Archive for the ‘Windows Desktop’ Category
MDT 2008 Lite Touch fails with wierd network errors - sometimes
Posted by: ds in Microsoft Network Admin, Microsoft Server, Vista, Windows Desktop on October 20th, 2009
You may not put two and two together but they last time you updated MDT (because MS told you you needed to… (yeah so much for trusting MS)) you actually broke it. Now you get a Network Timeout (or a wierd access denied error) in Windows PE 2.1 when it’s trying to launch the Lite touch scripts. Oh, and another thing about launching LiteTouch, don’t have a Windows boot CD (or any CD in the CD drive. For some wierd reason WPEInit will see that and fail to launch the LiteTouch Script. (no I havn’t figured out why yet)
Symptoms:
You get the following error message in MDT 2008 Lite Touch Deployment even though you have the correct nic drivers in Windows PE and the correct bootstrap.ini settings. “A connection to the deployment share \\Server\Distribution$ could not be made. The Deployment will not proceed” upon further investigation you find out that you get an access denied error when you try to list the \\server\distribuiton$\ directory. BUT! if you do a Net Use mapping to the folder, it works just fine! WTF? AND, it works on some models of computer but not on others. More WTF?
Cause:
A network initializion timeout issue in wpeinit.exe in Windows PE 2.1 causes MDT 2008 Lite Touch Deployments to fail.
Workaround:
Give WIndows PE 2.1 a few more seconds by editing startnet.cmd on your LiteTouch_x86.wim (or iso) to look like below. (It’s in the windows/system32 directory) (Use Imagex /mountrw LiteTouch.wim 1 d:\image to mount the WIM) (Don’t forget to ImageX /Unmount d:\image when you’re done)
startnet.cmd
wpeutil InitializeNetwork
ping localhost or Pause (or any other command that does nothing but takes a few seconds to complete)
wpeinit
If you want the Deployment Workbench to include the updated startnet.cmd every time you update the Deployment Point just follow the below steps
Configure MDT to use the updated startnet.cmd
- Create a folder named ExtraFiles\Windows\System32 in the distribution share and copy the updated startnet.cmd to it.
- In the Deployment Workbench, right-click the Deployment Point and select Properties.
- In the Windows PE Tab, in the Extra directory to add textbox, type in D:\ExtraFiles
- Click OK
- Regenerate the WIM files and don’t forget to rebuild the Boot images in WDS otherwise your changes won’t take effect.
ds
Adobe Acrobat Reader 9.0
Posted by: ds in Adobe, Vista, Windows Desktop on March 12th, 2009
Don’t DO it!!!! In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Adobe’s realease 9.0 of acrobat reader cause lots of problems. Known issue #1 - In Vista with IE 7 and a normal user, Reader won’t launch inline in the IE browser window - it just hangs with a blank page. The work around for this has been to turn off the browser integration so Reader launches in it’s own window.
Known Issue #2 - If you have redirected your Application Data folder to a network share, 9.0 has a hissy fit and errors out on open.
The fix to all of this??? why it’s Acrobat reader 9.1 of course! Just another example of why you should be very cautious with dot zero releases. And, cynically, another example of the rediculous buggy bloat that is all things adobe. Yes Adobe seems to be contending with the king of bloat (MS) for the crown. I think they might even get it very soon!
PS: Version 9.1 does indeed fix both of the problems. HOWEVER, it unintentionally breaks it’s self again. Or more correctly, it tries to use something that is broken in Vista. so, when you install 9.1, make sure to install hot fix 228839 available here: http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=955555&kbln=en-us
This fixes a problem that shows up when you are using roaming or mandatory profiles and Vista doesn’t create all of the local temp folders. It’s especially bad if you clear the cached profiles at logout.
Gone insane yet??????
More insanity…
Ok, so the hotfix listed above does indeed fix the problem. But ONLY for VISTA SP1 !!! The hot fix won’t install in SP2. Not only that, but if you do have the hotfix installed (or any other hotfix for that matter) SP2 won’t install via WSUS. AND MS broke the Local/Low folder generation for situations of folder redirection in SP2 again. So, basically I give up waiting for MS to fix this and keep it fixed so if you just add the following line to your logon scripts it will create the missing folder if the logon process doesn’t. Maybe some day MS will get their head out of their A@# and actually get this fixed (Yes this has been frustrating).
