tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211847462024-03-07T13:20:22.676-05:00From Cork to TorontoI immigrated to Canada late in 2003, and am interested in public transit and transportation generally, rights and freedoms, technology, urban planning and "soccer". My most excellent employer doesn't pay me to write on their behalf, please don't assume I do.Mark Dowlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01399115211805036553noreply@blogger.comBlogger461125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21184746.post-36712208489155422002022-03-29T14:47:00.000-04:002022-03-29T14:47:09.584-04:00Importing into WSUS when Edge is your default browser<p> I wanted to import .Net Framework 4.8 into my WSUS (for Server 2016) and ran into some obstacles. Edge was default but wasn't adding the basket to import. Internet Explorer had the basket but claimed my version of WSUS was incompatible.</p><p>The solution was based on <a href="https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-server-for-it-pro/how-to-import-out-of-band-updates-to-wsus-using-microsoft-edge/m-p/2918311" target="_blank">this post</a> - </p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>enable "Allow Sites to be reloaded in Internet Explorer Mode" in Edge settings</li><li>restart Edge</li><li>add the URLs below (and remove any others)</li><ul><li>https://catalog.update.microsoft.com/</li><li>https://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/Home.aspx </li></ul></ul><div>Returning to WSUS and choosing "Import Updates" allowed the import. </div><div><br /></div><div>There is a banner which invites opening in Edge mode (and breaking it again) but it's not like we can expect Microsoft to recognise its own incompatible websites, or properly HTML5-ize WSUS Catalog so I just ignored it. At least they did, <a href="https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/march-22-2022-kb5011543-os-builds-19042-1620-19043-1620-and-19044-1620-preview-4fe2d1c0-720f-47fe-9523-75339bc107a1" target="_blank">apparently</a>, fix Group Policy's HTML Export.</div><div><br /></div><div>This is a rare need for me so the "Allow for 30 days" option was sufficient for what I needed to accomplish, but this seems like a good reminder to brush up on <a href="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/edge-ie-mode-site-list-manager" target="_blank">Microsoft's enterprise tools</a> for this transition.</div><p></p>Mark Dowlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01399115211805036553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21184746.post-81396510110594923492019-07-22T14:55:00.002-04:002019-07-22T14:55:15.534-04:00createmsgservice failed. Error code: 8004010fWe were trying out a new imaging process and could not add iManage FileSite to a new user's Outlook 365 32-bit v1808 using ADDIMAN (or manually via Data File Management). This is an Outlook error rather than one specific to iManage.<br />
<br />
Fortunately we found <a href="https://help.imanage.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/207979077-Addiman-exe-createmsgservice-failed-Error-code-8004010f" target="_blank">an on-point forum post</a> which pointed towards a missing C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\System\MSMAPI\1033\MAPISVC.INF - copying this file (and grandparent folder as far back as MSMAPI) from a known-good machine cleared the problem.Mark Dowlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01399115211805036553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21184746.post-44528251319372229182019-05-25T16:20:00.003-04:002019-05-25T16:20:41.123-04:00Microsoft Word Recover Unsaved Documents does not point where you expect when manually retrieving an ASD file.This afternoon I helped someone recover an unsaved document from an .ASD file after a crash which did not trigger the usual file recovery pane. While the File/Options/Save dialog pointed to <i>%appdata%\Microsoft\Word</i>, File, Open, Recent, Recover Unsaved Documents points to <i>%localappdata%\Microsoft\Office\UnsavedFiles</i><br />
<br />
After copying the .ASD file into the latter (UnsavedFiles) folder, I was able to successfully open the .ASD file, save it to a DOCX and turn it over to the person I was helping.<br />
<br />
The person I was helping was using Word 2010 but I had the .ASD emailed to me, and did the recovery in Office 365 v1904, as I didn't have control of their machine.Mark Dowlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01399115211805036553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21184746.post-37563194013591754352019-05-09T13:17:00.000-04:002019-05-09T13:17:09.605-04:00Windows PC does not allow keyboard, mouse usage at bootHad a laptop come in where it would appear to boot normally, but at the logon screen both internal and external keyboards and mice did not respond. In Windows Repair, everything worked fine, just not within the operating system itself.<br />
<br />
The machine had a locally managed encrypted SSD which I wanted to decrypt before reimaging it, and there were some other items which would be more easily remediated if I could get 1-2 working login sessions before dropping the hammer on it.<br />
<br />
