Rapid Succession

Windows 2008 R2 Time Server

2011-11-30T19:48:00.001-08:00

Ugghhh... My Win7 Media Center was recording TV several minutes late, so I knew that my PDC (Windows 2008 R2) had somehow fallen behind time because all my PCs are time synced to it. I thought I had set it properly, but on further investigation, I had set it on a previous PDC and forgot when I migrated to the new one.

Luckily I found good thread on technet. I also ran into an interesting thing mentioned in the thread, which was that I had to run the "w32tm /unregister" command twice in a row to get it to work. The first time it came back "Access is denied. (0x800700005)", but the second was fine.

So my working command sequence was:

net stop w32time

w32tm /unregister

w32tm /unregister

w32tm /register

net start w32time

w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:us.pool.ntp.org /syncfromflags:MANUAL /reliable:yes /update

Tracking down unknown devices in Windows device manager

2011-11-21T19:29:00.001-08:00

Great resource for identifying PCI devices for the purposes of getting drivers. I was very pleased to find it user supported. Good stuff all around.

Found it here with a good description of how to navigate to the hardware ID for the device.

Windows 7 Recycle Bin on Taskbar

2011-11-07T19:31:00.000-08:00

For the anal retentively clean desktop. Howto Geek comes through again.

Open Terminal from current Finder window - MacOS

2011-10-08T11:39:00.000-07:00

I am trying to switch to primarily Mac for my work environment. One of the things that I realized I was missing was "CMD Prompt Here", which is a right-click Registry hack for windows command line geeks. I found the equivalent in the form of a Finder Toolbar widget written in Applescript called Open Terminal Here, written by Marc Liyanage.

Open the downloaded zip and drag and drop the OpenTerminalHere button onto any Finder window toolbar. Works like a charm in 10.7.

Macbook Pro loses bluetooth

2011-08-31T12:02:00.000-07:00

Ran into a strange situation where my MBP 2010 lost bluetooth (doesn't even show up) while in Windows via BootCamp. I tried resetting SMC and also updating BootCamp softare to 3.2 in Windows. I am not sure which one did the trick, but it is working now.

Windows 7 Power Management report

2011-08-01T09:15:00.000-07:00

Very nice little way to troubleshoot power settings.

Enable TRIM in Linux for ESXi NFS storage

2011-05-08T08:43:00.000-07:00

I have been looking at this for a while because ESXi does not support TRIM for local storage, so setting up a separate Linux NFS server with TRIM is the best use case I can think of for DIY white box ESXi.

Getting TRIM working in Linux is easier now that it was a while back, so I have a way to test it out. Be aware that the quality of the enterprise SSDs is considerably different than consumer SSDs.

Disable Hibernate on Windows 7

2011-02-23T03:28:00.000-08:00

I run into this randomly when I (re)build a system. Some systems just don't like the Windows 7 hibernate function, and I remember this on Vista too. The answer is in KB920730.

Run cmd.exe as administrator and then run "powercfg.exe /hibernate off". That should not only turn off the function in Windows, but also delete the hiberfil.sys file. Easy peasy.

Manually delete DCOM entries

2010-12-23T12:02:00.000-08:00

DCOM Config on Windows has the delete option grayed out when browsing objects. The only way I have found to delete them is to use "wmic.exe". It is the WMI command line tool.

wmic dcomobjname delete

where dcomobjname is the name of what you want to delete.

Windows auto logon

2010-12-23T11:47:00.000-08:00

I use this on "family" PCs in my house and then lock down the user account for limited rights.

You have to create/edit a few registry entries to get this done

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

DefaultDomainName
DefaultUsername
DefaultPassword

You also should change AutoAdminLogon to 1

I have used this on NT up to Win7 with no problems.

RAID on Gigabyte MA790X-UDP4

2010-09-19T12:55:00.000-07:00

After scouring the Gigabyte site for anything about RAID utilities, I finally found out that you can just use the AMD RAIDXpert to manage the SB750, regardless of the motherboard.

I am running it with Windows 2008 x64 no problem.