If not exist %userprofile%\appdata\locallow md %userprofile%\appdata\LocalLow
ds
Change those unchangable defaults
Posted by: ds in Vista, Windows Desktop on January 28th, 2009
You can change the default open and save location for all of the Office 2007 programs except Publisher. How lame is that??? Or can you?
It turns out that Publisher for some unknown reason looks at the following registry key value: HKEY_USERS\username\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\Personal to figure out where to open and save from. So if you change this value to where you really want your default to be, thenPublisher (and any other program that looks at the same key) will magically use that as the default path.
Ah, and here is another one just like that. MS Paint looks at: HKEY_USERS\username\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\My Pictures to figure out where it opens at. Change that value and whala! Default changed. You can use either UNC or Mapped drive.
The big warning is that any other programs that use these keys will get their defaults changed as well, but then again, if you want your default changed for these programs, you probably want it changed for any others as well. The other big warning is that these values will be ignored if you have folder redirection enabled for My documents either at the user level or via GPO.
ds
Spooler keeps crashing!
Posted by: ds in HP, Printers, Windows Desktop on August 20th, 2008
Ok you’ve got a cute little HP 1020/1022 laser printer and most of the time it works great BUT the @#%@$%#$ spooler sometimes crashes randomly (or not so randomly). Here’s the deal… It’s the dreaded HP Host Print Driver! Yep, this bad boy seems to be rearing it’s ugly head more and more these days. (Sidebar: The host print driver is a driver that does most of the PCL print processing on your CPU instead of the printer’s processor. You see, traditionally, Laser printers have had their own processors to understand and interpret PCL and sometimes Postscript printer languages, but in order to take cost out of the printer, HP (and others) have removed the processor chips from low end printers and written drivers that (mostly) replicate the interpretation on the computer the printer is connected to.) On to more details… You may have dug into this deeper by now and found some consistancies in how and when the spooler crashes.
- It’s usually when trying to print a PDF document.
- Not all PDFs cause the problem.
- It’s usually a PDF that was generated by a scanner.
- Once the spooler crashes or freezes, Word and Outlook have huge problems just opening documents.
- Sometimes you will see where ZSR.DLL was the faulting module.
These are things that do not work so don’t even bother trying them:
- Deleting/uninstalling the printer and reinstalling it. It may seem to work for a while but the next “special” PDF that comes along will crash it.
- Upgrading the version of Acrobat reader. This has no effect at all. (sidebar: removing adobe acrobat and replacing it with Foxit reader will resolve the issue however)
- Trying a different driver. Since this is a host print printer, standard (HP 4, etc..) drivers will not work. It must be a host print driver.
- Rebooting. The spooler will probably crash within minutes after rebooting without even trying to print anything. This is because the “special” PDF is still sitting in the print queue and will try to resume printing once the spooler starts. Clearing the print queue will temporarily resolve this immediate problem. The print Queue can be found here: c:\windows\system32\spool\printers Just delete all the files in there and reboot.
- Updating the printer driver to the latest version. Since this is a now obsolete printer, HP doesn’t seem to be willing to fix this problem and so the latest drivers are actually worse than older drivers. And that leads us to how to fix the problem….
Here is what does work:
- Clear out all remnants of all printer drivers as per MS article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324757/en-us (Q324757)
- Unpack the driver from the original CD or an old driver package. One that I know works is labeled for XP,2000 AND 98 from 2005. Also, to check if it might be the right driver, check the contents of the unpacked dirver for the existance of zsr.dll If it’s there, it’s the wrong one and won’t fix the problem.
- Install the printer the old fashioned way, plug it in and install the driver using add printer and selecting “have drivers”. DO NOT run the HP install!!!!
- Go ahead and install any other (non-host print) drivers that are needed.
That’s it. hours and hours of head banging averted! Now doesn’t that feel good??
ds
Outlook Cached Mode Is Greyed Out!