It did have working networking, so I gathered info via Event Viewer and established that I had access to the admin share and could control the machine via psexec. Using psexec to start SFC did not resolve the issue, nor did CBS.log point me in the right direction.<br />
<br />
The Event Viewer log for System noted a bunch of driver start events (Application Popup Event ID 26, Kernel-PnP Event ID 219) including for mouhid.sys. The "hid" rang a bell as being related to Human Interface Device, so it seemed like I might be on to something. Finally I came across <a href="https://www.sevenforums.com/drivers/378872-umbus-root-bus-enumerator-unknown-device-2.html" target="_blank">a forum post</a> which mentioned log files in c:\windows\inf. I obtained the files via the C$ admin share and had a look through them.<br />
<br />
At the bottom of setupapi.app.log were some lines including the following:<br />
<br />
<i>!!! cpy: Store copy Not NT5 signed 'C:\windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\keyboard.inf_amd64_neutral_0684fdc43059f486\kbdclass.sys' </i><br />
<i>!!! cpy: Error 160: One or more arguments are not correct. </i><br />
<i>!!! cpy: Store copy Not NT5 signed 'C:\windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\msmouse.inf_amd64_neutral_7a5f47d3150cc0eb\sermouse.sys' </i><br />
<i>!!! cpy: Error 160: One or more arguments are not correct. </i><br />
<i>!!! cpy: Store copy Not NT5 signed 'C:\windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\msmouse.inf_amd64_neutral_7a5f47d3150cc0eb\mouclass.sys' </i><br />
<i>!!! cpy: Error 160: One or more arguments are not correct.</i>
<br />
<i>!!! cpy: Store copy Not NT5 signed 'C:\windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\msmouse.inf_amd64_neutral_7a5f47d3150cc0eb\mouhid.sys'</i><br />
<i></i><br />
<i>!!! cpy: Error 160: One or more arguments are not correct.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
I restarted the machine using psexec and shutdown -r, and pressed F8 to obtain the boot options screen. I had tried many of the options previously, like <i>Safe Mode</i>, but had not tried <i>Disable driver signature enforcement</i>. Obviously there was no guarantee Windows would boot these drivers it didn't like the look of, but it was my best option. Fortunately, it did boot and gave me enough time at console to do what I needed to do, before turning the machine over to a colleague for reimaging.Mark Dowlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01399115211805036553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21184746.post-5728995328013289362019-05-01T09:31:00.000-04:002019-05-01T09:31:23.043-04:00Dell Data Protection | Security Tools does not encrypt OPAL SSDSo DDP|ST has been out of support for a bit and obviously hardware encryption has taken a bit of a knock lately, but some of you may be stuck with some Windows 7/OPAL setups for the time being so I'll write this up.
The scenario was that DDP|ST was installed into an image - target machine was a Dell Latitude E7470 with a LiteON SED SSD. Everything was ticking along in the usual way until ready to hit "Encrypt" on the SED. On doing so... nothing happens. The Encrypt button is greyed but it is possible to back out of the section or close the UI entirely.
I remembered overnight that I had seen this before - it required uninstalling and reinstalling the DDP|ST (including the usual PITA manual uninstall order, preserving Authentication data when asked, requiring reinstatement of the preboot text notices and removing undesired authentication methods).
The log files for DDP|ST are in \ProgramData\dell\Dell Data Protection\ but as yet I haven't figured out a cause.
Of course there are lots of other gotchas in PBA SED encryption (including OEM SSDs shipped without PSIDs so if you bungle it there's no getting that PBA off) but hopefully this saves someone a few hours of annoyance.Mark Dowlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01399115211805036553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21184746.post-42282584253655102292018-05-15T12:07:00.002-04:002018-05-15T12:09:26.894-04:00"Your request could not be completed. Please try again in a few minutes."When setting automatic replies (Out of Office) via Exchange 2013 OWA on behalf of another user, the message in the title can be displayed when saving the text. If you look at the System Event Log on the Exchange Server, you may see the following event ID 4:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Current user: '"<i>(domain)/(OU)/(OU)/(administrator)</i>" on behalf of "<i>(domain)/(OU)/(OU)/(User)</i>"'
Request for URL (<i>long URL follows</i>) failed with the following error:
Microsoft.Exchange.Management.ControlPanel.RegionalSettingsNotConfiguredException: We couldn't process the request because the user '<i>(domain)/(OU)/(OU)/(User)</i>' hasn't signed in to Outlook Web App and selected a language and a time zone. Ask the user to do this, or, if you are a member of the built-in Organization Management or Help Desk role group, you can use Window PowerShell to select a language and time zone for them.</blockquote>
Cancel the Automatic Replies dialog and switch to Settings, which will display a Time Zone selection dialog, then re-attempt the Automatic Replies dialog.