Remotely enable games in Win7 Enterprise

2010-08-07T15:33:00.000-07:00

Excellent post by Alex Verboon on using dism to configure Windows 7 systems. My questions was around Games. I also use it with MS Sysinternals psexec.

More MacOS learning

2010-07-28T15:11:00.000-07:00

A couple tips that I added to my setup:

Set external display as primary.

Getting Apple Java to work with Firefox.

Migrating to Macbook Pro

2010-07-01T14:48:00.000-07:00

I have just started to migrate from Win 7 to MacOS 10.6 over the last week. I have not used a Mac on a daily basis in over 15 years, so most of the stuff I knew is insanely outdated. I have been trying to keep my tweaks and notes together so that I will know what to do if I need to do it again. I am writing about them out of order because I would choose to do them this way in the future, rather than the way I actually did them.

There will be more posts on this as I have time to make notes.

Hardware upgrades:

I got the stock 15" MBP with 4GB RAM and 320GB HD. I upgraded to 8GB RAM and a 640GB HD. Both were priced right at the time and were no-brainers.

The RAM was touchy when I installed it and had to be popped in and out a couple of times to seat it properly. I was not able to boot the laptop, and there's not much in the way of error messages when physical things happen like that.

The HD was a bit more complex of an upgrade, so I found a couple of articles that walked me through the process. Since this was a corporate standard build and had apps loaded and configured, I could not just start from scratch. Drive duplication is not ideal when the drive is the boot drive, so I had to wrangle and break it down into a few steps.

Create bootable flash drive. Although the article was related to 10.5, the information is pretty much the same. I used a 32GB USB thumb drive with no problems. It took over an hour for the install though.
Boot from flash drive and clone old system drive to new drive. The article mentions both SuperDuper and Carbon Copy Cloner doing the trick and I used the latter. Make sure you are downloading and installing the app after booting to the flash drive. My process took over 4 hours to clone and verify. Having a USB to SATA converter is handy too, although the link is not the exact one I used.
Swap the drives and resize partitions as needed.

Java x64 and .86 on Windows 7 x64

2010-04-13T09:22:00.000-07:00

Every time a local Java app gives me guff, I get stuck in the whole Java PATH and 64 vs. 32 thing. My best method of getting around it is keeping both versions up to date. I use Secunia PSI to track versions. The 32-bit Java version seems to auto-notify of updates OK, but I think it fights with the 64-bit version, so I don't get dueling update notifications from the native Java update mechanism, thus the need for Secunia PSI.

Although I use Firefox primarily, it is not ideal for downloading Java updates unless you know exactly where to get them. Firefox is still 32-bit only (as of 3.6.3) and is detected as such so you are directed to the 32-bit version. What I have found to be far easier is to use 32-bit IE to auto-detect and download 32-bit Java, and then repeat the process with 64-bit IE.

Lifehacker - anonymous browsing

2010-02-28T14:27:00.000-08:00

I have not had reasons for covering my tracks in a while, but I like to keep up on the methods and technologies involved.

Minimum iTunes install

2010-02-12T09:58:00.000-08:00

I run into this every time Apple updates iTunes and it just drives me a bit nuts. Ever since they pulled the software update thing with Safari showing up as an install update for iTunes, I have been ripping apart the iTunes install and using only what I need. I don't have an iPhone or an iPod Touch, so this is my process.

Install 7-zip, or another program that can extract from compressed files.
Download the iTunes installer (itunes64setup.exe for me).
Open the iTunes installer file with 7-zip. I usually just right-click and extract to a folder named itunes64setup.
There should be 8 files (AppleApplicationSupport.msi, AppleMobileDeviceSupport64.msi, AppleSoftwareUpdate.msi, Bonjour64.msi, iTunes64.msi, MobileMe64.msi, QuickTime.msi, SetupAdmin.exe).
Rename AppleMobileDeviceSupport64.msi, AppleSoftwareUpdate.msi, and MobileMe64.msi. I usually just add a 'z' to the beginning of the file name.
Run "itunes64.msi /passive" from the command line. I don't always have to do this, but I think ripping the install apart makes this necessary more often than not.

