I started the install of Vista SP1 Beta at 9:40pm this evening on my ThinkPad T60p. It finished installing at 10:22pm.  My laptop HDD was quite warm by the end of the install; it had been cranking along for quite some time.

I also grabbed the September QFE testing packages: Windows6.0-KB941649, Windows6.0-KB941651, and Windows6.0-KB941229.

My thoughts?

  • I can burn a recovery CD/DVD now... yay?
  • All the IBM OEM utilities appear to continue to function.  I'm running Windows Ultimate x86 (July, 2007) from the Lenovo pre-install.  I had removed a bunch of the junk in the preload using the Base Software Administrator.
  • Outlook 2007, Remote Desktop client, MSN Live Messenger, Skype all seem to work.  XviD video files are playing fine, VLC works fine.
  • My laptop recovers from hibernation faster - there's less HDD cranking... this is PROBABLY a result of the correction of the ReadyBoost bug that caused the entire cache to be flushed after a resume from hibernation.
  • Browsing a network share of pictures, and video files loaded faster.  Thumbnails are being cached/read more intelligently.
  • Moving files on the local computer is much, much faster.  It used to sit and crank while it "counted" files and "thought" about the process.
  • SSTP!  I'm going to set this up in the next few days, time permitting...

I finished downloading the RC0 bits for x86 and x64 a few minutes ago.  I'll have to burn the stuff to disk sometime tomorrow before I can play.

  • Hypervisor in x64 bits - I'm going to put this on a Core 2 6300 machine with 3 GB of RAM sometime this coming weekend - and see how it goes. =)

 
Categories: IT | Windows Vista | Longhorn Server 2008

Problem:

ISA Server 2006 EE on Windows 2003 R2 server stops routing traffic.

Event Log:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: ADAM [ISASTGCTRL] General
Event Category: Internal Processing
Event ID: 2537
Date:  9/22/2007
Time:  10:22:29 PM
User:  NT AUTHORITY\ANONYMOUS LOGON
Description:
The directory server has failed to create the ADAM serviceConnectionPoint object in the Active Directory. This operation will be retried.
 
Additional Data
SCP object DN:
CN={GUID removed},CN=SERVERNAME,OU=SomeOUName,DC=domain,DC=name,DC=com
Error value:
5 Access is denied.
Server error:
00000005: SecErr: DSID-03151E04, problem 4003 (INSUFF_ACCESS_RIGHTS), data 0
 
Internal ID:
3390387
ADAM service account:
NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE
 
User Action
If ADAM is running under a local service account, it will be unable to update the data in the Active Directory. Consider changing the ADAM service account to either NetworkService or a domain account.
 
If ADAM is running under a domain user account, make sure this account has sufficient rights to create the serviceConnectionPoint object.
 
ServiceConnectionPoint object publication can be disabled for this instance by setting msDS-DisableForInstances attribute on the SCP publication configuration object.

Solution:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/isa/2004/plan/ts_css.mspx says:
Verify that required Service Principle Names (SPNs) are properly registered. SPNs get created when ADAM service starts, and are created as an attribute on the User account running the ADAM service. For instructions see Administering ADAM service principal names topic in ADAM.chm help file located in %windir%\help folder on the Configuration Storage server computer.

In order to do this, go into %Program Files%\Microsoft ISA Server\ADAMData and look for a .bat file that is named the same as your domain.  Run it as a domain and schema/enterprise administrator.

Alternatively, fire up ISA 2006 set up (you don't have ISA running on a DC, right?) and repair the install.

Reboot the server.


 
Categories: IT | ISA Server

Summary:

Windows Update gives error 0x8020000E.  Usually happens after a partition has been changed, resized, cloned, etc.  To resolve the problem, flush the Software Update Distribution folder by renaming %SYSTEMROOT%\SoftwareDistribution with the "Windows Update" service stopped.

Resolution:

The technical solution:

  1. Start an elevated command prompt
  2. cd %systemroot%
  3. net stop wuauserv
  4. ren SoftwareDistribution SoftwareDistribution.old
  5. net start wuauserv
  6. Close command prompt

The GUI solution:

  1. Control Panel, Services (launch with admin rights)
  2. Find the Windows Update service, and stop it.
  3. Open Explorer to C:\Windows (Or wherever you installed Windows)
  4. Find and rename the SoftwareDistribution folder to something else, like "SoftwareDistribution.old"
  5. Start the Windows Update service again.

 
Categories: IT | Windows Vista

September 11, 2007
@ 12:08 AM

First published: June 10th 2007
Updated: September 11th 2007

Good Vista gadgets are currently difficult/impossible to locate.  The rather poor documentation, coupled with poor examples and a lack of a development environment (ever try debugging a gadget?) means that well designed gadgets with good HCI principles are few and far between.

Here's what I find useful: (more will be posted as I find them...)


 
Categories: IT | Windows Vista

Building background services that deliver core functionality but work well with other services can be challenging. This topic includes best practices and case studies for creating high performance background services that run on Windows Vista.

Describes the considerations necessary to build a good background service, the options available to create background processes that don’t overuse system resources, and the techniques used by Windows Search to achieve good citizenship while still delivering its core functionality.

This topic is written specifically for Windows Vista, but information on writing background services is generally applicable to other releases of Windows as well, including, but not limited to, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP and Windows 2000.

Download: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=f8e87c7d-9404-4914-92ae-dde09389a64e&displaylang=en&tm


 
Categories: IT | Windows Vista

September 10, 2007
@ 10:26 AM

I received some nice spam from Bell.ca this morning.

It was sent from an authorized host, as per the SPF records:

"v=spf1 mx ip4:198.235.69.10 ip4:198.235.69.45 ip4:198.235.69.46 ip4:206.47.0.168 ip4:206.47.0.173 ip4:206.47.0.177 ip4:207.236.237.0/25 ip4:67.70.214.43 ip4:216.18.99.22 ip4:69.156.197.234 ip4:66.241.131.163 +all"

Message headers:

Received: from TOROON12-1242491208.sdsl.bell.ca (74.14.233.72) by
 mail.justinho.com ([internal ip removed]) with Microsoft SMTP Server id 8.0.744.0; Mon,
 10 Sep 2007 10:23:43 -0400
From: enlarge laser <
xkpnzyx@bell.ca>
...
X-MS-Exchange-Organization-PRD: bell.ca
Received-SPF: Pass (orinoco.jupiterstation.justinho.com: domain of
 
xkpnzyx@bell.ca designates 74.14.233.72 as permitted sender)
 receiver=orinoco.jupiterstation.justinho.com; client-ip=74.14.233.72;
 helo=TOROON12-1242491208.sdsl.bell.ca;
X-MS-Exchange-Organization-PCL: 2
X-MS-Exchange-Organization-Antispam-Report: DV:3.3.5707.600;SV:3.3.5708.437;SID:SenderIDStatus
 Pass;TIME:TimeBasedFeatures
X-MS-Exchange-Organization-SCL: 4
X-MS-Exchange-Organization-SenderIdResult: PASS

Someone's machine got pwn3d and started spewing junk.  I'm guessing the overly lax SPF record is due to poor control of things... =)


 
Categories: IT