Archive for category windows
IT Tips: Rename Files
Posted by Bloggylife in windows on July 31, 2008
Have you noticed in vista, if you try to rename a file, it will only highlight the name and not its extension. You have to drag the whole thing and rename it with the extension you want and of course it’ll give you a warning that you are trying to alter the type
In XP, once you right click and choose rename, it’ll highlight the whole thing
I usually use this method when creating batch files and start off with text documents and then rename it to .bat to run it
You have the option to display the extension of the file or not, to have it as “memo.doc” or “memo”
In XP and Vista: Go to Control Panel -> Folder Option -> View
FTP Error
Posted by Bloggylife in troubleshooting, windows on July 24, 2008
FTP site is hosted in the DMZ, the following error appeared today when a user tried to upload to the site:
“An error occurred copying a file to the FTP Server. Make sure you have permission to put files on the server”
I am not sure why everytime there is a problem with the FTP server or site, it states that it is a permission problem where as this is not the case!
The user had no problem downloading only uploading. Uploading a file is just like the act of creating anything on that space so just create an empty folder or file just to make sure you have write permissions
The problem was the FTP server ran out of space, so it was closing the data session because there was no space available on the host to transfer the data
FTP sites are to exchange files and NOT to store them, we have file servers for that with enough space and regular backups and are placed inside our network behind our firewall for security
So the solution was simply to move old FTP sites and archive them to free up some space and the users were then FTPing away
IT Tips: Remote Desktop Connection
Posted by Bloggylife in technology, windows on July 2, 2008
Simple tips and pointers that make your life a tad easier
I usually remote login into most of the servers and workstation
If you want to share files between the remote client and the host itself, it can be quite a hassle
This option enables you to share your local resources with remote one
In the remote desktop connection component, click on Options and you’ll get the above screen, choose Local Resources and Select Drivers
In the remote machine, you’ll see all the connected drivers
That was a great tip I received from a technician that we had over
Roaming Profile
Posted by Bloggylife in technology, windows on June 27, 2008
Roaming profiles, one maybe acquainted with this back from university days, it’s when you can log into your computer account and find all your files and settings regardless of the PC you are using. Of course, some rules apply, like the PC your are using is allowed to go and fetch your profile.
There is a whole Microsoft solution for this, which consists of Domain Controllers (DC), Active Directory (AD), Domain Name Servers (DNS), workstations, etc.
You have dedicated servers that store all your users and workstation information, settings, scripts, etc.
When you choose a PC and login in with your credentials, first the PC has to be part of the domain, in other words, identified and then the credentials are verified and if they pass, some scripts are run for example mappings in computer window or whatever is configured there
So what happens if, for example, DC goes down and no secondary is there to take its place, well it depends, if you logged into your profile using the same PC, then it is imported to that PC already and will allow you to login but anything that needs verification or executing by accessing DC won’t be applicable, like mapping network drives or any updates won’t be reflected so you won’t see the updates through another PC
When taking a laptop that is part of a domain home and then you either lock it, standby or hibernate and the next day when you plug it into your network you won’t actually import your profile “freshly” and you won’t see all the settings you normally do when you log on when your laptop is hooked on the network, because you are using your profile which is already stored locally from your laptop and if you log off without connecting to the network and log in using another PC, you won’t see the changes.
Just remember just because the screen goes black after sometime whether you lock your laptop, standby or hibernate, doesn’t mean they are all the same. For some settings to be implemented you need to log off and log back on while connecting your laptop to the domain network.
Error message: Cannot delete file or folder
Posted by Bloggylife in troubleshooting, windows on June 24, 2008
In a win2003 file server when trying to delete a folder it gives the following error:
Cannot delete file because it’s being used by another person or program
Going to Computer Management (right click My Computer -> Manage), you can verify the status under open files and close opened sessions if necessary. But in our case nothing was there, the file wasn’t opened
That leaves it being accessed by a program, so it being a file server shared by many users, not much programs are running, so checking the anti-virus application, nothing, backup software, not running, I was looking for iexplorer.exe processes, none of that, so either I start killing windows processes randomly and hoping to find the correct one or just wait for whatever supposedly process to complete!
Through my Google-ing I found these nice free softwares which are compatible with xp, vista & 2003, unlocker and PurgeIE, they simply identify the process causing the problem and help you do the necessary action you want
When doing that using these two programs, I am still facing a problem deleting the file and both programs allow you to schedule to delete file/folder on the next reboot
After working hours, I reboot the file server and went and deleted the file … GOOD OLD MICROSOFT WAY 
But it was nice coming across these two softwares, unlocker is much user friendly
Cont. WSUS
Posted by Bloggylife in windows on June 18, 2008
Created a winxp V-machine and joined it to the domain.
