Macintosh Network Settings

Problem: I was asked to configure some Macintosh laptops with static IP addresses and a proxy server. This wouldn't normally be a problem except they asked ME to do it. After the configuration the network dialog showed a green light indicating that the machine was connected via the Airport*, but I wasn't getting to the internet.

Solution: Apparently, a reboot is required for the machine to recognize the proxy server. At any rate, I rebooted and it worked.

* For you PC bigots, "Airport" is the cute little name the Apple people give to their wireless routers .... :o)

Security SNAFU

Problem: My newphew asked me to recover his machine this week. He had that dreaded recursive F8 screen on which none of the choices work (Safe Mode, Last Known Good, Normal Startup, etc), and the computer either hangs or reboots over and over again; (Mother of God.....)

Solution: As you probably know, running setup and chosing the repair option is the best way to get back in business. Or in some cases, like when you don't have a CD for the same OS, you can just install another OS in a different directory, in a dual boot arrangement. Either way you don't lose any data. However if you end up doing the dual boot option, you'll have some security issues to deal with. Specifically, the new profile you create when you install the new OS on the system doesn't automatically have access to the old directories and files, even though the new guy has administrative access. What I did to remedy this is have the new userid take ownership of the entire C: drive and then grant himself full control of everything.
Tip: If the machine is not in a domain you will not automatically have the Security tab showing on the directory and file properties dialogs. To show the Security tab:

1. My Computer
2. Tools
3. Folder Options
4. View tab
5. Scroll to the bottom of the 'Advanced Settings'
6. Uncheck the box entitled Use simple file sharing (Recommended)

Server Out Of Disk Space

Problem: We had a Windows 2000 Server that wouldn't finish initializing due to lack of disk space. While the services were starting, Active Directory issued a message saying that it was unable to allocate enough disk space. Unfortunately, answering OK to that message took the system down and restarted the boot sequence.

Solution: We were able to bring the server up in Safe Mode to take a look at the disk space. The System drive has 5 GB of space. We ran the standard Disk Cleanup dialog and got rid of some junk and compressed some old files but didn't really get back much space. We noted that the directories and files at the root of the System drive only accounted for about 2.5 GB of the space. We then showed the hidden files but found that this didn't account for much more of the space. Finally we showed the hidden Operating System files and found that the pagefile.sys file was a whopping 2 GB in size!

This server had been used for an application that required a lot of paging space. Since it was no longer running that application, we determined that the server no longer needed a large page file, and adjusted it down: Control Panel ==> System Properties ==> Advanced tab ==> Performance Settings button ==> Performance Options Advanced tab ==> Virtual Memory Change button ==> Virtual Memory dialog. We noted that the Initial Size of the page file was set to 2000 MB and the Max was set to 3000 MB. We reset the Initial Size down to 500 MB and the Max to 1000 MB. And OH YES, we hit the Set button to impelment the change (easy to miss ... :o)

After a reboot we were back in business....

Winsock Fix

Problem: The user reported that her email had stopped working and that she could no longer get to the internet. Initial network trouble shooting determined that the machine could ping beyond the default gateway but could not get to the internet or to other network resources.

Solution: This is a known Winsock problem that can happen on machines (Win9x,NT,W2K,XP) that have had spyware removed. There is a fix available at the TACKtech site: http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=257

1. Download and unzip the file
2. Run the extracted executable
3. The dialog has an option to save the registry. Run this first.
4. After the registry is saved, run the fix
5. Reboot

Thanks, Travis!

Brand-X Hardware

Problem: A user reported that one of his machines would not start up. Investigation showed that the machine was repetitively going through the boot cycle, but never completing initialization.

Solution: The first thing to try is reseating the memory. In this case it worked so it was worth the few minutes it took. This was one of those brand-X machines that someone built from components they got at a computer fair. I guess they do this thinking they'll save a lot of money. What I find is that these machines frequently have problems with things like the memory shaking loose. I always cringe when I'm called to work on one because they usually mean trouble. If reseating the memory didn't work in this case, I would have probably had to rebuild it. When this happens, lots of luck finding the drivers for all the weird components. I'm not plugging any particular hardware here, but I'd really rather work on machines with manufacturers names I've heard at least once before.

