Fixing your Windows Vista MBR
I recently installed Vista as a dual boot with my old XP installation, while I transferred things over and made sure I could do all I need to do with my new Vista install. It came to the point when I...
View ArticleInstalling Visual Studio 2003 on Vista Enterprise
It’s not as easy as you might imagine if you’re going to be developing on a local machine. The pre-requisites include IIS and FrontPage Server Extensions which will need installing. Install IIS on...
View ArticleWindows Server 2003 Admin tools under Vista
If, like me, you want to administrate your Windows 2003 servers from your Vista workstation, you may find that you recieve an “MMC could not create snap in” error when you open one of the admin tools,...
View ArticleMoving and resizing a VMWare System Disk
I’ve recently had to upgrade my VM Server due to an increase in load. I had 2 virtual servers running off of the same hard disk, with 768mb of RAM split between the lot. After jamming 2 new 1GB sticks...
View ArticleInstalling Visual Studio 2003 SP1 on Vista
I’ve finally cracked the installation problems with VS 2003 SP1 on Vista. The problem seems to be that the SP must be installed under the same credentials that Visual Studio was installed. I.e. I...
View ArticleiTunes crashes on startup under Vista
I had an odd problem today, I logged on to begin my day’s work and plugged in my iPod as per normal. iTunes crashes, Vista tries to recover. iTunes closes. iTunes opens. iTunes crashes. Vista tries to...
View ArticleI’m qualified!
It’s been a while since I’ve posted here, that’s for various reasons, one of which was that I have been preparing for, and taking, my MCSA exams. So here it is… MCTS Windows Vista, Configuring (70-620)...
View ArticleInstalling on Vista: Error 1327 invalid drive when using mapped drives
Incredibly irritating error when you go to install under your user account when you’re using mapped drives for your documents. All our domain users have a userfolder on the server, it’s mapped as z:\...
View ArticleUsing NTDSUtil to transfer FSMO Roles by command line
I’ve just removed a domain controller (DC) from my root domain, the very first server not only in the domain, but the forest. The roles were migrating to a newer server, far more up to the job, but it...
View ArticleInstalling Windows XP without a CD drive
When the Dell engineer said “they’ve asked if you can reinstall the OS” my heart sank. Not because I felt like he was weasling out of work - unusually they were very helpful. Not because installing XP...
View ArticleAdding a Windows 2003 domain controller to your existing Windows 2000 domain
I was adding a shiny new domain controller to my server farm earlier today, we have just two Windows 2000 SP4 domain controllers on old kit and they are due to retire. With the hardware selected,...
View ArticleWindows Vista shows black screen and the cursor before log in.
Had an interesting one yesterday, my bosses Vista laptop booted as per normal, making all the right pictures until just before the log in prompt popped up, then a black screen in what looked to be VGA...
View ArticleUpdate your Windows Search or Windows Desktop Search
I noticed a post over at David Overton's blog today that highlights a new release of Windows Search. Normally not that exciting, but it is if you're using Outlook to open up another users mailbox. I...
View ArticleUtilising more than 4GB of RAM with Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition –...
We recently needed to upgrade one of our applications, and the new version requires an addition server instead of the application and SQL it requires a back end search, a front end web server and a...
View ArticleCreate a 100Mb file for testing transfer speeds
We have a Bonded ADSL solution for our servers to provide the necessary upstream transfer speeds for the applications we host. We have bonded ADSL because our exchange still doesn't support SDSL, and...
View ArticleVista .msu installer fails with error: Installer encountered an error:...
I needed to use PowerShell for something today on my Vista laptop, but was unable to install the file. I had the normal UAC permission required when I ran it, but then it failed with this error...
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Vista DVD/CDRW drive message "Prepare this blank disk"
For a little while now I've had an irritating problem with my Vista laptop. Whenever I insert a DVD, CD of any kind, pops up the message asking me to prepare a blank disk: It's impossible to access...
View ArticleHow to configure Windows Server 2003 Enterprise and SQL 2005 to use more then...
32-bit processors have a limitation of only being able to directly address 4GB RAM - their architecture was never designed to address more. 64-bit processors get around that limitation by being able to...
View ArticleActivating Microsoft Reader on a Windows Mobile 5 device under Vista
I recently tried to use Microsoft reader on my iMate K-Jam mobile, it's Windows Mobile 5 powered, so according to Microsoft it's fully supported. However, when I tried to activate, I got the following...