OS fanboys (and girls) are the best

2009-12-19T07:25:00.000-08:00

I sometimes wonder where the fanboy thing comes from. My theory is that this is a distant cousin of "my dad can beat up your dad".

The Accordion Guy nailed it.

I can't really put myself in any of the camps because I use Windows, Linux, and Mac on a fairly regular basis. I use Windows as my desktop and have Windows and Linux as servers, and I test things on Macs for customers.

Can't remove Libraries Icon from Desktop

2009-11-21T05:42:00.000-08:00

Holy Cats! There goes several hours of my life that I will never get back.

It looks like at least one thing in Windows 7 has not changed a whit: It is nigh on impossible to figure out how options map back to registry settings. If the Desktop Icons GUI settings have no reference to the Libraries icon, then how does one remove it?

Thank goodness for people like Stefan Zeiger and references back to his blog post on the subject.

My peculiar twist is that I tested the Windows Easy Transfer tool on the recommendation of a friend and co-worker (I'm looking at you Deniz Yar). It worked well in getting my profile and preferences from my Vista x64 box onto my fresh build of Windows 7 x64, but I am wondering if it might have been the cause of this issue, since it seems to affect some folks (upgrades?) and not others (fresh installs?).

Either way, I had to create the key below and change the REG_DWORD value to 1.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\ClassicStartMenu\{031E4825-7B94-4dc3-B131-E946B44C8DD5}

The difference I would point out is that change that worked for me was in HKCU\...\ClassicStartMenu and not NewStartPanel. Changes to HKLM had no visible effect for me. I even tried looking at Wow6432Node under HKLM just to be sure, but that was no good either.

Sometimes it is truly best not to look behind the curtain.

Win7 x64 DVD install oddity

2009-11-20T18:42:00.000-08:00

I ran into a driver issue on my Gateway GT5628 when installing Win7 x64 fresh. It came up with a missing driver for the CD/DVD. I remember having issues with this system when installing Vista x64 also, but I scrounged around and came up with an ITE (the company, not a typo of IDE) ATAPI driver that worked, but it took hours to find and use.

This time around I found another solution (based on others trials and errors) that worked like a charm. Mnshankar had found the same thing I did, which was that it was easier to grab a spare SATA DVD drive, if you have one, than to dig through the Gateway website looking for drivers for an hour.

When .net goes bad...very bad

2009-10-07T18:08:00.000-07:00

I've only had it happen a couple of times, but sometimes .net framework gets so horribly broken that it won't repair or uninstall. There are some trouble shooting steps that Aaron Stebner has put together. The best part is that he wrote a cleanup tool that will rip everything out so you can start from scratch.

Changing Windows Explorer default open location

2009-10-06T20:24:00.000-07:00

Whenever I rebuild a box, I always have to track this down. Drives me nuts.

SQLIO for stress testing storage

2009-09-09T19:45:00.001-07:00

This is a pretty hardcore article about stress testing storage by Brent Ozar with scripts that can run for hours.

slipstreamed Win 2003 SP2 fiasco

2009-09-09T16:51:00.000-07:00

So I had a hard drive problem with my WSUS server in my lab. It was a low space issue at first. When I replaced the drive and tried to ghost the data to the new drive, it ended up being a harbinger of doom. I got the click of death on the old drive as soon as I hooked up the new one to start the ghosting.

I guess I needed to start from scratch anyway, so I decided to use the opportunity to create a slipstreamed Win 2003 SP2 disc. I used nlite as I have previously, and thought everything was OK. I booted up with the disc and the install was progressing OK for a while. When I logged in and tried to use IE, I got a "cannot load the internet configuration library icfgnt.dll" message, but IE actually started. It turns out that file that it is looking for is icfgnt5.dll. I was able to copy it from another working 2003 SP2 machine to the windows\system32 directory, and then ran "regsvr32.exe icfgnt5.dll" from the command line, but it errors. Either way, that seemed to solve that one once I rebooted.

I then tried to install WSUS 3.0 SP2, but I got a BITS 2.0 prerequisite error. Since I had enabled BITS with IIS, I was a little confused. I started by trying to copy the files from another server, but that didn't work. I ran across a great summary by Aurelien Botman which helped me out.