Peer-to-Peer Print Sharing

Problem: A user reported that her laptop couldn't access her printer. I found that the printer was directly connected to another machine which was serving the printer to 2 other machines in a peer-to-peer relationship. The print "server" and the 2 other machines were all running XP. The laptop in question was running Win 98.

Solution: I don't see many machines running Win 98 anymore and the longer I'm away from these wonderful relics the less I remember about them. So there was a lot of head scratching and fumbling around while trying to make this work. I finally got it to work by checking/adjusting 3 things:

1. I made sure the share name was short enough. Win 9x can handle up to 12 character share names. I used 8 characters.
2. I set the Win 98 workgroup name to the domain name used by the other 3 machines. Before I did this, the Win 98 machine couldn't even locate the printer on the network.
3. I set the Win 98 Client for Microsoft Networks properties to logon to the same domain. I then instructed the user to always logon to the domain with the Win 98 machine. This is the only way the print "server" will let the Win 98 machine use the printer without entering a password every time.

Editorial Comment: I hate peer-to-peer print sharing. For one thing, average users don't seem to understand that the print "server" has to be up and running so their peers can print. They just turn the machine off and go home for the day. Even when the sharing is working it's often very slow. And worst of all, trouble shooting the problems can be extremely time consuming. In the above case, if the user didn't have to pay me to get it working, she could have easily bought another printer for exclusive use by the laptop, and let me get some much needed sleep.

Speak of the Devil......

Problem: I had a power surge at my house over the weekend. As I was checking out some of the electrical problems in my house, I noticed that my monitor had that ugly message: WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM file missing or corrupt.....
I have a surge protector, too! Scary, eh?

The reason I bring this up is to re-emphasize my entry of a few days ago, entitled Gambling With Your Data. Please read that one. If you think it will never happen to you, believe me, it will.

Solution: My hard drive was not damaged, it just had corrupted data. So, I ran XP setup but didn't delete the existing partition. After reinstalling XP I was able to get to all the other data. It's a little messy since the reinstallation gives you a new registry and user profile, but it's better than wiping the system and then restoring everything from backups most of the time. I then did some application reinstalls to re-establish the registry entries.

Luckily, I also had my important stuff backed up on CDs, as well. I didn't need the backups this time, but next time who knows.....

MS Access 97 Issue

Problem: I installed MS Access 97* on a machine today at the request of a user. When I launched the application for an initial test, I got the following message: "Microsoft access cannot start because there is no license for it on this machine".

Solution: This is apparently a known problem caused by a font file, of all things!! Thank God for my IT colleagues who are nice enough to document these things on the internet. Because there isn't any way in HELL that I would have ever figured it out. When I keyed in the message to do a search for the problem, the first hit on the list was: http://www.howtodothings.com/showarticle.asp?article=624 , documented by Peter Morris.

Peter's solution:

1. Find the font named Hatten.TTF in your {windows}\fonts folder (usually c:\windows\fonts).
2. Rename the file to Hatten.TTFX
3. Reinstall MS ACCESS
4. Rename the font file back to Hatten.TTF

The location of the font file was C:\winnt\fonts in my case, but the solution was the same. THANK YOU Peter!!! (If you're not the one who originally found the answer to this, I apologize to him or her; at least thanks to you for documenting it).
*NOTE: If anyone else in the world is still using Access 97, get off of it!! It's 7 years old........ Please!

Synchronizing With Outlook

Problem: The user reported that she was no longer able to synchronize her Palm Tungston E with her Outlook Calendar.

