeed it wasn't even giving us the BIOS screen when powered on. It turns out this is quite a common issue where the BIOS needs to be reflashed.

We followed the steps detailed in a blog posting here and had it up and running again in a few minutes.

MOSS 2007 - tied up in knots and no search

2010-01-25T14:33:00.002Z

We had a server go bad following a hard powerdown and some Windows Updates that wiped out the MOSS 2007 search - well an intrant without a search function isn't much use.

We checked the search settings in the default SSP1 and all was well and it showed crawled results but we just couldn't get at them via the site search; after much time troublesehooting and reading we found an article that deasl with the Alternate Address Mappings and a broken search. Having reset the AAM bingo the search function now returns the results we need.

The article is here, see the entries by Chad Shultz: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/sharepointsearch/thread/ba2cf811-75b1-49b6-9393-74869d6ac9a1

Internet Security 2010 - malware

2010-01-20T09:58:00.001Z

If you protection lets you down or you get hit in a drive by infection you could well be seeing popup messages and lerts from Internet Security 2010 suggesting that you buy their full product to get clean - DON'T it's a con.

There's a great article on how to cleanup an Internet Security 2010 infected system here:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/remove-internet-security-2010

SBS2008 and SharePoint 3.0 #2

2010-01-06T14:33:00.002Z

Having got past earlier issues with SharePoint on a new SBS2008 installation we then found the logs contain loads of errors and we can't search for anything, this is known issue and using details in this post we have the full functionality we expected out of the box.

There is an option to install Windows Search Server Express 2008 - but there seem to be issues relating to the way the SBS team have deployed WSS that mean we'll wait for some braver souls to test the water.

Issues with Exchange 2007 and Outlook Web Access

2010-01-06T14:06:00.001Z

We staged a new Windows Server 2008 with Exchange 2007 for a client recently, the plan being to deploy into the existing domain and migrate applications and data over to it. DFS, file & print went over weeks ago but we've been having issues with Exchange and OWA - it worked when first installed but broke after we applied SP2, giving OWA ERROR "Outlook Web Access did not initialize" and in the event log:
Event Type: Error
Event Source: MSExchange OWA
Event Category: ADNotifications
Event ID: 65

We've spent ages reviewing the configuration and found a great post here http://forums.msexchange.org/m_1800493181/tm.htm that having worked through has resolved our problem - on with test mailbox migrations now.

SBS2008 Migration from SBS2003

2009-12-30T21:05:00.003Z

We've been practicisng in the lab with virtual machines but this week was the time to bit the bullet and complete the migration of our production network from SBS2003 to SBS2008.

We've opted to use the swing migration method from Jeff Middelton at www.sbsmigration.com and have been pleased with his approach which unlike the Microsoft migration method keeps the production system intact and provides scope for much work to be done offsite - thanks Jeff

SBS2008 and SharePoint 3.0

2009-12-30T20:50:00.004Z

In between some site visits we finished off applying the necessary windows and product service packs to our newly migrated SBS2008 server and that's when things went horribly wrong.

SharePoint 3.0 (WSS3.0) needed an update to SP2, but we hadn't run the configuration wizard and we believe that resulted in a state where WSS would neither run nor uninstall. Much reading of logfiles and google searches pointed to permissions, and sure enough using SQL Management Studio we could see the required databases existed but weren't able to access them; running 'sp_changedbowner sa' against the WSS databases then allowed us to run the configuration wizard to completion without error.

Windows 7 & VPN shortcuts

2009-12-03T12:35:00.002Z

It's new and of course it throws a few quirks into the mix, it was so easy to create a shortcut on the desktop for a VPN link so how to do it on Windows 7:

From Control Panel, select the Network and Sharing Center
Click on Change adapter settings - you now get a list of networks, including VPN's that you can right click on and create a shortcut

Problems with Sophos network installation to Windows 7 clients

2009-11-24T09:27:00.002Z

To be able to deploy Sophos Anti-Virus from the the Enterprise Console to Windows 7 clients you need to have the remote registry service running on them, the push install then works as intended

HP ML110 & Windows Server Driver woes

2009-11-05T16:22:00.002Z

We've fallen out of love with Dell recently and have been using HP desktops and now servers. We have a site that needs a really small server running Windows Foundation Server 2008 so we opted for an ML110 G5, RAID1 for OS and data and a single drive to store backups, media etc.

