Dave's Technotes Weblog

Find sneaky virii
     Monday, February 13, 2012

If you think a PC might harbor an active virus, but you can't find it, try running the command-line tool nestat -no. That will list all of the processes with unestablished connections. The one with the largest number is the likely culprit, and you can then kill it, based on it's PID. This works best when you get a TCPIP error #4226 in the System Event Log, as described in this Microsoft TechNet note.

Set up shared mailboxes in Office 365
     Thursday, January 26, 2012

I really don't understand Microsoft's logic or reasoning behind this, but increasingly they are deliberately leaving their products unfinished, with no GUI for some features. One new one that I just came across is setting up shared mailboxes on Office 365 (aka Hosted Exchange). There is no way to use the web GUI to create one, you HAVE to use PowerShell. Fortunately, a kind person over at MSDN posted a blog entry helpfully showing precisely how to accomplish this.

Windows 7 error "The User Profile Service failed the logon"
     Thursday, January 19, 2012

This is some weird new glitch that happens occasionally with Windows 7. Luckily, there are several fixes. Read MS KB 947215.
 

Use DropBox with a mapped drive
     Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Officially, it is not possible to use DropBox with a mapped drive, but if you follow these instructions, you can do it.

1) Choose a still available drive letter you would use to map to a network path. For example, we could refer to \\SERVER\SHARE with the drive letter H. Don’t enforce the mapping yet, just choose the drive letter for now. If the network path is already assigned to a drive letter (for example, H), unmap and choose that drive letter.

2) Assign H to a local formatted partition. You probably have to add a new disk to do this. If you have a virtual machine (VM) you would simply add another hard disk, let Windows rescan the available hard disks, make the disk online, initialize the disk, create a partition and format it. Then you assign H to the drive.

3) Start Dropbox and configure the new location, for example H:\.

4) Dropbox creates the folder “Dropbox” under H:\ and moves already available content to this new location.

5) Shut down Dropbox.

6) Move the Dropbox folder to your network path. Now we have \\SERVER\SHARE\Dropbox and beneath it the Dropbox content.

7) Make the disk offline. H doesn’t exist anymore now.

8) Map H to \\SERVER\SHARE.

9) Start Dropbox. Dropbox won’t check if H is a network drive anymore.

The thing is Dropbox only checks if the location is a network drive at the moment you change the location. Now you can use Dropbox with your network path!

I found the above instructions at:
http://windoh-pedro.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-use-network-path-for-dropbox.html

Remove Outlook Add-Ins that no longer exist
     Wednesday, January 4, 2012

If you remove or uninstall an app with an Outlook Add-In, it can leave behind the command to activate the Add-In when the user starts Outlook. Since Outlook can't find the DLL, it will throw an error. To fix this, simply delete extend.dat from the users profile. This works with Outlook 2007 on XP, but I haven't tested it with other versions.

Set boot-up number lock state in Windows registry
     Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Sometimes laptops can have their numlocks set to "on" at boot, and this can cause problems for users trying to enter passwords since the integral numeric keypad will be activated. If you can't find a "numlock off at boot" setting in the BIOS, you can turn it off in the Registry.

Microsoft discusses this in their KB Article 154529, but the key info is below:

In the Registry, go to HKEY_USERS\.Default\Control Panel\Keyboard
Set InitialKeyboardIndicators from 2 to 0

Windows Servers running RRAS list incorrect IP address in DNS server
     Thursday, December 15, 2011

If a Windows Server is both an RRAS server, and an A/D DC running DNS, they can frequently list one of the IP addresses they use for RRAS in the DNS, rather than just their LAN IP. MS knowledgebase article 292822 explains how to prevent this from happening.


Function keys on Lenovo ThinkPad & ThinkCentre Edge keyboards
     Thursday, December 15, 2011

For whatever reason, Lenovo has chosen to have the default behavior of the function keys on their recent "Edge" computers not be function keys. The default behavior is that you have to hit a Fn button in order for them to be Function keys.

To fix this on the desktops, run the "Lenovo Slim USB keyboard" app from the start menu, and check the function keys box. If you are using that keyboard on another PC, you can download the control software from here.

To fix the problem on laptops, reboot, get into the BIOS (hit enter very quickly, as soon as you see the BIOS logo screen), and change the function keys behavior in the BIOS.
 

Syntax to connect Macs to Windows Servers
     Thursday, December 7, 2011

In Finder, choose "Connect to server" and use the following syntax:

smb://ServerName/ShareName
 

The full article from Apple's knowledgebase is here.