Solution: As it turns out, the handheld was actually synchronizing with Outlook, but with the wrong calendar. This is one of those situations where the handheld belongs to someone else but is being synched on an Admin Assistant's machine. She has no less than 5 calendars in her Outlook profile. It took some searching but we found the calendar that was synching with the handheld and verified that all calendar items were actually matching after a synch. We then opened the Hotsynch Mananger and selected the entry for the Outlook Calendar. We were then able to open the settings for that entry and browse to the correct calendar and selected it for the synchronization.

Note: The Palm One site has a lot of good debugging information.

Read Only For Everyone

Problem: I recently shared a directory on an XP workstation and granted a specific domain user write access to the shared directory (NTFS write access). The user with the write access attempted to create a file in the shared directory and got "access denied".

Solution: I changed the Share permissions from Everyone having Read Only access, to Everyone having Full Control.

If you're an old NT techie you'll remember that before XP Service Pack 1, the default access for shares was Everyone - Full Control. We usually left the share permissions Full Control and assigned the appropriate permissions at the NTFS level. We did this to keep from confusing ourselves with conflicting permissions resulting in problems like the one above. Well, SP1 reversed this default to: Everyone - Read Only, and as we all know, NT security enforces the most restrictive access between the Share permissions and the NTFS permissions. So, when sharing data on XP, make sure the share permissions are either the same or less restrictive than the NTFS permissions. (Then you'll be able to sleep at night..... :o)

Gambling With Your Data

Problem: A user reported that his critical application was down because his machine wouldn't come up. "It says something about 'primary hard disk 0 failure', and just stops".

Solution: If it's really your critical application, and the only copy of the data is on that machine, what you need to do is find a current newspaper, open it to the classified ads and start that long hard search for a new career; outside of IT.
Seriously, it's 2004. If you can't find a way to protect your critical data you don't belong in this business. First of all, truly critical data should NEVER be stored (as the only copy) on a workstation. If you don't have a properly backed up server on which to store it, make copies on anything you can find. Today you have lots of choices:

• CDs
• DVDs
• Zip drives
• Floppies
• PDAs
• USB Flash drives
• Paper, if nothing else

You can even turn on File and Print Sharing and store data on another workstation (This is not ideal, but at least you'll have another copy!).

At any rate, a workstation should be viewed as a "throw-away", a tool that can be trashed on a moment's notice, without having to worry about the data. When the hard drive goes South, and it eventually will, you'll want to be able to drop in a new hard drive, rebuild it and move on.

As they might say at MasterCard, workstations are cheap; critical data? ........ priceless.

No New Mail

Problem: An Outlook/Exchange user reported that she had not recieved any new mail in 3 days.

Solution: This is a frequent complaint with our Outlook users. "No new mail" always means that the user has lost contact with the Exchange server but, it's not always for the same reason. This time the indicator at the bottom right side of the Outlook window showed 'Disconnected'. Sometimes this simply means that the network cable is disconnected, but in today's case it wasn't. The network connectivity was fine; she could get the internet and to her network drives. Further investigation revealed that her Exchange account was set to the wrong server. The Exchange administrator had moved some users to a new server but had not verified that the account information was updated. I shut down the user's Outlook session, opened the Mail dialog in the Control Panel and changed the user's account settings to point to the new Exchange server. When we launched Outlook, viola! New mail (too much new mail.... :o)

Limited Or No Connectivity

Problem: The user reported that she could no longer get to her e-mail or to the internet. "It just stopped working 2 days ago and has not worked since."

Solution: Initial investigation revealed that her network connection was in that new limbo state, reporting that the local connection had "Limited or no connectivity". I think this is new with XP SP2, but I can't say with certainty (That would mean I'd have to do a little research which in turn might require me to read something. No way). Anyhow, I've seen this a couple of times, now, both involving machines that were set to get IP addresses from DHCP. In both cases the machines had "169" addresses, meaning they couldn't contact the DHCP server. Also, in both cases the problem boiled down to a bad network port.