On installing Windows Server the RAID isn't found, okay not a problem we'll load the drivers and continue are test install Windows Server 2008 32bit and all is good.
Wipe the system and start again with the WFS2008 disk which had no arrived and loaded the same drivers but no joy, you may have spotted that WFS is 64bit so we had the wrong drivers, hard to find on the HP site with opted to download from elsewhere and everything is good.

There is an article detailing the trials and tribulations of drivers for HP kit and Windows here that has links to driver downloads.

We still like Dell kit we just find them hard to deal with but we do like the kit that arrives in a box ready to go.

Vista restore woe's

2009-10-15T22:17:00.001+01:00

Have a client with a very dead Vaio that is need of data recovery. Drive powers on but something has shorted as it’s not visible in BIOS so we need a plan B.
Vista Home backup has been running daily to another system, but not for the last few days and we want that back hence the drive has been shipped off to Ontrack and we’re left to recover what we can from backups.

So we have a temp Vista PC and an external drive with the backup files and that’s where the fun starts and our restore attempts are failing with:

The restore did not finish successfully. Error code: The backup file could not be found. Check your hardware configuration or restore from a different backup (0x8100001A).

It turns out we don’t have the required MEDIAID.BIN file and that requires a call to Microsoft CSS to sort – presumably at a cost as this is an OEM system.

All is not lost, after much googling which threw up lots of useless information and incomplete threads we found this very simple process that appears to be working as I write this entry:

1. Download sdutil.zip
2. Unzip the sdutil.zip file and rename it from sdutil.ex_ to sdutil.exe
3. Copy the sdutil.exe to the root of the drive which contains the backup files
4. Open the folder Catalogs located bellow the folder BackupSet “aaaammdd” “xxxxxx”
5. Copy the file GlobalCatalog.wbcat to the root of the drive in step 3
6. Go to Start -> Execute and type CMD.exe
7. Change to the drive with the backup directories: e.g. E:
8. At the command prompt enter: sdutil mediaid GlobalCatalog.wbcat E:
9. A new MediaID.bin is created
10. Try to restore the backup as usual using the advanced restore option and next the option restore an older backup created in this machine
11. You may want to create matching users before you start remove the security warning messages

XP Fails to boot - missing HAL.DLL

2009-10-07T20:38:00.001+01:00

Don't panic it could be a quick and simple fix and you do have a FULL backup don't you?

Boot from your CD and follow the directions to start Recovery Console.
Then from the command prompt:
Attrib -H -R -S C:\Boot.ini
DEL C:\Boot.ini
BootCfg /Rebuild
Fixboot

BalckBerry Activation Fails

2009-09-21T17:01:00.006+01:00

Added three new BlackBerry devices to a site in the last week but one of the just would not activate, having resorted to Vodafone support and got some very poor answers it was off to Google for a solution.

It turns out that this account had forwarding enabled to another mailbox on the Exchange server which is also configured as a BlackBerry user and that was the problem. The actiation email message with the ETP attachment gets forwarded to both mailboxes and BES doesn't know which one it's activating and thus activation fails. The simple workaround was to turn of forwarding and then activiation completed without further issues.

Reference: http://www.blackberryforums.com.au/forums/general-bes-discussion/945-blackberry-device-stuck-activating-retrying-during-enterprise-activation.html

Infected with a virus or malware?

2009-08-27T13:27:00.005+01:00

We often see systems where the required internet security isn't installed or wasn't up the the latest threats leading to infections.
For our business clients we'd normally image the system back to a known good, read clean, state and join back into the network to deploy any applications and of course data is already on the server.
Where that's not an option we have good results with Malwarebytes http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php - it just might save you the pain of a wipe and reload. Don't forget to sort some decent protection and look at a simple USB hard drive as a backup device.

Cannot connect to a remote computer RWW / RDP

2009-08-25T12:11:00.004+01:00

Had a client with an issue that relates to a recent update to the remote desktop connection tool - it got broken and they couldn't connect back to their desktop.

You cannot connect to a remote computer or start a remote application when you use Terminal Services Web Access or Remote Web Workspace on a Windows XP SP3-based or Windows Small Business Server 2003 SP1-based computer - full details here: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/951607/en-us

Or just go fix the quick fix:

Exit Internet Explorer
Click START -> RUN -> paste the following text in the Open box '%windir%\system32\regsvr32 mstscax.dll' and click OK- at the confirmation prompt, click OK.
Restart Internet Explorer, and try to connect to the remote computer or start the remote application.