Now to configure the clients to get their updates from the WSUS, a new Group Policy Object (GPO) needs to be added since you are in AD. But if you are not deploying it, I think it can be done through modifying the registry or simply the local policies.
The DC is a fresh installation so I installed Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) or you can do it through management console and add snap-in (run -> mmc ), the first way is much neater.
Next I created a new GPO using GPMC, right click Group Policy Object and the name the new GPO, ex. WSUS. I only created on and applied it on the domain level but you can create multiple ones and link it to different Organizational Units (OU) depends on your organization structure and complexity.
Right click the newly created GPO and edit
Dive through computer configuration -> administrative templates -> windows components -> windows update and configure the following:
- Specify Intranet Microsoft Update Service Location
- Configure Automatic Updates
- Automatic Update Detection Frequency
Link the GPO appropriately, right click whatever object you want and link existing GPO. That was one of my mistakes linked in the wrong place so not all object got the policy. You can force the new GPO by running (gpupdate /force) on the client side
OH and a nice feature that you can do on the WSUS server level -you can configure GPO to do that-, create groups and assign computers to them so you can push updates to selected groups. I am thinking of having a testing group to test the updates before pushing it to all others, it’ll include helpdesk and IT people and maybe a server group and the rest.
When synchronizing, WSUS will connect to Microsoft updates and download whatever you specify, don’t forget to configure that option (options -> synchronization options) all you’ll download a hell lot of updates you don’t need -yeah another mistake from my side-
You can go through the updates and approve and select the group to install to. Also, the web management gives you details about what’s going on and which computers needs updates and what is installed, pretty decent.
Hmmm, I think that’s about it. I’m not sure if I am missing something but here is the link from Microsoft WSUS 3.0
If you think something is not right or I may have forgot something, please don’t hesitate to correct me
Now I am formatting an IBM and since I am lazy I don’t have server OS image, so I have to do everything from scratch and also configure the RAID for the disks … that part NOT fun at all …
One thing down … trillion more to go …. ;D
The final thing:
WSUS
Posted by Bloggylife in technology, windows on June 16, 2008
For sometime I wanted to deploy Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) into our network, I remember back in my old job when I was playing around with Websense, which is a terrific application, you would notice a huge amount of bandwidth being used for the same package download, multiple links to Microsoft update once a critical one is released but since we didn’t have active directory, no proxy deployed into our infrastructure, I couldn’t quite figure out how to go about this.
On top of that, talk about virtualization, OK me loving it … I have been playing around with it for a while because I finally decided it is not wise to test on live environment … some people cry when I screw up ;p –talk about that later-
I like VMware, I am currently using version 5, I don’t have the latest for some reason, the only downfall that I know of is not being able to have Vista V-machine, hehehehehe, as if that’s important … OK also, server 2008 edition as well …
Set up my VMware server 2003 edition, configured it as a domain controller. I installed WSUS on it too since it is for testing, also don’t forget to install IIS before extracting WSUS package. Anyway WSUS is not a resource extensive application, all you need is enough space, I am searching for a crappy server to put it on once I go live.
The VMware workstation should be assigned sufficient hard disk space, that was my mistake and I couldn’t just re-configure that.
The OS should take a little over 4GB, WSUS needs at least 6GB to store updates locally and 2GB for SQL Engine, so you do the math and leave a little extra for whatever, so I assigned it 20GB.
After installing IIS, run WSUS which you can download from Microsoft for free, SQL server Desktop Engine will be installed if you don’t have any other DB server you want WSUS to use. It’s pretty much an easy to go through setup. And you want to skip the Mirror part if this is the only WSUS server you have and you don’t want it to mirror data from another WSUS server
I finished installing WSUS and it is managed through the web so no console or anything unless there is such a thing I don’t know about. Anyhow I believe I need to configure my policies so that my clients would know to get their updates from the WSUS server. I need to setup a VMware client to see how to go about this.
Now I am creating a client and fooling around with the web management … to be continued 
PTR Issues
Posted by Bloggylife in troubleshooting, windows on June 12, 2008
Changes have been made over our network …
Fresh out of managing the firewall course, guess what … we are having problems with our clustering firewalls ;P put right into the test … anyhow the problem seems to be momentarily solved, I’ll have to keep an eye on that one.