My server is up and running now, but I am tossing that slipstreamed disc in the trash.

College football bowl picks from SI

2009-09-03T21:29:00.000-07:00

Color me a little surprised by the SI picks this year. Two picked Rutgers to win the Big East. Now I am a Rutgers fan and all, but not even Sam Hellman at The Daily Targum , the Rutgers student news paper, thinks that Rutgers will do that. He picks Cincinnati to win. What bugs me the most is that NONE of the SI people picked Cincinnati.

I think Rutgers will finish second behind Cincinnati in the Big East, but both will finish the season in the top 25. Of Rutgers non-conference opponents, only Maryland had a winning record. Based on their schedule, Rutgers has a legit chance to go 10-2 during the regular season and be ranked.

MAC address magically changed

2009-09-02T19:01:00.000-07:00

While I was running some upgrades on a RHEL 5.x box, I decided to update the VMtools too. After updating the tools, I restarted networking and got a

Device eth0 has different MAC address than expected

error.

I am not really sure where the problem originated, but the interface refused to start. I found a reference to the error that mentioned editing the ifcfg-eth0 file. I commented out the HWADDR line and restarted networking again. That did the trick.

auditing on Red Hat

2009-09-02T13:14:00.000-07:00

I was trying to turn on auditing on my RHEL5 box and realized that it was already on, but that I had wrongly assumed it was directed to syslog. The audit function is provided by auditd, and has its own logs, but the syslog plug-in is part of audispd.

Once I figured that out, all I had to do was install the audispd-plugins rpm and then edit the /etc/audisp/plugins.d/syslog.conf file to "active = yes".

I rebooted after the install because I was installing some other things at the same time, so I am not sure which, if any, services or daemons require restarting to get things working. Now my syslogs show commands executed when I log in as root.

This might not be a great solution for just any circumstance, considering there might be some overheard on active systems, but for any high-security or heavily audited environment, this is key. The real consideration is for environments with centralized logging that does not work with the audit log, but does work with the syslog.

Presenting at Abe and Louies tomorrow

2009-08-18T20:15:00.000-07:00

I am presenting at Abe and Louies in Boston tomorrow. It is a lunch and learn seminar.

My topic is "Controlling Server Configuration & Compliance Costs in Physical and Virtual Worlds".

Exciting, no?

Star Spangled Banner on electro-violin-bat

2009-08-18T14:22:00.000-07:00

I just thought this was cool. This is a violinist from the National Symphony Orchestra playing on a violin-bat.

Sounds like Hendrix on an electric guitar. Tremendous.

.net in Firefox fiasco

2009-06-16T20:31:00.000-07:00

This just annoyed me. I found it on a couple of my machines and realized it was a Firefox extension that masqueraded as an update to .net. Nothing like a .net update adding something to Firefox that you can't remove without surgery. Isn't that the whole reason one installs Firefox in the first place? So they don't have to deal with the IE OS integration nonsense.

It just pissed me off. At least there is an easier removal now.

HP LaserJet 4 Driver on Windows 7 RC

2009-05-18T20:09:00.000-07:00

Interesting problem hit me today while testing Windows 7 RC. It could not identify my Canon LaserClass 3175MS printer driver. That is not really a big surprise to me, since it is a combo fax printer copier that I have used for years simply because it is a tank of a laser printer. I have replaced the toner once in the last 7 years.

My normal solution to this is to use the HP LaserJet 4 driver, since it is an almost universal driver for old laser printers. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with it being based on an old version of PCL that just about all laser printers understand.

However, Windows 7 does not come with that driver by default (GASP!, SHOCK!, HORROR!). A quick Google search turned up the Microsoft Update Catalog. It seems to be an IE only site with an ActiveX control. You can search for updates and drivers and then plug them into a WSUS server or SCCM.

I searched for "Window 7 HP LaserJet 4" and found what I needed. Make sure you read the description because the interface does not delineate between x86 and x64 in the search results. I had to explode the CAB file that I downloaded and manually update the driver.