Windows Domain Time

2009-08-14T16:00:00.004+01:00

We had a client network where all the workstations and servers were correctly syncing time with the DC but the DC wasn't updating it's clock externally and was drifting further out of sync.

There are MS KB articles that require lots of entries in the registry (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816042) or you can run these simple commands:

w32tm /configure /manualpeerlist:time-a.nist.gov,0x1 /syncfromflags:manual /update

Net stop w32time

Net start w32time

w32tm /resync /rediscover

Local admin account password

2009-08-10T10:07:00.002+01:00

When adding workgroup computers to a domain yo want to be sure that the local admin password gets set, you can do this from the PC or you can use a range of tools, here's one we prefer and it's free!

PsPasswd from sysinternals (now part of Microsoft) can be run remotely against any number of systems, get the download from here

Only one BlackBerry message folder?

2009-06-25T10:11:00.004+01:00

Having factory reset some client devices and configured them with their new BlackBerry Professional Server everything was good until a user reported that all his work and personal emails were going to a single message folder along with any SMS.

Having checked the config and resent the service books and then forced a network reconciliation it's still not right, checked for hidden folders, no not that either, Vodafone technical don't know so it's off to the BlackBerry forums and the solution is a simple option change:

Select OPTIONS, then GENERAL OPTIONS, scroll down the list and select seperate against SMS and EMAIL and that will filter the messages into the appropriate message folders on the frontscreen

Exchange - bulk calendar permission changes

2009-06-24T10:15:00.002+01:00

If you've ever needed to change the permissions on many Exchange calendars and wished for a tool to make things simple you need to checkout these posts relating a free MS tool PFDAVAdmin

http://www.msexchange.org/articles/PFDavAdmin-tool-Part2.html

BlackBerry Enterprise Server & Firewalls

2009-06-17T14:41:00.004+01:00

If your firewall allows outbound connections on port 3101 from your server then you're good to go.

Despite what the install instructions say you don't need to configure a rule for inbound traffic on port 3101 as can be shown here in a test from the server we've just deployed:

C:\> bbsrptest
NetworkAccessNode is srp.gb.blackberry.net.
Attempting to connect to srp.gb.blackberry.net (193.109.81.33), port 3101
Sending test packet
Waiting for response
Receiving response
Checking response
Successful

BlackBerry - the factory reset procedure

2009-06-17T14:33:00.002+01:00

To erase all the data on your BlackBerry device, complete the following steps. This option is available with BlackBerry Device Software 3.8 and later.

In the device Options, click Security
If you are using BlackBerry Device Software 4.1, click Security Options > General Security.
Click the trackwheel and select Wipe Handheld. 3. Click Continue.
Type “blackberry”. All the data on the BlackBerry device is erased.

On some new versions of blackberry software the menu navigation is slightly different:

Go to Options
Select Security Options.
Select General Settings
Click the Menu key
Select Wipe Handheld
Click Continue
Type “blackberry”. All the data on the BlackBerry device is erased.

Both options require that once it is wiped, hard-reset the handheld (remove the battery and reinsert). You can now perform Blackberry Wireless Activation again.

Testing SMTP based email

2009-06-11T12:40:00.004+01:00

To manually perform a mail transaction through telnet, perform the following steps:

From a Command prompt, Type:

telnet mail.domainhere.com 25

This specifies to telnet to port 25 on a mail host for domainhere.com

220 The mail host identifies itself. This should be accompanied by several lines of introductory text:

Type:

HELO hostname.com

where hostname.com specifies your domain.

250 OK followed by the server you are connecting to.

Type:

MAIL FROM:you@hostname.com

where you@hostname.com indicates the address the mail should appear to be from.

250 OK

Type:

RCPT TO:client@domaim.com

where client@domain.com indicates the address the mail should appear to be from.

250 OK .

Type:

DATA

START MAIL INPUT, END WITH "." ON A LINE BY ITSELF Type a brief message, followed by . (Type a period on a line by itself, then hit ENTER.)

Text goes here

250 OK

Where's all my space gone?

2009-04-17T11:02:00.005+01:00

A client's SBS2003 Premium server has started to alert us to low disk space on the C: which is bit odd as it shouldn't have been growing.

A quick download of the trial of Treesize Pro to see where the space is going highlighted an issue with the directory C:\WINDOWS\INSTALLER which had jumped to 7.6Gb - ow!

