there are no more endpoints available from the endpoint mapper
By Jesse | June 3, 2009
I was writing an application recently, and hit this. The solution was to turn my Windows firewall back on. It was set to disabled and when I set it back to automatic, the error went away.
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Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Windows 7 New Features
By Jesse | May 29, 2009
Thought I would discuss windows 7 a bit since we’ve been running it here on a laptop for about a month now, and also word on the street seems to be that many companies will skip over vista and will upgrade production from Windows XP Pro to Windows 7.
The first thing we noticed is that it’s very “vista” like. It has many of the enhancements that vista offered but with much less UAC, and a few things in different locations.
for those of you that like to be able to see all your apps running at the bottom, Microsoft has finally come up with a great compromise and now, when you mouse-over each application in the task bar, it pops up a thumbnail list of every screen in the group.
(see the example below from the microsoft website)
This means that you now can see exactly what you have open with out all the clutter.
In addition, they no longer seem to have the quickstart toolbar. Instead, you can now pin applications directly to your taskbar which acts like the quickstart bar. The only thing we didnt like about this is the applications arent grouped, so if you have 5 things pinned to the taskbar and you then open the 2nd and 4th ones, you now have icons scattered in between your running applications down at the taskbar.
We also liked the fact that all the drivers on the Lenovo laptop we used were picked up on the first go around- Very nice to not have to go driver hunting any more. Gone are the Windows XP days of having to spend 1 hour or more rebuilding your system after reformatting. We did however have a few issues with getting network printers to work, and as of this posting, we still have not gotten duplex working on our duplex network printer. At this point we’re chalking it up to a RC bug due to unsupported drivers and will see if it improves once the product is fully released.
They also goosed up the network features… you can now connect to the VPN in 2 clicks right from the task bar which is nice.. and connecting to a wireless network no longer requires going to the network card or the network and sharing center.. you can now click on the network icon in the taskbar, then click the handy little connect button.
I’ll link to part 2 as soon as it’s up.. but for now, here the link on MS to the new features in W7.
Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Liberum Helpdesk v1.0 functional copy
By Jesse | May 28, 2009
I have been working on version 1.0 of the liberum helpdesk project and have made significant changes to it. The copy I have is fully functional and works with SQL as the backend. I am also including several scripts I recommend running that generate nag messages.
The latest copy can be found here:
http://www.bhcblog.com/liberum1dot0.zip
If you have any feature requests please let me know.
Topics: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
HOWTO: Where is WinMSD in Windows 7
By Jesse | May 7, 2009
Windows 7 carries over the tool from windows Vista. This tool has been renamed to msinfo32.exe. If you goto start –> msinfo32.exe
This should be the tool you’re looking for.
Topics: Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
HOWTO: Show Desktop icon in Windows 7
By Jesse | May 7, 2009
Where is the “Show Desktop” icon in windows 7? It took a while for me to find it.
There are two ways to access this feature although both the icon and the “quick launch” toolbar are both gone. The first way, is on the far right hand side of the task bar. There’s a small vertical rectangle …. clicking on it will show the desktop.
Alternately in Windows 7, if you right click in the taskbar, there’s an option called “show the desktop”. Personally I miss my icon… But both of these seem to work for me.
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Solution: skype: error while loading shared libraries: libasound.so.2: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64
By Jesse | May 4, 2009
I recently hit a problem with skype on linux. When running skype from the GUI, nothing happened, I tried running skype from the command line and got :
skype: error while loading shared libraries: libasound.so.2: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64
apparently due to the fact it was unable to find libasound.so.2 which is provided by the alsa-libs.i386 package. This was further verified by running:
ldd /usr/bin/skype
for those of you unfamilar with ldd, it lists all the pacakge dependencies and whether or not it can find each file, if you have this problem and run this command, you will likely find that for libasound.so.2 you get => not found.