Mark Dowlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01399115211805036553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21184746.post-18757614586464087532016-10-04T16:16:00.000-04:002016-10-04T16:16:17.065-04:00Removing gridlines in Outlook 2007Got a call from someone who had been fiddling around in tables, had wandered away from it and was now disconcerted to find gridlines around their signature all the time. Outlook and HTML email being what it is, tables in signatures are a thing we choose to live with.<br />
<br />
To remove gridlines, begin a new email, then click inside the signature so that Outlook will present the Table Design and Layout tabs. Select Design, then track across the ribbon to the right hand side of Table Styles where you should find a Borders button with a drop down. Near the bottom of that long drop down should be "View Gridlines", which in this situation would be highlighted. Click to change that and the gridlines should disappear.Mark Dowlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01399115211805036553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21184746.post-38995890336137911712016-05-17T09:02:00.000-04:002019-05-21T14:27:21.881-04:00UPDATED: Removing Dell Data Protection | Access but "your USH firmware is out of date"UPDATE: I was recently unable to get past this screen with 23.7.303.0 firmware and A29 driver, but was able to with DDPA 2.3.3, the 23.7.405.0 firmware (installed before the updated driver) and 2.3.415.120 driver (even though the driver popped an "upgrade firmware" notice on completion)<br />
<br />
We use OPAL self encrypting drives on our laptops which used to be managed by DDPA, a Wave product that Dell rebadged. There is <a href="https://www.korelogic.com/Resources/Advisories/KL-001-2015-008.txt" target="_blank">a security vulnerability in DDPA</a> which Dell and Wave have decided they won't fix, since the current product is Dell Data Protection | Security Tools (DDPST). Unfortunately, there is no direct upgrade path, so it's necessary to run a reset within DDPA, uninstall, install DDPST and re-encrypt.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I've come across a couple of instances where opening DDPA to run a reset results in a message indicating that the USH firmware is out of date, and the user should go to dell.com to get a newer version. As best I can tell, this is because of poor version detection within DDPA - the firmware is up to date as is the ControlVault driver, it's just that DDPA can't contemplate versions with those revisions. I haven't been able to find a Dell or Wave article on point.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Here's the routine which has gotten me out of this and into DDPST. There are quite a few restarts involved.</div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>Uninstall any separate instance of ControlVault Host Components in Programs and Features screen (restart)</li>
<li>Downgrade the ControlVault firmware to 23.7.303.0 (restart)</li>
<li>Log in as the DDPA admin Windows user (fortunately no longer a thing in DDPST). </li>
<li>Run DDPA - should let you in now. Run a Reset - will require Windows account password, DDPA password and, if set, BIOS password (restart)</li>
<li>Uninstall DDPA - mandatory before installing DDPST. This may error out at the ControlVault driver uninstall. (Restart)</li>
<li>Install ControlVault Host Components, then uninstall DDPA again. It should go cleanly this time. (Restart)</li>
<li>Install DDPST, then the latest ControlVault Host Components, then the latest USH firmware.</li>
</ol>
</div>
Mark Dowlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01399115211805036553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21184746.post-27921468401354254902015-10-16T11:32:00.002-04:002015-10-16T11:36:12.469-04:00Previously working Outlook add-in refuses to load, marked inactiveSomething popped up today we haven't seen in a while, but like some of my other posts the solution isn't necessarily something you hit in the first few google results.<br />
<br />
An Outlook 2007 user suddenly had their iManage add-in not load. This precluded attaching document management system content to emails in the usual way. Help, Disabled Items didn't show the add-in, and manually searching the registry keys for the add-in didn't show any changing in LoadBehavior. Enabling the VSTO_SUPPRESSDISPLAYALERTS = 0 environment variable did not result in any crash warnings.<br />
<br />
I wandered over to the bench where the laptop was sitting and asked the person then working on it to bring Tools, Add-ins brought up one more time. That's when I noticed this checkbox:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVRuvw87iWDNlzoB25k-kU5uEdc9edr0eTp-JB_74bBz_PbM0AMQFym1lGgtld1EeVAPPFz8BhxJouCUuZC4vh33oxqOJdy75X-__b9iMb0PDX7DQQnglgrMUXUSOrtKgiP_BgQg/s1600/macrosecurity.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVRuvw87iWDNlzoB25k-kU5uEdc9edr0eTp-JB_74bBz_PbM0AMQFym1lGgtld1EeVAPPFz8BhxJouCUuZC4vh33oxqOJdy75X-__b9iMb0PDX7DQQnglgrMUXUSOrtKgiP_BgQg/s1600/macrosecurity.PNG" /></a></div>
<br />
The "apply macro security settings to installed add-ins" box, cleared in the example above, <b>was checked</b>. This issue has turned up in products like <a href="http://www.gfi.com/support/products/The-Outlook-Connector-add-in-is-not-loaded-by-Outlook-and-the-toolbar-is-not-visible" target="_blank">GFI Archiver Outlook Connector</a>, <a href="https://danieladeniji.wordpress.com/tag/apply-macro-security-settings-to-installed-add-ins/" target="_blank">Condeco Room Scheduler</a>, <a href="http://sales.hubspot.com/knowledge/tracking-emails/article/why-is-sidekick-for-outlook-not-showing-after-installing" target="_blank">Sidekick for Outlook</a>, <a href="http://kb.swiftpage.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/23022/~/act!-icons-missing-from-microsoft-outlook-toolbar" target="_blank">Act! For Outlook</a> and I'm sure lots and lots of others. We have similar issues with Adobe Acrobat / Reader Protected Mode.<br />
<br />