So how do we sort the installer problem - if you're very brave you could just zap all the files after taking a backup - not recommended.

The sensible solution is to use the Microsoft tool desgined to sort these installer problems, so d ownload the "Windows Installer CleanUp" utility from Microsoft at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;290301

Then from the command prompt run "MSIZAP G"

The G option tells MsiZap.exe to remove all orphaned cached Windows Installer data files

Remote Desktop Disconnected - error in data encryption

2009-04-02T11:03:00.002+01:00

We've just rebuilt a Dell 2950 system running Broadcom NetXtreme II NIC's with Windows Server 2008 64-bit for a client and had issues with RDP dropping the session stating "error in data encryption"

The fix is simple, you need to disable IPv4 Large Send Offload on the network card - either from Control Panel - Network Connections or using the Broadcom Advanced Control Suite

When is AUTO not AUTO

2009-03-16T10:46:00.004Z

Guys had a PC upgrade last week where having cloned the hard drive to a new larger drive the system wouldn't boot - giving NTLDR errors.

Having verified that the BIOS reported it correctly, XP saw it when booted from the old drive without issue we ran the fixboot and fixmbr tools but still couldn't boot.

The fix was really simple - change the BIOS mode for the drive addressing mode from AUTO to LBA and up it came and the system went back work.

Exchange email address template

2009-03-16T10:45:00.002Z

To save keep editing user's email addresses have the template set them up correctly in the firts place, have a look at

How to customize the SMTP e-mail address generators through recipient
policies http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb;en-us;285136

Microsoft CRM 4.0 with IFD

2009-03-06T17:50:00.002Z

Had some issues this week deploying Microsoft CRM for use at a clients where they need access internally and externally - not a problem as MS CRM is designed to do that using the IFD toolset, okay not so easy.

The format of the internal (HTTP) address is simple - it's just the server name suffixed with the port number to use as assigned in IIS, externally the AD App Root Domain needs to be in the format:

AD_name.rest_of _FQDN:SSL Port #

But the fun bit is that to access this externally tou need to add the deployment name to the front of the addresss, so your FQDN for the SSL certificate would be:

deployed_business_name.AD_name.rest_of _FQDN

e.g. business.ABC.ABCLTD.co.uk:5555

Once that's in and running they just need to get the Outlook client integration application loaded:

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 for Microsoft Office Outlook

How to use Outlook without needing a VPN enabled connection

Using the CRM Outlook client without a VPN Connection

Wireless Connection Stuck Acquiring IP Address

2009-02-11T11:57:00.003Z

Sometimes things don't work and despite going round the driver updates, checking settings loop several times it's still not right, well go grab a coffee and come back later.

I had a ultra-laptop that wasn't well after a failed Kaspersky AV 6 removal - was to be changed to Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 when it would go back on the network. Talking with Kaspersky support we removed KAV6 and got it back on the LAN but then couldn't get the wireless to work. Having removed the driver, download a newer one it still would stick on acquiring IP address from the DHCP server, well for me it was a case of the wrong WEP password being used – it just doesn’t tell you that – don’t discount the obvious.

SBS 2003 Disaster Recovery

2009-01-21T12:03:00.004Z

We all hope it never happens but as the IT department for many of our clients we need to ensure that we have a plan in place that offers an appropriate level of protection for their business risk and of course budget.

Here are things we do for our clients:

System & network documentation - revised whenever something changes
SBS Backup to external devices - USB and/or NAS
ShadowProtect to external devices - USB and/or NAS
Internet Backup
Monitored backup logs/status reporting
Test restores

The builtin SBS backup works and for some clients it offers enough protection; for others local backups with offsite transfer give them a further level of protection. We have clients where their recovery time objective (DR RTO) means we need to use third party tools to allow us to recover their system to another platform, be it a new physical box or a virtual machine, in short order, we do this using ShadowProtect as it has a great hardware independent restore feature taht just works.

Microsoft Office Accounting

2009-01-19T15:45:00.006Z

For those of you looking at the cost of Sage and Quickbooks there's an alternative solution from Microsoft, the starter version if *FREE* and the network version is way cheaper.

What's the downside? There aren't many accountants using/supporting it.

Telephone and email support is free for the first 90 days which is good news but there's only per incident support post 90-days which could save a fortune compared to SageCover or prove to be very expensive.