I then ran yum install alsa-lib.i386 but found it was already installed. This quickly led to the solution :: Uninstall alsa then reinstall.. which did indeed fix the problem.
to do this:
yum remove alsa-lib.i386 (this will also uninstall skype)
yum install alsa-lib.i386 (this reinstalls alsa)
then browse to http://www.skype.com/download and download the new rpm.
Let me know if this fixes your problem.
Topics: How To, Misc | 1 Comment »
Fixing Active Directory DNS (_msdcs, _sites, _tcp, _udp)
By Jesse | April 23, 2009
Have you ever accidentally deleted the AD DNS settings such as _msdcs, or installed AD and then needed to add a DNS server? How do you get AD to build it’s DNS settings. As you know AD is very tightly bound to DNS so if those settings are not there, DNS is probably going to cause a world of hurt moving forward.
Never fear, this can easily be fixed. To fix this, download the Windows Support Tools :
After installing the support tools, verify your dns on the server is set correctly. Generally I set domain controllers to have their DNS boxes BLANK.. (ie they use themselves to resolve DNS. If they cannot find the DNS entry they seek, they use the root servers to do recursive queries.).
To check dns, goto TCP/IP properties of your Local Area Connection.. and in the “Use the following DNS server addresses:” set this value to blank. It should give you a message when you hit ok that it is using localhost as the DNS server.
Now goto the command prompt and in c:\program files\support tools run :
dcdiag /fix
then run
netdiag /fix
Finally run
ipconfig /flushdns
ipconfig /registerdns
net stop server
net start server
If you refresh your DNS you should now have all your entries in DNS that you need for AD to work properly.. The above command verify more than just fixing the DNS issues, but it doesnt hurt to run them and the dcdiag and netdiag will make sure your AD / DNS are the way they need to be.
One other note. Net stop server stop more than just DNS .. it also stops Netlogon and Distributed File systems. THESE SERVICES DO NOT START BACK UP ON THEIR OWN– so after you’ve done the steps above I recommend either a quick reboot or if you cant do that go into service and start any automatic services that are stopped (such as netlogon and distributed file systems.. Your server should now work fine!
Now sit back and relax.
Topics: How To, Microsoft Windows | 13 Comments »
Dont buy a Dell Desktop!!!
By Jesse | March 10, 2009
Just wanted to give our best practices for hardware. This is not necessarily the only solution, but it is definitely what has worked well for us in the past.
If you’re are at all technical, dont EVER EVER buy a Dell desktop. If you are an end user who is not technical then you’re probably fine with Dell.. But if you ever need any form of truly technical tech support.. Give up now.. Don’t ever bother to start… The chance that the support rep in who-knows-where-istan can help you is zero. We completely understand the need to outsource and see it as a valuable tool.. But outsourced support no matter where it is.. Whether India, or the United States, or Britain can never be as good as internal support from a knowledge level perspective. In addition Dell’s main support center is in India which adds a language barrier to the equation. It’s hard enough getting a 1st level support rep to understand that you need information about a specific chipset, but now one has to do it to someone who does not have Technical English as their first language. Spyware removal? yes, they do that very well.. But need to know where to get drivers for a different OS than shipped with the system or heaven forbid a 64-bit OS forget about it.. Go ask your cat….
Yes..Instead of calling Dell if you have a problem, instead ask your cat for the answer. You’ll get your answer more quickly this way. What’s that you say? Don’t have a cat? Go home tonight and open your fridge, see any vegetables? ask them.. Same deal. You’ll get your answer quicker this way and you’ll keep your blood pressure down to boot. Now we jest a bit, but we are serious about the level of technical knowledge- If you expect to ask them questions regarding the chipset on the motherboard, the processors that can fit the board, or adding things that they cant pull up in their relatively limited support database you will spend HOURS and HOURS on the phone getting nowhere. In addition they don’t listen very well and will repeatedly try to convince you you actually have the OS the machine shipped with even if you have already told them you refomatted it with something else…
We do however, recommend Dell Servers. Dell Servers are GREAT. They are the premium workhorse server we recommend to all our clients. They hardly ever break, the support is actually good and they get the job done every time.