This represents one of those challenges in infotech operations life where you have to pick between an enterprise product you dropped a ton of money on continuing to actually work with other applications it depends on, or enabling additional security protections on those other applications. Why Microsoft doesn't lean on its third-party developers to use the security functionality it builds into its products (and advertises to prospective buyers of licences), or simply close off the workaround and force the issue, is left as an exercise for the reader.Mark Dowlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01399115211805036553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21184746.post-56880105248598216422015-04-10T14:45:00.003-04:002015-10-16T11:36:12.484-04:00Updating Dell Latitude E6440 bios without an operating system, plus fixing an "undetectable" hard driveDell seem to have introduced a feature which would have been very handy to have had <a href="http://cork2toronto.blogspot.com/2013/09/windows-xp-hangs-on-startup.html" target="_blank">18 months ago</a>. Just download the firmware executable to a USB stick's root directory, power on the laptop and press F12 for a boot menu. There you should see (at least at the A07 revision) a BIOS upgrade option. After entering the BIOS admin password you are passed to a basic update screen which allows you to browse the file systems the BIOS can see (the stick I used was NTFS and the local HDD was non functional at the time) then select the executable and run it.<br />
<br />
On a side note, the E6440 (in our config) runs an mSATA mounted on a 7mm frame to fit the SATA HDD bay. While this keeps things nice and light, this did cause me to run into an issue that does come up now and then, which is that the SATA connectors don't line up correctly and the disk is not detected. In this case, the laptop had been disassembled to deal with the effects of a fall and on reassembly the BIOS would not detect the drive.<br />
<br />
When we were retrofitting 7mm Kingston SSDs into bays designed for 9mm SATA drives on E6320s and E6420s, we used the 2mm plastic shims provided to deal with this - it also happened with 7mm factory supplied HDDs sometimes. The same solution was employed here - a spare shim applied against the top side of the mSATA-SATA adapter frame allowed the frame's SATA connectors to properly connect to the receptacle in the laptop chassis. It's a bit annoying to have had to do this once again for a factory component, but at least the laptop is functional again.Mark Dowlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01399115211805036553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21184746.post-48454066470250459702015-03-13T15:23:00.002-04:002015-10-16T11:36:12.479-04:00VMware Licencing - that was annoyingI'm going through a process of scoping hardware for a new project which is sized a little larger than usual for us. We are still relatively new to virtualization both in inclination but also in respect of vendor willingness to support it, but have used VMWare Essentials to get ourselves started. With this project I expected a step up but that Essentials Plus or at least vSphere Standard+vCenter might be as far as was needed.<br />
<br />
First I discovered that "full vCenter" cannot manage Essentials hosts which is grating. Then in reading around editions I discovered the presence of a vCPU (Virtual SMP) limit on guests, but we need to provision one at 24 vCores, which would put it at Enterprise for 5.1. I pinged our hardware vendor who also acts as our VMware vendor and said "figure it out for me" and the initial answer I got was Enterprise Plus, but after pressing the matter the rep said "I'll double check"<br />
<br />
Fortunately, while waiting for the reply, I found VMware <a href="http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2001113" target="_blank">KB 2001113</a> which showed that yes, there was an 8-vCPU limit on editions through Standard in 5.1, but there's a "See note" under 5.5. The "note" is <a href="http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2064117" target="_blank">KB 2064117</a> which says in respect of "all paid editions":<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
There are no restrictions on the number of vCPUs per virtual machine. You can configure up to the maximum number of vCPUs per virtual machine as specified in the vSphere 5.5 Configuration Maximums Guide.</blockquote>
The free hypervisor remains limited to 8 vCPU per guest (but the 32Gb/host limit is gone).<br />
<br />
So if you don't have a reason you need to stick at 5.1, even Essentials is sufficient to run even what is for us a ridiculously large 24 vCPU guest. Now I wish I hadn't spent so much time on an SCVMM/HyperV plan B...Mark Dowlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01399115211805036553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21184746.post-47947797427419533752014-07-30T16:18:00.000-04:002015-10-16T11:36:12.474-04:00Broken images on Outlook Web Access logon screen after Exchange Rollup installedWe don't normally use OWA but every so often a situation calls for it. Since <a href="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2917522" target="_blank">our last Exchange 2007 Rollup Update</a>, the OWA logon theme on our CAS host has been borked with broken images. It turns out that there's a known and long standing issue and <a href="http://serverfault.com/questions/61173/exchange-2007-owa-can-log-in-but-no-graphics-broken-images" target="_blank">a script which can be run manually to fix it</a>. Best four seconds I spent today :)Mark Dowlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01399115211805036553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21184746.post-67321298254767097142014-07-16T16:37:00.001-04:002014-07-16T16:37:47.296-04:00HP LaserJet printers duplex when they aren't supposed toCame across an issue today where, after a firmware update, a HP LaserJet P4015 decided to send paper from the Letterhead tray through the duplexer. I knew I had seen it before but couldn't recall how it was resolved, but eventually I stumbled across discussions of the same issue. Most refer to the use of an "All_ALM_types_OFF.prn" file which when sent through the printer resolved the issue. It turned out I had a copy of said file lurking in my "I must organise this one of these days" folder. Here's how the PRN file looks in Notepad++, since Notepad and web forums don't render the escape codes correctly:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBYNFQMw7TfJolXTsZcDC-nLN861f2db7TO7k_0RLuGM0mNQRlGDYx-bkvS-mFSU7FgmmIfqUrmsL0XTo5xegBku3xcm0HnXg8EChs7THHxh9FUNTdBaNsrjVjT6lf_HpOOsginw/s1600/ALM_prn.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBYNFQMw7TfJolXTsZcDC-nLN861f2db7TO7k_0RLuGM0mNQRlGDYx-bkvS-mFSU7FgmmIfqUrmsL0XTo5xegBku3xcm0HnXg8EChs7THHxh9FUNTdBaNsrjVjT6lf_HpOOsginw/s1600/ALM_prn.png" height="84" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