Whatever, this new state of "Limited or no connectivity" does me no good, so far. For me, "Limited or no connectivity" has equated to NO connectivity. I spent a lot of time trying to detemine if there was something I could do to cure the problem. Both times I encountered this I couldn't even ping the default gateway, let alone the DHCP server. So, I think we would be better off if we just got the old familiar red X on the network icon, indicating that the connection is just plain broken. But, that's just my limited opinion.......

Let's Get Back To Basics - What Changed?

Problem: The user reported that she was getting repetitive system crashes, but couldn't tell me exactly what was going on at the time of the problems. She had a recoverable BSOD at one point but didn't capture any of the debugging information. The problem record had the words "Fatal System Error" and 3 Hex strings, and that's about it.

Solution: I searched the internet for any clues related to the Hex strings. Nothing there.
I then wanted to eliminate any hardware issues, so I downloaded the diagnostic utility from Dell, created the floppies and ran the diags. You guessed it; no hardware problems. I then launched every application I could find and saved test files, trying to produce ANY kind of problem. No luck. After an hour of fruitless searching the user finally admitted that Adobe Photo Delux had been added to the machine recently. She had evaluated it and decided not to use it, and asked me to remove it. This I gladly did. I then stood by for awhile and watched her try to reproduce the error she had been seeing, without success.

There's no guarantee that Adobe Photo Delux was causing the problems but I would almost bet it was. It was the only thing that had changed, and so far we haven't seen the problems again since it was removed.

Anyhow, sometimes we forget to ask the most fundamental question when it comes to solving almost any computer problem: "What changed? "

Software SOB Story

Problem: The user reported that regular Domain Users could not use the AutoCAD product that is installed as a component of Autodesk. A message said that the application couldn't write to the registry. No kidding, some software really can be an SOB! I didn't do the installation, but I got the call when it wouldn't work.

Solution: Sorry, but I have to vent a little bit here. So that you know I'm not just picking on Autodesk, I've seen this problem with lots of products. COME ON PEOPLE! Don't you know that many organizations use your products in lab environments where most of the users don't OWN the machine the product is running on and don't have ADMINSTRATIVE PRIVILEGES???? Why in the name of God would you develop an application that writes to the registry every time the procuct is launched?? I did find some documentation that says you can run with Power User rights, and that's true. BUT, we don't want the lab users to be Power Users either. This is no help! (WHEW..... I feel better now).

Anyhow, most of the time we can work around these silly problems with various software packages by giving write access, or sometimes full access to the product's root directory, or to some file. For the Autodesk problem we have the added challenge of trying to find out which registry key the users need to write to. We haven't quite figured it out yet, but when we do I'll edit this post with the final solution.

Stay tuned.........

On second thought, I won't publish the registry key here, just because I don't want to encourage registry hacking. If you have this problem, please bug the vendor.

Moving Mozilla Mail

Problem: A Mozilla mail user gets a new PC and needs to have her local mail folders and address book moved to it.

Solution: Mozilla stores all of it's user specific files in this profile path:
C:\Documents and Settings\Userid\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\MozillaProfileName\RandomNameDirectory.slt

Do the following:

1. Copy the contents of the above path from the old machine to some location (like a network drive or zip drive) where you can get to it from the new machine.
2. Install Mozilla on the new machine.
3. Launch the Mozilla mail client and follow the dialog to create the new mail profile and set the application to recieve mail from the server.
4. Stop the application
5. Copy the following items from the saved profile data to the profile path (see above) on the new machine:

• Mail directory
• abook.mab file
• bookmarks.html file (if the user also uses the Mozilla web browser)

6. Launch the mail client; the local folders and address book should now show.

To Rebuild, or Not To Rebuild.....

Problem: Once in awhile you come across a machine that is SO screwed up that it doesn't pay to figure out what's wrong. Unfortunately, you might work on it for a long time with that I-can't-let-this-damn-thing-beat-me! attitude before you realize you're past the point of diminishing returns. Not very cost effective.

Solution: Set a time beyond which you will wipe the system and rebuild it from scratch. Easy, eh?