So that said, what do we recommend for Desktops. Our current favorite is HP. Again for a similar reason that we like Dell servers. They tend to run like champs. And in terms of support they’re pretty knowledgeable.
For laptops we recommend Lenovo.. Why? Three reasons.. Knowledgeable support staff.. Phenominal unbelievable outstanding and amazing repair support (Get the box on Monday and you will almost always have it back, fixed, by Wednesday.) .. And the final reason: Thinkvantage update manager. Wow.. Finally a company that has a smart product. Reformat a machine, get the network driver, install the update manager from lenovo and two clicks or so later you have all the right drivers regardless of the OS. Not the original OS? no problem.. Lenovo’s got you covered. Wow.. need I say more.
So in an end wrap up get:
Lenovo Laptops, HP desktops, Dell Servers and Cisco Switch equipment — You’ll have a rock solid computing foundation to build on and are very likely to be happy with your choices.
Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Microsoft to end support for Windows Rights Management Services V1.0
By Jesse | March 10, 2009
Microsoft will be dropping support for all RMS (Rights Management Services) v1.0 products on March 23rd, 2009. This does not include RMS with V1.0 with SP2 or RMS v2.0 which will still be supported.
On top of dropping support, Microsoft will also be preventing activations or reactiviations of both the client or server. So if you have a server that has an expired SLC you will not be able to renew it after March 23rd unless you upgrade to V1.0 SP2 or later. Microsoft is ending support for v1.0 because it is outdated and can expose customers to security risks.
To get the new clients can be found on the following link:
Microsoft Rights Managment Services with SP2 Download and Info Page
If you have questions please post them and I will try to answer them.
Topics: IT Security, Microsoft RMS, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Fix for “The system administrator has set policies to prevent this installation” error.
By Jesse | March 9, 2009
Several times I have encountered the error:
“The system administrator has set policies to prevent this installation”
The solution to this is to fix the local security policy.
- Open control Panel and go to Administrative Tools.
- In Administrative tools open Local Security Policy.
- In Local Security Policy right click Software Restriction Policies and click “New Software Rectriction Policy”.
- Now Left click on software restriction policies and in the right-hand window you should see enforcement.
- Double-click on enforcement and set the policy to apply to “ALL USERS EXCEPT LOCAL ADMINISTRATORS”
Now approve the changes and see if you are now able to install software.
Alternately several people recommended the following but I’ve found the above steps fix the problem in 98% of cases. If you are unfamiliar with the registry…. stop reading.
- Browse the registry to HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Installer
Create: DisableMSI Type: REG_DWORD value = 0 (0 should allow you to install it was originally 1) - Browse to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\
Search the list for the product that is causing the error.. delete the folder in the products folder… this may also correct your error…
If you have any additional comments or pointers they are welcome.
*********************
***** UPDATE ******
*********************
I’ve gotten alot of comments that they cannot find secpol.msc. This is because it is not included on Home versions of vista. However, I now believe I have an answer even to this. I have spent the last hour reviewing the registry changes that are made and have narrowed down the value that is changed when you set the above policy. The Value changed is a dword value :
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Group Policy Objects\{A541BD3D-1A70-4D7B-BC99-CF1ADFC0DE9F}Machine\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Safer\CodeIdentifiers\PolicyScope
It is changed from 0 to 1 when you set it not to apply to administrators. When you set “new software restriction policy the following tree is populated:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Group Policy Objects\{A541BD3D-1A70-4D7B-BC99-CF1ADFC0DE9F}Machine\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Safer
I am not sure if you need the whole tree to get it to function or just the value I have included 2 Registry files to run. The first includes just the policyscope value of 1 the second includes the entire “Safer” tree that was created on my machine when I added the software restriction settings.
Click here to download just the PolicyScope setting. (download and run first to see if it fixes your problem.)
Click here to download the entire “Safer” tree that manually adds the fixed software restriction settings. (try this if the above reg file does not fix your problem.)
Topics: Uncategorized | 80 Comments »
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