However, this can also be dealt with from the printer's web console.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2jb90ICr3XnYvQtowZ5odBXBgyHd4ssv1V7plQ76dfGZYgTX22S3dhMZHZM5yhUiLJgEIkT-d9jAVrpJq1FJL29-hDqddCf5NmYGZOu7ZbZo7r4HoB8lr1j_HM5aWgGs6BNZjbg/s1600/ALM_web.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2jb90ICr3XnYvQtowZ5odBXBgyHd4ssv1V7plQ76dfGZYgTX22S3dhMZHZM5yhUiLJgEIkT-d9jAVrpJq1FJL29-hDqddCf5NmYGZOu7ZbZo7r4HoB8lr1j_HM5aWgGs6BNZjbg/s1600/ALM_web.png" height="320" width="293" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
If you want to read about what Alternative Letterhead Mode does when it's on, try <a href="http://h20565.www2.hp.com/portal/site/hpsc/template.PAGE/public/psi/mostViewedDisplay/?sp4ts.oid=5118272&spf_p.tpst=psiContentDisplay&spf_p.prp_psiContentDisplay=wsrp-navigationalState%3DdocId%253Demr_na-c03484811-7%257CdocLocale%253Den_US&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken" target="_blank">this HP page</a>. If you want to know why, years after this issue was first flagged, HP are still shipping firmware which can trip this setting on various models then I have no wisdom for you :)</div>
<br />Mark Dowlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01399115211805036553noreply@blogger.com0Toronto, ON, Canada43.653226 -79.38318429999998243.285985999999994 -80.028631299999986 44.020466 -78.737737299999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21184746.post-53391130093958739432014-07-07T09:34:00.001-04:002014-07-10T09:14:41.099-04:00Find the Bluetooth MAC address on a Blackberry 7 deviceThis is a short one but apparently in the variety of awful Bluetooth support that car manufacturers provide, at least one requires the MAC address to be entered for successful connection. This is reasonably easy to find for wifi but you have to dig a bit for Bluetooth. Blackberry's convention appears to be that they are the same except for the last hex digit.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Click the Options icon.</li>
<li>Click Networks and Connections.</li>
<li>Click Bluetooth Connections.</li>
</ul>
<br />
The screen should now say:<br />
<br />
Bluetooth ON<br />
Discoverable NO<br />
Paired Devices<br />
<br />
At this point, click the Menu button (to the left of the touchpad) and select Options. You will see:<br />
<br />
Device Name<br />
Allow Outgoing Calls<br />
Contacts Transfer<br />
LED Connection Indicator<br />
Encryption<br />
Connect On Power Up<br />
<i>Device Address</i> << this is what you’re looking for.<br />
<br />
Hope this helps someone out there. I find helping people with car/BT issues frustrating as you can neither see the device or the car UI and are dependent on what you are being told is happening.Mark Dowlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01399115211805036553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21184746.post-3415159231812336362014-04-22T13:39:00.000-04:002014-07-10T09:15:00.020-04:00Migrating a print server from Windows 2003 or 2008 to a Windows 2008 R2 server? A possible pitfallI was having some trouble migrating one of my print servers (Windows 2008) to a stable 2008R2 file server. I intended to use the DNS name of the existing server as a CNAME alias on the new server, and didn't think it would cause much difficulty because the SMB shares are already advertised via a similarly migrated CNAME and the print queues worked fine when referenced by the server A record. Not so.<br />
<br />
It turns out the print spooler service needs to be allowed access the network in such circumstances, and failure to do so results in a 0x00000709 error. The situation <a href="http://blogs.technet.com/b/supportingwindows/archive/2013/04/23/unable-to-connect-to-a-printer-using-a-cname-record.aspx" target="_blank">is detailed here</a> at TechNet Blogs. Even though it refers to a non-Microsoft DNS server I encountered the issue with a Windows 2003 R2 DNS instance. There is further reference to DNSonewire in <a href="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/979602" target="_blank">this Knowledge Base article</a>. Implementing the suggested reg key and restarting the spooler service resulted in a working connection to a CNAME referenced queue. Now I have to find the next cutover window...Mark Dowlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01399115211805036553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21184746.post-63376430682821069462014-04-11T12:34:00.000-04:002014-04-11T12:34:46.779-04:00Microsoft Office 2007 icons turn white on desktop, start menu, taskbarWe use a third party inventory and patch management system to roll out Microsoft updates silently. Unfortunately every once in a while a patch or patches will cause the icons for the updated applications to turn white on certain machines which wasn't noted during the test cycle. We've just seen that happen in our Windows 7 environment while rolling out the April Patch Tuesday patches, where Word and Outlook icons were borked on certain machines. I haven't confirmed this yet, but there were only a few packages pushed so it looks like KB 2863811 (Outlook) and KB 2878237 (Word) were involved. We did not see this on machines patched by WSUS or Microsoft Update.<br />
<br />
There are a lot of articles out there about fixing icons by deleting iconcache.db but that's of little help if the base icon is borked. The trick of repairing Microsoft Office Picture Manager within the application didn't help either.<br />
<br />
I isolated the issue to two shortcut sets:<br />
C:\Users\Public\Desktop and<br />
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Microsoft Office<br />
<br />
I got "known good" <u>Microsoft Office Outlook 2007.lnk</u> and <u>Microsoft Office Word 2007.lnk</u> files from another machine and made a copy on a network share under a folder called deskicon. I then wrote the following quick script. It had to be run as an administrative user on the machine since both of the folders above are not writable by users.<br />
<br />
<i>cd \users\public\desktop</i><br />
<i>xcopy \\fileshare.domain.local\fixes\deskicon\*.* . /Y</i><br />
<i>cd C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu</i><br />
<i>xcopy \\fileshare.domain.local\f</i><i>ixes\deskicon\*.* . /Y</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