Some of emails are not going out and to some specific domain names (aol.com), the error message as follows:
Final-Recipient: rfc822; user@aol.com
Action: delayed
Status: 4.0.0
Diagnostic-Code: X-Symantec-Mail-Security; host
mailin-02.mx.aol.com[205.188.249.91] said: 421-: (DNS:NR)
http://postmaster.info.aol.com/errors/421dnsnr.html 421 SERVICE NOT
AVAILABLE (in reply to end of DATA command)
Will-Retry-Until: Sat, 14 Jun 2008 15:10:05 +0300 (AST)
If you go to the link, the basic issue that you don’t have any PTR records for your email agents that aol is trying to communicate with, they have a lookup tool to verify this which you can use. DAMN those dnsstuff for not being free anymore!!!
Some email servers for spam issues try to lookup the IP to get the host name
I’m new to the DNS thing, so when double checking out reverse zone, everything is configured properly … so the troubleshooting begins …
nslookup from any machine and connect to an external DNS server, your ISP’s and lookup your domain names and your IPs
It states to contact your ISP or DNS providers, so I thought we are our own DNS providers why aren’t the PTR updates reflecting outside!!!
Conclusion, to add any PTR record contact your ISP and they do it on their DNS.
So I called in and they transfered me from one to another, but they were really nice and finally I talked to this nice lady and I told her the requirements over the phone and hoooopppaaa everything configured.
Early morning, all pending emails have gone through
Along the way, I discovered a DNS configuration problem that apparently affected the Internet performance and now we increased 25%, hehehehe, OK, I need to stop and just hope the day “ye3adi 3ala khair”
XP SP3
Posted by Bloggylife in windows on June 9, 2008
Yesterday I installed XP SP3. The notice from Microsoft says that the overall experience is the same, it’s a bundle of updates and patches. I haven’t really read what’s it’s all about, I’ll get to that soon. Anyhow, from a one day experience, I noticed the ‘Remote Desktop Connection’ component has been changed and more features are added to it by clicking on options to view them. Also, ‘Event Viewer’, two items are added, ‘Microsoft Office Diagnostics’ and ‘Microsoft Office Sessions’, as the name states it’s for Microsoft Office suite application, which application ran, for how long and termination state.
Dunno something is wrong with my PC, for several days, I’m tired of trying to pinpoint the problem, I need someone to do it for me … I’ll just try one more thing and if it didn’t work out … HELPDESK …
eMule in Vista
Posted by Bloggylife in troubleshooting, windows on May 24, 2008
I use eMule to download music, movies, novels, etc. I think I tried someother peer-to-peer but didn’t quite figure out how to use it, so I quit.
I download eMule on my Vista from HELL and when it came to the port configuration something was blocking it, either my personal Norton firewall or my new router.
Again, even managing the new Norton is quite hectic, I tried many configuration and still no eMule communication and I configured my ports on my router but still it didn’t solve the problem
I momentarily switched off my personal firewall to make sure if it is a firewall problem only or router, still the problem persisted so I assumed it is from the router
Each router has a different naming, mine was to configure my machine in the DMZ zone and open the ports in a different section. In my old router, all I had to do was under port forwarding, anyway the communication part was solved
When running the program it gives you several errors regarding creating a secure identity, folders, etc. as an anxious user skip skip skip
I searched what I needed in eMule and when clicking on the file to download it doesn’t!!! Checking the logs, eMule couldn’t create the necessary files to download what I need.
The thing is, two folders are created in the programs folder, temp: for temporary parts of your download selection and download: for when all the parts are finished to put together and place in that folder
In Vista when creating a folder under programs, all the confirmation popups come to live, are you sure??? So it was a permission control problem, eMule by Vista isn’t allowed to create anything, so I shifted the files under my documents assuming that would solve the problem, it didn’t!!! I searched in Vista for something to configure eMule as a trusted application, to have admin privilages but couldn’t find it, so my only source is to Google the thing …. but now I have errands to run so this battle with continue another time …
Someone tell me a good thing about Vista, it is driving me crazy!!!!
Update:
OK placing your IP in the DMZ doesn’t need for you to open ports, apparently all incoming to that zone is allowed, you don’t have to specify the ports. That is my router’s configuration.
Update 2:
I tried moving the folders around under My Documents, but then a linking problem occurred. So I had to eventually configure something that may appear to others as insecure, so what xp didn’t have it and I never had a problem, I disabled the account control, no more run as administrator …
Control Panel -> User Account -> Turn User Account Control on or off -> uncheck the UAC box
You’ll have to restart after this. Now you can install the application and it can create and write whatever it wants without bothering you
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