Posted by: ds in Exchange, Windows Desktop on July 15th, 2008
Ok, so you or someone you know and love has been messing around with disabling chached mode and/or offline folder file settings. Lots of reasons to do this, and lots of reasons to un-do this. Doing it is pretty easy through customizations and/pr group policies. Un-doing it is a pain. So here’s the secret…. Ready…. You need to hack the registry! Surprise Surprise. Ah, but what to hack???? Simple. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\xx.0\Outlook\OST (where xx is your current outlook version - YES this works for lots of versions) and simply delete the NoOST value. Restart outlook (or start it as you shouldn’t have had it started in the first place) and whala! you can not reset your happy little cached mode thingy. For those of you that are really interested in what the values in NoOST mean….
- 0—An offline store is set up by default and used for calendar caching. You can enable offline access and use the offline store. This is the same as the absence of the OST key and NoOST entry.
- 1—An offline store is set up by default and used for calendar caching. You can’t enable offline access and use the offline store. The options on the Microsoft Exchange Server Properties dialog box aren’t available.
- 2—An offline store isn’t set up by default, and you can’t enable offline access and use the offline store. The options on the Microsoft Exchange Server Properties dialog box aren’t available.
- 3—An offline store isn’t set up by default, and you can’t enable offline access and use the offline store.
There - aren’t you glad you read on!
I didn’t think so.
ds
Vista errors 1747 and 10107
Posted by: ds in Vista, Windows Desktop on June 11th, 2008
Suddenly your Vista computer decides to go on strike. Network connections don’t work, wierd failure messages pop up, and you can’t even open up event viewer to see what the problem is! You try to start Event logging or other services that should be started but aren’t and you get a “Error 1747: The authentication service is unknown” mesage. You try other things and your get the fabulous “Error 10107: A system call that should never fail has failed” mesage. (go figure - Microsoft can take the time to create an error mesage the shouldn’t ever happen, but can’t take the time to actually fix the problem!) Anyway the problem, believe it or not, is likely to be a messed up Winsock stack. TCP/IP stack Winsock settings in Windows Vista may get corrupted, causing errors and problems with Internet connectivity. Corrupt Winsock or Windows sockets configuration can be due to a lot of reasons such as installation of a networking software, or due to virus, trojan or malware infection, or sometime even due to disinfection of spyware by security software.
When Winsock corrupts, the networking errors that you may face include unable to surf the Internet with “Page cannot be displayed” error message in Internet Explorer or AOL even though the DSL/ADSL/cable Internet connection is connected. Sometimes, Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) service is terminated as well.
To repair and reset the Windows Vista Winsock Stack:
- Click on Start button.
- Type Cmd in the Start Search text box.
- Press Ctrl-Shift-Enter keyboard shortcut to run Command Prompt as Administrator. Allow elevation request.
- Type netsh winsock reset in the Command Prompt shell, and then press the Enter key.
- Restart the computer.
What netsh winsock reset command does is it resets Winsock Catalog to a clean state or default configuration. It removes all Winsock LSP (Layered Service Providers) previously installed, including the potential malfunctioned LSP that causes loss of network packets transmission failure. So all previously-installed LSPs must be reinstalled. This command does not affect Winsock Name Space Provider entries.
Note: To check which LSPs installed on your Vista system, use netsh winsock show catalog command.
ds
Older Autocads in Windows XP
Posted by: ds in User Privileges, Windows Desktop on June 7th, 2007
Yep - yet another older program that needs a little bit of help to run in Windows XP without being a local Administrator. To Get it to work right here’s what ya gotta do….
Grant the Users group Modify permissions to: C:\Program Files\AutoCAD LT98
For Autocad 2002 Modify the permissions on the following folder: C:\Program Files\Acadm 6
To fix the error: “This version of AutoCAD LT was not installed properly. You should reinstall AutoCAD LT immediately.” Open regedt32 and goto:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\AutoDesk\
Click “Security - Permissions” then click the “Advanced” button. Double Click the line containing “Users - Read” and check “Set Value”, “Create Subkey”, and “Delete”.
________
To fix the error: “Failed to update the system registry. Please try using REGEDIT.” Open regedt32 and goto:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{5E4405B0-5374-11CE-8E71-0020AF04B1D7}
Click “Security - Permissions” then click the “Advanced” button. Double Click the line containing “Users - Read” and check “Set Value”, “Create Subkey”, and “Delete”.