Link to Microsoft Support: http://support.microsoft.com/oas/default.aspx?acty=ProductList&ctl=productlist&wf=PID&trl=PID~ProductList&x=8&y=9&ln=en-gb&prid=11879&gprid=535106

There's plenty of training material available online, checkout here: https://accountants.microsoft.com/MPAN/UK/static.aspx?id=DownloadableTraining

Kaspersky Internet Security & McAfee

2008-11-21T11:33:00.003Z

We use Kaspersky for our SOHO clients and ran into a problem where despite removing the McAfee trial that seems to come with most SOHO systems these days we couldn't install Kaspersky as it trips up on the remains that McAfee leaves behind - that's a good uninstall then.

Simply download the file here: http://download.mcafee.com/products/lice... and either run it or save it to your desktop and then run it and after a restart you're good to go with Kaspersky

SBS2003 no network access & IPSEC stopped

2008-10-28T10:15:00.006Z

I remember reading about problems with servers dropping of the network a few months back but assumed that MS would have addressed it by now, ho hum.

We had client server reboot overnight and it didn't come back onto the network, no DRAC in this one, luckily it's only 10 minutes down the road so an onsite visit was scheduled for this morning.

If the IPSEC service fails to start, the server will be running in Block mode and it will block all network connectivity to the server - well that sums it up nicely.

In the case of the IPSEC Service failing you start, you will see the following events logged in the system event log:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Service Control Manager
Event Category: None
Event ID: 7023
Date: 7/12/2008
Time: 6:38:37 PM
User: N/A
Computer: SERVER
Description: The IPSEC Services Service terminated with the following error: Only one usage of each socket address (protocol/network address/port) is normally permitted.
Event Type: Error
Event Source: IPSec
Event Category: None
Event ID: 4292
Date: 7/15/2008
Time: 2:53:14 PM
User: N/A
Computer: SERVER
Description: The IPSec driver has entered Block mode. IPSec will discard all inbound and outbound TCP/IP network traffic that is not permitted by boot-time IPSec Policy exemptions. User Action: To restore full unsecured TCP/IP connectivity, disable the IPSec services, and then restart the computer. For detailed troubleshooting information, review the events in the Security event log.

The solution is not to remove any patches but to include additional reserved ports and is fully documented in Susan's post below, thank you Susan.

http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2008/07/17/some-services-may-fail-to-start-or-may-not-work-properly-after-installing-ms08-037-951746-and-951748.aspx

Slow login to Dell (or other OEM) server by RDP

2008-10-24T18:22:00.005+01:00

Do you have a Dell (or OEM) server that has loaded thier own custom bitmap wallpaper for the login screen? RDP sessions painfully slow?

A simple key change is required to remove the Dell/OEM wallpaper to a blank value and the next session will be much faster

HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop\Wallpaper

Slow Internet Access when using SBS VPN

2008-09-11T10:59:00.002+01:00

A client says his Internet access is really slow when running the SBS generated VPN, well that makes sense as by default all internet traffic gets routed over the VPN link - not really what you want.

You can manually modify the remote.cms in Documents and Settings\\Application
Data\Microsoft\Network\Connections\Cm\remote\ that contains the connection
settings.

Do not use default gateway on remote network (Same as uncheck the box "Use
default gateway on remote network" in the Advanced TCP/IP settings dialog
box), open the remote.cms file and change Gateway_On_Remote
from 1 to 0.

Remember this is based on the client side, other clients that run
the SBSpackage.exe will still use default gateway on remote network.

Fixing broken Outlook Web Access

2008-09-10T11:29:00.003+01:00

Had major issues with an inherited SBS2003 server today where Outlook Web Access (OWA) was seriously broken with images/screen not rendering correctly, the goods news it that it's got a documented fix: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=883380

Windows 2003 Blue Screen on new server

2008-07-21T12:58:00.004+01:00

Got yourself a spangly new server and having problems with BSOD during the Windows 2003 install when using pre-SP2 media?
Your machine has features that the base Windows 2003 and SP1 media doesn't contain the correct drivers for - hence the BSOD.

The workaround is to slipstream SP2 with your media to make a new install disk or disable the offending feature in BIOS: disable the Demand-Based Power Management, once installaed and SP2 is loaded you can safely enable the feature.

Convert iTunes files to MP3

2008-07-12T10:27:00.004+01:00

Want to play your unprotected iTunes music on another device that doesn't support the iTunes file format?