It is working like a charm now.

Code formatting on blogger

2009-05-06T10:55:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to share this one. I searched around because I can't stand trying to copy and paste code from a blogs that do not keep original formatting. Quotes will kill you...

http://formatmysourcecode.blogspot.com/

VMware workstation and funky networks

2009-05-06T09:59:00.000-07:00

When you install VMware workstation on Vista (I have only tested this on x64), you get a couple new network adapters that VMware uses for bridged and standalone networking. The problem occurs because Vista doesn't know how to classify them and thinks your system is multi-homed and starts locking things down (firewall, file sharing, network discovery, and such) despite the fact that you may be wired only into your corporate network. Open up Network and Sharing Center and you will see multiple networks and a couple of VMware adapters in an unknown network.

This has been a problem for me for a while. I just decided a while back to create a couple command line scripts (below) to disable/enable the NICs. That way I only ran into the issue when I had no other choice.

disableVMNics.cmd

netsh interface set interface "VMware Network Adapter VMnet1" DISABLED
netsh interface set interface "VMware Network Adapter VMnet8" DISABLED

enableVMNics.cmd

netsh interface set interface "VMware Network Adapter VMnet1" ENABLED
netsh interface set interface "VMware Network Adapter VMnet8" ENABLED

Today, I finally spent a few minutes using Google and found a solution. As with many technical issues, a bunch of people run into, but they vary on how they approach the problem and how they communicate any solutions after the fact.

This is a good explanation by Matt Wade.

Oisin Grehan was the one that came up with a PowerShell script to fix it.

The root of it all is an obscure reference on MSDN. I'm a big fan and member of MSDN, but sometimes it is beyond needles in haystacks. It's more like finding a particular needle in a haystack sized pile of needles.

I applied to be a Palm reviewer

2009-05-03T10:38:00.000-07:00

I signed up. I am hoping to get a Pre!

Phone lust is so sad, but there you have it.

itunes install error

2009-04-19T12:01:00.000-07:00

I was getting "installer encountered errors" when trying to update itunes. I ran the repair on quicktime and bonjour, but it still would not work. I looked it up on Google, and found this:

http://ezhex.blogspot.com/2008/10/fixing-itunes-8-installation-errors.html

just as easy as running "itunes64.msi /passive" after exploding the exe with 7-zip.

Working well now.

Amazon tries to reduce "wrap rage"

2008-11-04T08:56:00.000-08:00

Hallelujah!!

I have been through the pain of unwrapping gifts for the kids where extracting the toy from the packaging usually includes some advanced calculus and thermodynamics and several hours of hard labor. A few years ago, we started unwrapping them in advance to make sure they were ready to be played with when given.

My toolkit for these occasions includes a pair of wire snips, an adjustable blade length box cutter, and various choice language reserved for when children and sensitive adults are not around.

Hopefully Amazon can provide the right kind of pressure on the toy companies to get this done properly.

Google Docs v. OOo

2008-10-21T16:50:00.000-07:00

I could not have thought up a more timely happening. Send in the clouds... er clowns!

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/39814/108/

OpenOffice 3.0 compared to Google Docs?

2008-10-17T12:11:00.000-07:00

Minor rant alert!

I've been an OO user for a while, so I understand that it has, and probably always will be, compared to MSOffice. I think it is a fair comparison with MS having lots of advantages, and OO having a great many of its own. It boils down to proper fit for the company and in some cases, the user.

I was a little startled then to see this article from Jim Lynch saying that the OO 3.0 release does not matter simply because Google docs is better. Maybe I am too corporate, or maybe I am too much of a security nut, but using Google docs for business seems like a patently foolish thing to do.

Let us take a look at it from a risk/reward standpoint. How much are all you documents worth to you? How much time/money would it cost you if they were lost/stolen for some reason? How much time/money are spent/wasted by not having access to your documents wherever you go (assuming net access)? This boils down to trusting Google to have backups, not go offline, and not allow access to your docs to anyone. And all of this doesn't even come close to addressing corporate docs, which may cause you to lose your job by posting them to Google if it violates corporate rules or possibly the law. I guess I could see it for those that would have it for personal use, but I simply don't know that many people that keep their personal lives in Word documents. The only occupation that I can see this working for is that of Jim Lynch, a writer.