AND
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AutoCADLT.Drawing.4
Click “Security - Permissions” then click the “Advanced” button. Double Click the line containing “Users - Read” and check “Set Value”, “Create Subkey”, and “Delete”.
Update: For Autocad 2002 modify permissions on the following registry keys…
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Autodesk
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AutoCAD.Drawing
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AutoCAD.Drawing.15
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{8E75D913-3D21-11d2-85C4-080009A0C626}
ds
My resolution keeps changing - Why???
Posted by: ds in Windows Desktop on January 9th, 2007
So you got a new LCD monitor and it’s really cool! But now you have an annoying problem. The default resolution of the new monitor is WAAAYYYY too tiny for your ancient decrepit eyeballs. So, being smarter than the average bear, you change it to something less tiny (even though it’s fuzzier and more jagged because the LCD monitor isn’t designed to do that). All is well until you turn your computer off because when you turn it back on, it goes back to the tiny default resolution!!! WTF??? So you change it back again and it changes back to default at next logon and so the battle goes on. Forever. Untill you get so fed up you search the internet and find this post.
Here’s what is likely going on. You probably have a HP or Compaq computer. And you are probably running the OS that was originally installed on the computer. If this is true, then you likely have a little service program running called setrefresh.exe The job of this program is to find and set the optimal display refresh rate based on what the montior says is the best refresh rate. However, some of the smarter monitors state what the best resolution is as well and setrefresh goes ahead and chages that as well. So if you don’t have an HP or Compaq or you’ve installed the OS yourself or you don’t have a particularly smart monitor, you’re probably not even reading this because you probably don’t have this problem. But if you are, then just regedit the sucker away. It’s in HKLM/software/microsoft/windows/current version/run.
Oh and by the way, it seems that some jerk decided it would be fun to use setrefresh as an attack vector so it may not be a compaq program anymore but rather some peice of malware. Another reason to get rid of it.
Update: HP changed the name of the program on newer machines. It’s now called CPQSET.exe
DS�
Windows Power Management
Posted by: ds in Microsoft Network Admin, Windows Desktop on November 14th, 2006
Ok, so you’re totally frustrated by the bizarre decisions Microsoft made when they setup power management in Windows 2000 and XP. You know, the problem that power settings are a by user setting but “normal” users don’t have permissions to change them and you can’t figure out a way to manage them centrally? Yup, MS really out did themselves on this one!
So here’s how you get around it.
First, get yourself the latest copy of EZGPO from here: http://www.terranovum.com/projects/energystar/ez_gpo.html
(make sure it’s at least 2.01 - the older versions kinda stink)
Next, unzip it, copy the ADM into the DC’s inf folder and the MSI file into all the DC’s logon scripts folder.
Next Add the EZ_GPO.ADM template to your GPO and set your settings in both the computer section and the user section.
Don’t forget about the “prompt for password on resume” setting in the user section under system/power management. NOTE: this can only turn the prompt on. It cannot turn it off! (Another MS GO FIGURE!) If you need to turn it off you have to do it either by importing a registry key via logon script or manually user by user.
Now install the Ezgpo.MSI on each computer. You can do that via GPO or logon script but be warned! It needs admin rights to install!
After installation, reboot and logon TWICE. Yes, TWICE! it doesn’t fully implement untill after the second reboot and login cycle. Not sure if you need to be a local admin on both boots or not, I’ll update that info later.
More Notes: It seems that if you have an HP (and maybe others) you have a .default profile that plays into this as well. It seems that when the computer goes to suspend, it picks up some settings from the .default profile and replaces what you have set with them. Since the power settings are contained in a binary string, they aren’t really editable directly so…. My advice here is to get your power settings exatly the way you want them and export the HKCU\control panel\PowerCfg\GlobalPowerPolicy, edit the .reg file to fix the key name and then import it to HKU\.default\control panel\PowerCfg\GlobalPowerPolicy
disclaimer: If you don’t know how to add a template or what the heck GPO is, go buy a book! This isn’t a site to teach you how to administer a network for gosh sakes.
DS