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Archive for the ‘General’ Category

Recently I had a virtual machine that would not obtain an IP from DHCP. I noticed the DHCP client service was disabled in windows services. I would enable it, start it and it would start just fine. I would then reboot the VM. The DHCP client service would be disabled again. I had a feeling there was a GPO that was disabling that service. I wanted to check this without going through the domain policy, the local policy and any other group policies that could be causing this. I used a tool in windows called Group Policy Results Tool. You can use this tool to find out how Group Policy settings are affecting both the the computer and the logged-on user.

To track down the GPO setting faster this is what I did:

• Open a command prompt on the client machine
• Type: cd\ (to go to the root of C:)
• Type: gpresult /v >gposettings.txt (This gave me a verbose report of all group polocies applied on the client machine)
• Go to the C: drive and open gposettings.txt in notepad
• I did a search for DHCP in this text file

This brought me to any GPO settings that had anything to do with DHCP. This helped me identify which group policy was pushing down the setting that was disabling the DHCP client service. It was in the Default Domain Policy. This is the path to system services:  Computer configuration\Windows settings\Security settings\System services

If you have a similar issue you can use the above method and Group Policy Results Tool to track down the cause of it.

More information on using the Group Policy Results Tool:

• http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/expert/gpresults.mspx
• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/321709

Have you ever had devices that where stuck on your system and you needed to remove them. For example someone removed a physical network card from the system without uninstalling it first from the OS. This can be a problem if that network card had a static IP assigned to it. Once you add a new network card using the same static IP that was assigned to the previous network card it will give you an error.

If this were to happen normally you would go to device manager and simply uninstall the device. Well what if they don’t display? That means they are hidden. It is a good thing there is a way to un-hide them so you can uninstall them.

I have created a batch file that contains this:

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Trend Micro HijackThis is a free utility that generates an in depth report of registry and file settings from your computer. This tool can help you detect spyware and viruses. Do not use this tool alone. Use this tool along with other spyware and virus removal tools.

Download it here:Trend Micro Hijackthis tool 

So now you have generated a log file using Trend Micro HijackThis. Here is a website that you can upload the log file on to Analyze it.

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Issue:

Your computer is at a slow crawl and you are unable to do anything. This is because Comodo Antivirus is hogging CPU usage. If you look at task manager you will notice that either cpf.exe or  cmdagent.exe hog 100% CPU usage.

Fix:

1. Reboot your computer in safe mode
   To enter to the safe mode, you need to press F8 button before Windows starts booting until you see the boot menu. In the boot menu, select the safe mode.
2. Delete the file in c:\program files\comodo\comodo internet security\scanners\bases.cav
3. Copy c:\program files\comodo\comodo internet security\repair\bases.cav to c:\program files\comodo\comodo internet security\scanners folder(this action will replace the current bases.cav file with the original bases.cav file that comes with the installation).
4. Restart your computer and Update your virus database again.

Performing the 4 above steps should get your computer back to normal.

I found this fix on one of these forums posts linked here:

https://support.comodo.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=1092

I will be attending a FREE half-day Windows 7 Deployment technical seminar in Minnesota. It will be presented by Jarvis Davis a Senior ConfigMgr Consultant. Here are the topics that will be covered in the technical seminar:

In this session, Virteva will share their desktop deployment processes and methodologies as well as lessons learned, covering best practices and lessons learned performing OS deployments. We will use real world experiences, resolutions, and best practices to highlight the “best” process for implementing an automated deployment system. We will touch on the process for building and deploying your “gold” image including OS installation, driver management, updates management, managing user state, and dynamic application deployment.

To sign up go here: IT Care

So I have had certain software crash under Vista or 2008 Server while other applications on the same machine work just fine. Here is one of the errors I see:

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BEX
Application Name: EXECUTABLE.exe
Application Version: 1.7.1.0
Application Timestamp: 4896b682
Fault Module Name: StackHash_3884
Fault Module Version: 0.0.0.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 00000000
Exception Offset: 002ca978
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Data: 00000008
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.16.7
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 3884
Additional Information 2: b68e6d6fa0c9967afbd16b6d0b9e4ef4
Additional Information 3: 6276
Additional Information 4: a9fd8ecff73ec5510247cf946efdd405

This could be caused by copy protection. Here is how I resolved it:

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Have you ever mapped a drive and chose to have it Reconnect at logon but it did not save the credentials? This has happened to me. The end user has to call you again and again to re-enter the credentials in for them. There are two ways to fix this.

You can use “savecred“. Savecred will save the credentials permanently. The other option is to use “manage passwords” that come with XP in control panel.  Manage passwords will only save the password for the current session once the user has typed the password in after being prompted for it. Here are the work arounds:

OPTION 1: “Manage Passwords”

Map your drive:

• Go to My computer/Computer
  Click on tools then select map drive
• Type in the UNC (\\server\share) that you want to map
• Check the box that says reconnect at logon
• Then click on the connect using a different user name
• It will prompt you for the credentials. Type these in and click ok
• Now click finish and the drive will be mapped using a set of different credentials then the user you are logged in with

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One of the most frustrating issues to deal with in Outlook is having an email history file that is either too large, or full of incomplete/incorrect email addresses (specially with lifetouch employees). When you begin to type an email address in the TO: field, Outlook looks into the history cache and creates a dropdown list of email addresses, contacts or exchange names to match. It holds the last 1000 used addresses. New names are not added until the current outlook session ends and outlook is restarted.

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DOS and Windows allocate resources and use printers differently, so having a shared printer on LPT1/LPT2 in Windows may not work as LPT1/LPT2 in DOS.

1. Click “Start”, then “Run”, and type: cmd
2. Press OK.
3. At the command prompt type:

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Print Migrator is a free tool from Microsoft. You can use this tool to backup and restore printers on print servers. It backs up print configuration data to a .cab file. This is useful if you need to move printers from one server to another. It even lets you move printers between different versions of Windows operating systems. The tool also can convert from line printer remote (LPR) ports to the Standard TCP/IP Ports. It gives you a nice tree view of detailed information about the installed printers. Below are some screen shots of what

it looks like.

Download it here: Print Migrator 3.1

 **Update**

On Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008/2008 R2 Print Migrator is no longer supported. There are new tools called Printer Migration Wizard and Printbrm.exe (a command line tool). These are available through the print Management snap-in or through on the command line using Printbrm.exe. For more information visit: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc722360.aspx .