The Start Menu pinned icons, Start Menu All Programs, and All Users Desktop icons were fixed by this. On restarting the applications, the taskbar icon displayed correctly. This fix will be rolled out to the userbase via GPO with some refinements. Hope that helps somebody out there!Mark Dowlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01399115211805036553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21184746.post-45694614563720923742013-09-26T16:53:00.000-04:002014-04-11T12:34:46.775-04:00Windows XP hangs on startupOne of several things I'm working on at the moment is migrating people from Windows XP to Windows 7. There's various ways to go about this but we are in the main provisioning new PCs and manually bringing the data over - I'd rather not use Microsoft's tool to bring settings as we often take this sort of equipment change as an opportunity for a bit of a fresh start, with bookmarks and documents being re-imported later.<br />
<br />
One particular PC (Dell Latitude E6420, BIOS A08) decided on the very morning it was to be replaced to stop booting, even in Safe Mode/Command Prompt. Diagnostics and a chkdsk /R found nothing. There were longer than usual delays to bring up an F12 (choose boot device) menu.<br />
<br />
We had a backup of the data on it but it wasn't fresh because the user had been away from the office for a time. It seemed to me to be worth having a go at to get a better copy.<br />
<br />
Booting to XP Recovery Console to try and knock out some services or drivers was abandoned because the CD hung at "Setup Is Starting Windows". My luck being what it was, none of my bootable media for DOS with HIMEM.SYS enabled were working so I could upgrade the BIOS. Here's what I did based on a survey of similar issues on the internet:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Removed the hard drive</li>
<li>Switched the disk mode from ATA to AHCI and installed Windows 7 on another drive (no problem there) and at the first opportunity upgraded the BIOS to A19 (step 1/2 not needed presumably if my usual boot media had allowed me to do the upgrade)</li>
<li>Reinstalled the XP hard drive, restored ATA disk mode (the XP image wasn't built with the Intel AHCI driver)</li>
<li>In BIOS - disabled USB, NIC eSATA, free fall accelerometer and so on</li>
<li>At this point I was able to get the full F8 menu in Windows XP which I had not previously (just the "Windows did not start normally" basic options of Safe Mode, Last Known Config etc.) Again on the premises that a device driver might be at issue, I booted in VGA mode to bypass the display driver.</li>
</ol>
<br />
The laptop booted to Windows XP and permitted a logon. This left me with a bit of a quandary - I had disabled the NIC along with the other stuff. I opted to remove the data with a USB stick instead of chancing a reboot.<br />
<br />
It would be nice to know what broke here but given that the machine is being deprecated anyway I don't have the time to invest. Hopefully someone will get some ideas for a similar future issue from the above.Mark Dowlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01399115211805036553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21184746.post-82864937335651744632013-06-07T12:45:00.003-04:002013-06-07T12:46:39.095-04:00"STOP: c000021a {Fatal System Error} ... status of 0xc0000135"Have been struggling this morning with a Windows XP PC which was in a reboot cycle displaying the following error:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;">STOP: c000021a {Fatal System Error}<br /> The Windows Logon Process system process terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0xc0000135 (0x00000000 0x00000000).<br /> The system has been shut down.</span></blockquote>
God there's a load of crap on the internet - including in the Knowledge Base. "Do a chkdsk. Check the memory" which is all fine and well but it doesn't analyse the problem the computer is actually reporting (although Microsoft take 90% of the blame here for not properly publishing error codes. More posts, including Microsoft, said "do a repair install" but that would have broken stuff I didn't want to break, and doing a re-image would have been inconvenient. Better to see if it could be fixed.<br />
<br />
Most STOP 21A errors point to issues in winlogon.exe and csrss.exe but the "status of 0xC0000135" was an important differentiator between those and this, and it wasn't until I unearthed <a href="http://animaltracker.wordpress.com/2010/07/31/stop-c000021a-fatal-system-error-status-of-0xc0000135-the-solution/" target="_blank">this blog</a>, <a href="http://www.techspot.com/community/topics/stop-c000021a-fatal-system-error.32729/#post-516636" target="_blank">this forum post</a> and a post by "Richard" on <a href="http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/stop-c000021a-fatal-system-error-t3890588.html" target="_blank">this forum page</a> which led me to this crusty old <a href="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/173309" target="_blank">NT4 Knowledge Base article</a> that the solution emerged. A DLL file was missing from c:\windows\system32. But which one? And how to bring it in while causing minimum impact?<br />
<br />
First I went to a working computer and copied all DLLs in \system32 to a folder on a USB key. Then I booted a Windows 7 install CD and went into the repair console. Why? Because the WinXP console is very limited, being unable to run offline system file checking or XCOPY. Then I did an XCOPY from the USB stick to c:\windows\system32, answering no to overwrite existing files. A bunch of stuff came in, mostly linked a scanner which wouldn't have been common to both, but some graphics dlls came in too.<br />
<br />
We're migrating to Windows 7 so hopefully this isn't one I'll have to deal with again but am publishing it here in case some other poor soul comes across it.Mark Dowlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01399115211805036553noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21184746.post-92016277838899724922010-08-15T13:57:00.002-04:002010-08-15T13:57:59.282-04:00"Resolving" iTunes Error 1604 (and perhaps 1602, 1601?)One of the most infuriating things about owning an Apple portable device is iTunes. If I was to think of the single thing that would dissuade me most about owning a higher end device like an iPhone or an iPad, the thought of dealing with the catastrophic consequences of the most simple OS updates is it. It's fashionable to dismiss RIM but <a href="http://cork2toronto.blogspot.com/2010/06/blackberry-8530-rebooting-problem-when.html">while there are occasional hiccups</a> their software update process works 99 per cent of the time, and does not REQUIRE the use of Desktop Manager to get it done - it can be done wirelessly via BES or wired via Internet Explorer. Android phones can update by loading the patch onto a memory card. Like removable batteries, Steve doesn't do such things as memory card slots so obviously that's out.<br />