I still would go for portable OpenOffice on an encrypted USB key, if I had this problem. At least I would have the physical security of keeping it with me.

Bizarre TiVo Desktop install issue

2008-10-08T16:49:00.000-07:00

I have had a TiVo since 2000, and have been a TiVo Desktop user for a while. I have never really had any issues with TiVo Desktop. However, when the recent update to 2.6.2 came out, I had an install error on my desktop. I am running Vista Enterprise x64, but I had not run into any issues with it before. I searched around and tried to dig through install log files, but the issue seemed to point to admin rights, which I have, and possibly something with UAC.

I decided to logout and login as the Administrator account. Suddenly the install works, and I am back up and running. I log back in with my account and TiVo Desktop is not there. I figured it was just a Start Menu shortcut issue, but I could not manually start the binaries either. I searched around and found out that it creates some startup options under the Run Key, but not in

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

Instead, it puts them in

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

This is consistent with the earlier Start Menu shortcut issue that points towards the software only understanding single user installs. You would think that TiVo would get a clue about modern Windows programming. Single user installs went the way of WinME for the love of Pete!

I had to export the TiVo entries (TivoNotify, TivoServer, TivoTransfer) from the Administrator and import them back into my account. After a reboot for giggles, I am back in business.

APC Masterswitch AP9211 for my lab

2008-09-12T22:41:00.000-07:00

I have a pretty decent lab environment at home. I have several systems setup with different OS configs and versions for testing. I recently started to use VMware ESXi, but I still have to do hardware specific tests from time to time, and VMware is non-ideal for that. The issue is that my systems are mostly in the basement, and my office is on the first floor. I tend to lock stuff up during my tests, and I hate having to go down/up/back when I need a server on for a quick test, and then forget to turn it off. I guess I am trying to save some money on power and get a little greener.

This led me to start looking for a good remote reboot device on eBay. I finally broke down and bought an APC AP9211 with an AP9606 management card. Its an 8 plug device that will run on normal residential power in the US. I spent $110 for it, which I think was a good deal.

The device was in good condition, but did not have the IP, MAC, or even username and password to get into the thing. I'm a stubborn fool, so I spent a good few hours looking for documentation on resetting it back to factory defaults. Maybe I missed something, but I couldn't find a it on either the APC site or Google. The real kicker is that there is a Reset button on the AP9606 that only cycles the power on the card, but doesn't erase the thing.

What I did find was a old backdoor vulnerability that allows you to see the username and password in raw (hex from EEPROM).

This was pretty cool, but I still could not hook up properly to the serial port. I tried a spare APC serial cable from a SmartUPS1500, but that didn't seem to work. I spent an hour searching for my null modem cable, but that didn't work either. I found a reference to using the APC 940-0024c serial adapter to connect, so I started looking for prices. What I found was a pin out of the cable. That made me wonder about the pin out of my 940-1524c cable. Exactly the same.

I went back to the drawing board and realized that I had missed the recommended setting for the serial connection (2400-8-none-1-no flow control). Null modem cable did the trick then.

Once that was in place, it was a matter of looking at the EEPROM data and getting the username and password. I reset the thing to defaults and had it up on the network immediatly after that.

So what did I learn?

Ask the ebay seller if they have the IP, username and password of any network device I buy. Do the research on how to reset it to defaults prior to buying it. Check the console setting when connecting via serial cable (that's actually an old lesson that I had forgotten).

Techno babble

2008-09-12T21:12:00.000-07:00

I figured I needed a place to share things that I find and figure out. A blog is as good as any place to post this stuff.

I am doing this under the name of Rapid Succession. I used to run my consulting business under that name. I am not really active with consulting these days because my day job keeps me busy.

Most of the stuff I will post will be technology related. I hope to ease the pain of anyone trying to do the same things I have done by sharing the good and bad choices of it all.

Another of my goals with this is to become a better writer. I have always been lousy and my writing style is very "stream of consciousness".