     Saturday, October 22, 2011

   SalesForce.com
   Zoho Office
   Landslide

How to determine what account is being used to relay spam through an Exchange Server 2003
     Thursday, May 12, 2011

If mail relay occurs from an account on an Exchange computer that is not configured as an open mail relay - determine whether an account on your Exchange computer sends authenticated relayed mail. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Microsoft Exchange, and then click System Manager.
2. In Exchange System Manager, right-click Your_Exchange_Server_Name, and then click Properties.
3. Click the Diagnostic Logging tab.
4. In the Services list, click MSExchange Transport.
5. In the Categories list, click SMTP Protocol, and then click Maximum in the Logging level area. (Actually, it's Authentication that you need to set to the Maximum logging level).
6. Click Apply, click OK, and then quit Exchange System Manager.
7. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Services.
8. Right-click Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP), and then click Restart.
9. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Event Viewer.
10. In Event Viewer, search the Application log for event 1708. Event 1708 indicates that the account authenticates with the Exchange computer to send relayed mail.

Enterprise Activation on BlackBerry OS 6
     Wednesday, October 20, 2010

RIM moved the location of Enterprise Activation in their new OS (thank you, RIM). It used to be in Options >  Advanced Options > Enterprise Activation.

The new location is Options > Device > Advanced System Settings > Enterprise Activation.

Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) Dispatcher service stops running
     Friday, October 8, 2010

The BES Dispatcher service stopper running, and upon attempting to start it, it failed with "service-specific error 5613."

It turned out that the problem had been caused because another process had started using a port (5096) that the BES service requires to run properly. In my case, it was the Exchange Information Store server (store.exe). The fix is to add that port to the list of reserved ports in the Windows registry.

The Blackberry Knowledgebase article discussing the problem, and the fix is (KB04797). And the Microsoft KB article with instructions for adding an IP port exclusion is (KB812873).

Copying and editing the Outlook "Nickname Cache"
     Thursday, October 7, 2010

The Outlook nickname cache is the file that keeps all of the email addresses that have been used in Outlook. In my opinion, it is a badly misnamed feature. I have been amazed at the number of people who have few or no contacts in their Outlook contacts folder, and instead rely exclusively on the "nickname cache" feature as a list of all of their contacts emails addresses. When moving to a new PC, people always want to take this with them. It took me a very long time to track this down, because of the odd name, but I finally did.

The location of the file is in:

drive:\Documents and Settings\user name\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\outlook profile name.nk2

Note that the file name is based on the Outlook profile name, NOT the user profile name.

With the help of the free Nk2View utility, you can edit the list, and even export it.

To clear or reset the cache, just rename or delete the .nk2 file (with Outlook closed, of course).

Finally, if you don’t want outlook to suggest names for you, you can turn this feature off.

 In Outlook:

• Go to Tools, then Options
• From the Options tab, choose the E-mail options button
• Click Advanced E-mail options
• Uncheck “Suggest names while completing To, Cc, and Bcc fields.

In Outlook 2010, Microsoft has changed the way the "nickname cache" works. The cache is no longer stored in the .nk2 files, but instead somewhere mysterious inside Outlook 2010.

Microsoft has helpfully provided KB article #980542, which explains how to import .nk2 files into the new nickname cache in 2010.

MS SyncToy scheduling problem
     Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Check out this web page for the solution.

Just in case it gets taken down or moved, here is the fix:

While validating the source of the error code "0x1", I stumbled upon the solution of the problem.
My computer is part of a computer network domain and I belong to the Network Administrators Group.

"SyncToy Help" states that you must have administrative privileges in order to install the application, specially if you don't have the Microsoft Sync Framework. Since I have administrator privileges I installed Synctoy with my user profile and on the scheduler task I had the "Run As" Field As the local Administrator.

It turns out that if you install SyncToy with a profile that is not Administrator:

1) You must use that same profile in the "Run As" Field on the Task Tab, as in "YourDomain\yourprofilename"
2) also, you have to mark the "Run only if logged on" checkbox.
3) Remember to set your password also.

The scheduler is now running the SyncToyCmd correctly.

For more information on scheduler issues see http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/308558

Windows Vista anti disk-thrashing measures
     Wednesday, December 17, 2008

On many systems, Windows Vista has the annoying tendency to access the hard drive for very long periods, at times when XP would not normally be doing so. This behavior accounts for a large portion of Vista's legendary sluggishness. Fortunately, there are some concrete steps you can take to prevent this behavior. Here are those steps, in my preferred order

- disable SuperFetch service
- disable automatic defrags
- disable indexing service
- disable shadow copy service
- disable system restore* (If possible, leave this service enabled, as it can definitely be useful.)
 

Windows XP looses .EXE file association
     Thursday, June 26, 2008