<br />
As I have whined before, <a href="http://cork2toronto.blogspot.com/2006/03/apple-considered-harmful.html">Apple's patch sizes are outrageously large</a>. At a time when Rogers is reducing bandwidth to its customers, should those customers have to upgrade to receive nearly 400Mb of firmware update to resolve a security vulnerability, and 65Mb for a point.point release to iTunes (9.2.1)? Having waited for this to download, shouldn't Apple test the iPod's capability to accept the download before whacking it and then popping up an esoteric message, the proferred solution for which is boilerplate like "reinstall iTunes"? Why would an organisation so dedicated to "the experience" as Apple rely on a pop-up box Lotus would have been proud of?<br />
<br />
Anyway, should get on with the 1604 "resolution" bit. I tried a bunch of things, including updating (with the same cable - another boilerplate Apple suggestion is to change out the cable) on a different machine but the subsequent restore from backup failed (by the way - why should a "restore from backup" essentially mean blowing away the OS, Apple? Why not just restore the settings and data from before and leave the OS as is?)<br />
<br />
Finding myself with a partially restored device, with media but few settings, I happened across<a href="http://blogs.oreilly.com/iphone/2008/05/the-wondrous-mysteries-of-erro.html"> this 2008 post on O'Reilly which advocated a trip to the Genius Bar</a> (but as <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/blog/perlow/apples-itunes-purgatory-for-windows-there-has-to-be-a-better-way/13711">this ZDNet blog shows</a>, this can be just as annoying - not to mention that being on Mac doesn't give you an advantage either). Deep in the comments <a href="http://blogs.oreilly.com/iphone/2008/05/the-wondrous-mysteries-of-erro.html#comment-2070015">I found this </a>(more accurately I noticed the later comments of an "OMG you're the best" type:<br />
<blockquote>I found a seemingly vague small post from 1 million google searches saying "Hey, if it hangs, before it goes to the 1604 error, just simply bring up your Task Manager and close the Itunes process...then, relaunch Itunes, it should see your Iphone, go through the restore again and wallah, it should work".<br />
<br />
I thought: yeah right. And I was wrong...<br />
<br />
IT WORKED. And it worked for my wife's Iphone too!! IT WORKS EVERY DAMN TIME!!!!!!</blockquote>This worked for me - the "hang" was simply a long wait during "preparing iPod for restore". I will say that having multiple recent backups is a good thing - because I hadn't synced recently I ended up going back to 6 weeks ago. The thing is - this post is in respect of restoring an iPod/iPhone from a bricked state. Apple shouldn't let it get to that - they should interrogate the device and if it throws the sort of error which causes 160x, it should not wipe the device. But since they aren't helping anyone avoid this state, I hope that this post will help others recover from a 1604 of their own.Mark Dowlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01399115211805036553noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21184746.post-65972249885179630612010-08-08T23:11:00.001-04:002010-08-08T23:22:06.562-04:00Fun with Rogers 8300HD and Component cablesMy Samsung 32" decided it didn't want to talk to my HDMI cable any more, and since I didn't have the option of kicking it back to Rogers I thought I'd try Component/YPbPr. Problem is - when I plugged them in I got SD and pink to boot. <a href="http://www.allquests.com/question/1803026-9/SA-8300-HD-Tips-Tricks-SARA.html">I googled around and found this comment</a>:<br />
<blockquote>I tried resetting the box and a number of things, could not get the component to look right, it was all pink. Then, I figured it out. When trying to set up the STB, through component output, for HD (pushing Guide and Info on the box), the screen only gave me one option, "press A for SD mode". I was muttering to myself "I don't want SD Mode" and getting very frustrated, after a while, I just hit B anyway, and sure enough it started outputting HD no problem.</blockquote>I tried this myself and presto, I have properly coloured SD and 1080i HD. Now to get Rogers to turn on the basic HD channels like CBC (rather than the specialties like CNNHD and DiscoveryWorldHD which weirdly work just fine).<br />
<br />
Afterword - I may not have CBC HD but I have NASA TV HD. That's a little bit awesome...Mark Dowlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01399115211805036553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21184746.post-76632886728753207052010-06-24T00:08:00.000-04:002010-06-24T00:08:40.060-04:00Making the web Readable.During the launch of Safari 5 from Apple, it emerged that their new feature, Reader, <a href="http://blog.arc90.com/2010/06/10/why-we-built-readability/">is based in part on a project by arc90 called "Readability"</a>. I hadn't stumbled across this before some of the reportage on Safari Reader but it basically uses a bookmark containing Javascript to reshape a webpage so that "excess" sidebars and formatting are stripped in favour of a clean block of text. It does not do so automatically but only when you click the button, which may skirt around objections from content makers and advertisers who have invested much in this clutter. <br />
<br />
Printing of webpages has been an ongoing bugbear for both my colleagues and myself and while this does not preserve layout, that is not always the goal. Readability has in fact already helped me to read badly laid-out text obscured by overflow into an adjacent column. Have yet to find a showstopper, merely some occasional clashes with inline images and it renders home pages only with a prior caveat, and it may come in useful to people with mild vision issues. If you have Firefox or Chrome it's as simple as dragging the bookmark to your Bookmark Bar, for IE right-click and add to Favorites Bar.<br />