This guy details using iTunes to convert your files into mp3 files without downloading additional applications: Blog article by myrightbrain

Importing Outlook Express in Windows Mail

2008-06-09T11:50:00.005+01:00

Needed to recover from a crashed system running XP and Outlook Express onto a new PC running Windows Vista which comes with Windows Mail and I had had a file level backup to recover from.

The goods news is it's quite simple and works, as long as you don't needed the mail profile which you'll have to recreate as it's stored in the registry and thus wasn't accessible with a file level backup.

Create a directory under the current user's Documents, such as Documents\OEMail. This directory needs to be within the user's space, such as under Documents, in order to prevent possible UAC permissions problems.
Copy all the .dbx files from one Outlook Express Identity into this directory, ensuring that folders.dbx is included.
You need to check that you have write access to the files, doesn't make sense I know but that's MS programmers for you: Go to Edit Select all in Windows Explorer and select all the dbx files. Then right click on the selection and choose Properties and ensure that the read only attribute of the files is unchecked.
In Windows Mail go to File Import Messages and choose Outlook Express 6 format and choose to import from a directory.
Then use the Browse button to browse to the directory of dbx files. Make sure that when you set the directory that what is listed in the path is correct (NOTE: Vista can put the wrong path in here sometimes, so instead of c:\mypath it puts c:\mypath\mypath, so check the path to verify that it is correct, and if it is not correct then fix it by clicking the Browse button a second time and then leave the selection blank and clicking Okay.).
Then select the files from which you wish to import messages and click Import, by default it will import all folders, which in this case included some 9,000 deleted items!

Can I enable user password changes through Outlook Web Access (OWA) in Exchange 2003?

2008-05-07T11:23:00.006+01:00

Yes, although this behavior is not enabled by default, there are a few simple steps that you need to take, having first configured your server to use SSL, we like the intructions here.

There's one step that isn't referenced in the instructions above and that is to ensure that you have the new virtual directory security restrictions modified to allow access from outside your local network, which is of course where most OWA users will be.

Need to check for all known vulnerabilites

2008-05-02T14:17:00.004+01:00

The answer is Secunia Software Inspector
* Detects insecure versions of applications installed
* Verifies that all Microsoft patches are applied
* Assists you in updating your system and applications
* Runs through your browser. No installation or download is required

Run the tool from: http://secunia.com/software_inspector/

Clean install of Windows XP on Dell 9100 with SATA RAID

2008-04-03T18:03:00.007+01:00

Today's the sort of day that makes me want to get a hammer out and bash something hard!

Need to reinstall Windows XP Pro a Dell 9100 that's running with an Intel SATA RAID controller - not a problem as the PC has a floppy disk and I know to go and get the drivers from Dell's website and load them using F6 during the boot process, sounds so simple doesn't it?

Well, 2 hours in and no joy

The Intel drivers on the Dell website for the specific machine don't include the ICH7R drivers so wasted time trying the ones it did list.
Off to Intel and download there version of the drivers which do list the ICH7R, but no setup crashes with a blue screen having loaded the drivers in both RAID and AHCI modes, this is getting frustrationg now.

The solution:

Download the drivers from INTEL and not Dell
Go to http://www.nliteos.com/nlite.html for a program called nLite. This program is free and allows you to slipstream service packs into a cd and slipstream driver installs and more tweaks before install.
You could go the whole hog and fully automate the whole installation - go to http://unattended.msfn.org/unattended.xp/ and follow all of the guides there.

According to that site when you do the F6 method of installing SATA drivers and RAID drivers XP ends up still using the wrong ones. You have to slipstream the Drivers into the XP disk for it to work. When using Nlite you can slipstream all of your extra drivers for install without modifiying any files. Nlite does it all and saves the day!

Windows Media Player

2008-04-02T10:33:00.005+01:00

Strange issue on a fully patched XP Pro system running Windows Media Player 11 (WMP11) when trying to view an .asx web presentation that has worked before:

Windows Media Player cannot play the file because the specified protocol is not supported. In the Open URL dialog, try opening the file using a different transport protocol (for example, 'http:' or 'rtsp:')

The solution, a simple folder rename, yours could be 9, 10 or 11:
USERPROFILE%\local settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows Media\11.0

Local Business Group - Sussex Enterprise

2008-03-27T15:48:00.002Z

We're a small, young business and looking to grow and we hope that we'll see the benefits of our new membership of the Sussex Enterprise business group.

Outlook - can't open embedded messages

2008-03-17T20:49:00.003Z

Another Outlook 2003 issue:

A client is unable to open messages embedded within another message, no errors shown. Windows XP and Office 2003 both fully patched / service packed.