View ArticleDell Latitude E6500 blue screen of death on XP install/downgrade/reinstall
I've just had a frustrating few days trying to downgrade 4 Dell Latitude E6500 laptops to XP. The problem was, whenever you booted to the XP cd you would get to the point just before you agree to the...
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Windows Vista Local Area Network Connection “Authentication Failed”
If you’re getting a error on your LAN connection it’s possible that your network connection is attempting 802.11 authentication on your wired network. Unfortunately, it seems that Vista/Server 2008...
View ArticleWindows update or installer fails to install with error “You do not have...
I was just installing PowerShell on one of my Windows Server 2003 servers, when I encountered the error "You do not have permission to update Windows Server 2003. Please contact your system...
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How to force the removal of Folder Redirection from specific user accounts
We have a folder redirection policy in place for all of our users in combination with a roaming profile policy - this policy is applied to the OU that contains our users. Unfortunately this policy was...
View ArticleInternet Explorer or Services.msc problems after McAfee Uninstall
I'm in the middle of rolling out Sophos as a replacement to the incumbent McAfee at work. One interesting thing that I found as I rolled out to some test users was that they were unable to log on to...
View ArticleUsing AC97 audio with Windows 7
Like thousands of other IT pros out there, I'm testing Windows 7 out on my laptop - since I don't want to mess around with my main PC, it's running on some older kit. The problem with that is that...
View ArticleDCDIAG /TEST:DNS fails with errors regarding root hint servers
I recently resolved an ongoing DNS issue where the Active Directory Integrated DNS was loaded in both the Domain and the DomainDNSZones partition of AD - this is a separate issue and should be...
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Upgrading Server 2008 RTM-SP2 to Server 2008 R2
If you read the Microsoft blurb for R2, the first thing you notice is that Server 2008 R2 is 64-bit only(!). It seems Microsoft are forcibly removing 32-bit server hardware from the data centre. I’ve...
View Article70-649: TS: Upgrading Your MCSE on Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server...
I’m pleased to announce that I’ve passed the 70-649, which gives me the following MCTS certifications: Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuration Windows Server 2008 Applications...
View ArticleMCITP: Server Administrator and MCITP: Enterprise Administrator
I’m pleased to say that yesterday I took and passed two Microsoft Certified IT Professional exams, the Server Administrator (70-646) and the Enterprise Administrator (70-647). Hopefully I can take a...
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Configuring Server 2008 R2 Core Series: Network Settings
So, you’ve installed a new server with Server 2008 R2 Core – what next? Logging on, you’re presented with a shiny command prompt, you can run notepad or regedit…but aside from that, where do you go...
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Configuring Server 2008 R2 Core Series: Management Tasks
So, you’ve installed a new server with Server 2008 R2 Core – what next? Logging on, you’re presented with a shiny command prompt, you can run notepad or regedit…but aside from that, where do you go...
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Configuring Server 2008 R2 Core Series: Installing and Managing IIS
So, you’ve installed a new server with Server 2008 R2 Core – what next? Logging on, you’re presented with a shiny command prompt, you can run notepad or regedit…but aside from that, where do you go...
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Event IDs 1030 and 1058 on Server 2003 Domain Controller
I logged onto a production domain controller this morning and checked the event logs to be confronted with this: Event ID 1030 and 1058 every 5 minutes, looking into the detail for these events I can...
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Server 2008 – Reporting Services Error The permissions granted to user...
If you install Reporting Services on Windows Server 2008 (RTM or R2) and attempt to verify the installation by opening the http://SERVER/ReportServer site, you may well see the following message:...
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Unable to access admin shares (c$, d$, ADMIN$, IPC$) on Windows Server 2008...
If you have a Windows Server 2008 box in a workgroup that you require access to one of the admin shares, it can be a little more complicated than with Server 2003. In my case, we had a SQL server on...
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Testing throughput between two Windows Servers with NT Testing TCP Tool
The NT Testing TCP Tool is a handy little tool for testing the throughput between two servers – and it’s free! It’s available to download here:...
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PowerShell: Recursively taking ownership of files and folders and adding...
This is every file server admin's nightmare: hundreds of shares, thousands of folders, hundreds of thousands of files - and custom or not inherited rights on many of them. Terabytes of data that need...
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