<br />
Get your bookmarklet here: <a href="http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/">Readability</a>Mark Dowlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01399115211805036553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21184746.post-23165964771818858822010-06-23T23:49:00.000-04:002010-08-15T13:58:44.021-04:00Remote Desktop Connection Manager - a boon for adminsI subscribe to a bunch of Microsoft blogs and one of them revealed a gem in the past month. RDCMan, a tool which allows an admin to group together remote desktops, preset their username/password combos and connect to those groups with a right-click option, has been invaluable in my work lately which involves quickly jumping from server to server or from servers to a group of workstations. The gorgeous thing about it is not merely a gallery of thumbnails of the connected sessions, but the ability to interact with the thumbnails with sufficiently accurate mouse clicks. Heartily recommended.<br />
<br />
Here's the original post:<br />
<a href="http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2010/06/11/455115.aspx">Introducing Remote Desktop Connection Manager 2.2</a> (You had me at EHLO - the Microsoft Exchange Team blog)Mark Dowlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01399115211805036553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21184746.post-51766413756584023482010-06-23T23:44:00.001-04:002010-08-15T13:58:44.023-04:00Blackberry 8530 rebooting problem when activated on BESWe just got one of the new Blackberry 8530 EVDO touchpad devices from Bell Mobility, but returned the first one which we thought was defective. When the second one went down at the same point in getting it set up (being added to our Blackberry Enterprise Server) this raised a flag. It turns out the software currently posted on RIM's site has a bug which causes continuous reboots when policies such as memory cleaner are enabled. <br />
<br />
A customised loader to enable the OS to be patched to the point where the device resuscitates is available, but you need to talk to Bell Data Support for it. The loader was a bit finicky and threw errors a couple of times but eventually declared no patch required (i.e. the patch had taken) and the device rebooted. Happy days.<br />
<br />
UPDATE August 6th - the updated software (Package 5.0.0.1319, Applications 5.0.0.782, Platform 4.2.0.352) is available on blackberry.com for a conventional update, but I'm not sure you won't need to patch using the support tool if it's already in the reboot state.Mark Dowlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01399115211805036553noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21184746.post-90567898432515913062010-06-23T23:39:00.001-04:002010-07-18T16:52:37.591-04:00Sorry it's been so quietAnd I can't guarantee it won't be again... but I'm going to share a few things of a technical nature. Also - comments on posts more than 14 days old are now moderated after a certain number of unreadable (by me) comments were left on the post on Arthur C. Clarke. If I can't read them, comments won't be staying.<br />
<br />
Update (July 18th) - comments are now fully moderated.Mark Dowlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01399115211805036553noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21184746.post-50579185410938579912008-03-18T22:10:00.002-04:002008-03-18T22:54:08.033-04:00Farewell, Sir ArthurArthur C. Clarke died today (actually "tomorrow" in Sri Lanka where he has lived for 52 years). Strangely I was wondering only this past week if he was still about but the departure of the man who predicted <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit">geosynchronous satellites</a> twenty years before the 1965 launch of Early Bird (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelsat_I">Intelsat I</a>) and who collaborated with Stanley Kubrick on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_%28film%29"><span style="font-style: italic;">2001: A Space Odyssey</span></a> was unlikely to be a small ripple. A quick glance at my bookshelf tells me I own about twenty books of Clarke's but I think more remain on the "to follow" shelf in my family's house in Ireland.<br /><br />Although most renowned for <span style="font-style: italic;">The Sentinel</span>/<span style="font-style: italic;">2001</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Childhood's End</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Against The Fall Of Night</span>, I would urge someone who has never read Clarke to seek out first his short stories in collections like <span style="font-style: italic;">The Other Side of the Sky</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Wind From The Sun</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Tales From Ten Worlds</span>. He had a few weaker works, particularly his later collaborations such as <span style="font-style: italic;">Cradle</span> which I felt were a vehicle more for his co-authors than representative of the solo writing of earlier times, and the 2001 series dwindled with the last two volumes in particular.<br /><br />For how many years will people shudder at the thought of man's interference with one of Jupiter's moons - <a href="http://www.google.ca/search?q=%22all+these+worlds+are+yours%22+except+Europa&btnG=Search&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial&hs=xo8"><span style="font-style: italic;">"all these worlds are yours - except Europa. Attempt no landings there"</span></a> and how fascinated were so many of us with the Eye of Iapetus which <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn%27s_moons_in_fiction#Iapetus">Voyager 1 blurrily hinted at</a> until Cassini laid it finally to rest with its superior images.<br /><br />Here is Clarke's 90th birthday broadcast, where at the end he quotes Kipling:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3qLdeEjdbWE&hl=en"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3qLdeEjdbWE&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"></embed></object></div><span style="font-style: italic;">"If I have given you delight with all that I have done, let me lie quiet in that night which shall be yours anon. And for the little, little span the dead are borne in mind, seek not to question other than the books I leave behind."</span>Mark Dowlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01399115211805036553noreply@blogger.com4