It would appear that there are a few issues with the Google Desktop Add-in, this being one of them, once disabled they could open embedded messages directly.

Outlook Forms Corruption

2008-03-13T10:42:00.007Z

A fully updated/patch client system running Outlook 2003 started reporting the error "The form required to view this message cannot be displayed. Contact your administrator" when trying to accept calendar appointments.
This error is caused by a corruption in the file Frmcache.dat, you'd expect Outlook to be able to fix it itself but it doesn't so you need to force a rebuild of the file by deleting it:

Close Outlook

GUI Method:

Click Start , point to Find , and click Files or Folders .
Type "Frmcache.dat" in the Named box, and click Find Now
Click to select the file and press DELETE to remove each instance of the file

Command Line Method

Click START -> RUN and enter cmd in the box and click OK
CD \
DEL /S FRMCACHE.DAT this will delete the file from all user accounts

Restart Outlook

BlackBerry send as permission revoked

2008-03-06T14:56:00.004Z

Microsoft have introduced a change that might cause issues on sites where BlackBerry users are configured as domain admins, not a great idea I know but sometimes you inherit these things.

The Exchange update will peridoically remove the besadmin user from the security tab of those users who are members of the domain admins group. These users needed to stay in the group so we used the following workaround and now they are able to send again:

To grant the Send As permission for members of Active Directory protected groups complete the following steps (This involves modification of the AdminSDHolder object and you should review the information in MS article 912918 before applying):

Obtain and install the tools Active Directory Application Mode from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=9688F8B9-1034-4EF6-A3E5-2A2A57B5C8E4&displaylang=en
Run ADAM Tools Command Prompt
Execute the statement below on one line (Remember to replace domainname with your internal domain name and also replace BlackBerrySA with the same of your BlackBerry Service Account)

dsacls ″cn=adminsdholder,cn=system,dc=domainname,dc=com″ /G ″domainname\BlackBerrySA:CA;Send As″

The message ″The command completed successfully″ should be displayed.
Close the ADAM command prompt and allow for replication
For additional methods of assigning the Send As permission, search for article 912918 on the Microsoft Support Knowledge Base.

You should of course ensure you have a full backup of your Active Directory before you make any modifications to it, you use this procedure at your own risk.

SBS2003 SP2 Help & Support

2008-03-06T14:44:00.003Z

We've done a number of SBS2003 service pack 2 installs but not had this problem before, to fix the missing “Help and Support” service:

Help and Support Error
Windows cannot open Help and Support because a system service is not running.
To fix this problem, start the service named 'Help and Support'.

1. Start -> RUN, enter cmd
2. Change Directory:
cd %windir%\PCHealth\HelpCtr\Binaries
3. Run this command, it may take a minute or 2 to complete:
start /w helpsvc /svchost netsvcs /regserver /install

HTC TyTn II Windows Mobile SmartPhone

2008-03-03T13:24:00.001Z

The latest handset into out team is an O2 Xda Stellar, or to the rest of the world the incredible HTC TyTn II, product details here: http://www.htc.com/product/03-product_tytn_II.htm

It's a fair bit heavier than the RIM BlackBerry 8100 but offers a whole load more flexibility/functionality with the huge range of applications availabkle for the Windows Mobile platform.

We had the unit up and sync'ed to our SBS 2003 Exchange server in no time, and without the overhead of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express application and even better, zero license cost.

The only annoying feature we've found so far is that someone (MS, HTC or O2) decided to ship the unit without the Remote Desktop Mobile client application, so a quick search leads to a download here: http://pdaphonehome.com/forums/ppc-6700-xv6700/84897-wm6_rdp-mobile-remote-desktop-client.html and a few minutes later we can access our servers, shame it wasn't there by default.

The built in GPS receiver works a treat with both TomTom 6 and my Memory Maps OS maps, so it's just a single device now rather than the phone, pda and an external GPS receiver, I just need to see how bad the impact is on battery life when in use.

Welcome

2008-03-03T13:16:00.002Z

It's taken a while, but we've relented and joined to web 2.0 world and created a blog where we hope you'll find some useful information or just something to entertain and amuse.

At Ashdown Solutions we specialise in solutions for the small-medium business sector based on the fantastic Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 (and soon 2008) technology.

Tony Baulch

Ashdown Solutions Limited

Microsoft Small Business Specialist