It's wrong to call this the "solution" because it might not be the solution for you. It's certainly not the only solution, but it could be one that would work if the conditions are right. Anyhow, you have to know enough about your operating environment to make the call on this. That is, you must know enough about the machines you support, the applications they run and the network they are in to know if/when/how to stop recovery efforts and start rebuilding it from scratch.

For purposes of this example, let's assume that the machines in question are all workstations (as opposed to servers), and that the workstations run no critical or peer-to-peer shared applications. Let's also assume that all the workstations run roughly the same set of standard software, like an antivirus package, MS Office, etc. One further assumption: each workstation has at least one network drive where the user can/should keep all his or her working data, even if s/he also keeps a lot of the current data on the C: drive. Using these assumptions, you could say I will spend no more than 1 hour solving a problem before I begin the rebuild process. After all, the rebuild process under the given circumstances could reasonably be done within 2-3 hours (depending on hardware and software configurations). The process could be something like this:

1. Save all the user's data on the network drive, making sure to check the desktop, My Documents and folders and files at the root of the C: drive.
2. Save the user's local email data, such as mail stored on the C: drive and the address book. You'll need to know enough about the email client in use, and the location of the local mail data.
3. Save the user's internet bookmarks.
4. Save the machine's network configuration (write it down).
5. Save the machine's security configuration (write down users and groups that need administrative access).
6. Save the machine's printer configuration (note all the defined printers and make sure you can physically find them).
7. IMPORTANT - If the machine is relatively new, record the device information, especially for the network device, in case the rebuild process doesn't find the drivers you need.
8. Restart the system from the OS installation CD, delete the existing partition and rebuild the OS from the bottom up.
9. Resolve/install any missing drivers that the OS installation didn't find.
10. Reinstall all the standard software, beginning with the antivirus package.
11. Re-enter the network information and download any current upgrades from the LAN or the internet.
12. Redefine the users and groups that need administrative access.
13. Have the user logon, then restore the saved bookmarks.
14. Add the printers.
15. Restore the user's data from the network drive.
16. Restore/reconfigure the user's email settings.

It sounds like a drastic measure if you're not used to doing this, but it's really not. It can take a lot less time than working on some nasty problem for too long and then having to rebuild the system anyhow. You just need to be ready for it by having all the installation CDs in your bag of tricks. Even more time can be saved if the users are informed about keeping their data on the network drive(s) at all times.

It works for me....

From Publisher, to Adobe

Problem: User needed to convert an MS Publisher file to PDF format. There is no direct way to do this. That is, no way to save the Publisher file as a PDF file.

Solution: I talked to a few people who know Publisher and found it's possible to do this, and they pointed me in the right direction (I figured this was better than spending the whole night working on a product I'd never used before). Anyhow, all you have to do is save the Publisher file as a Post Script file. During this process you need to specify which type of printer the PS file will eventually be printed on (even if you never intend to print the PS file); look at the dropdown list and choose a color PS printer. After the PS file is created, open it with Adobe Distiller, which will do the conversion to PDF. Not pretty but it works.

The MS Publisher help dialog has this documented, by the way. So, if you're inclined to read, unlike me, you probably knew this already....

Pop-up Ads

Problem: User reports lots of pop-up ads and slow response time. The system seems to hang for awhile and then runs momentarily, hangs, runs, etc.

Solution: If the machine will run long enough to download some tools, do the following. If not, it might be time for a rebuild:

1. Download and install the free copy of Ad-Aware from Lavasoft. When the product has completed installation and is ready to run, make sure to choose the option to look for updates. It will go back to their web site and automatically download the latest definitions, and then begin running. It will locate/identify objects (processes, registry entries, directories and files) that are known to be associated with ads that you don't want to see. It will then give the option to delete the objects.
2. Download and install the shareware copy of Spybot Search and Destroy from PepiMK Software (Patrick M. Kolla). Go through the dialog and search for bots. The software will identify and list the problem applications and give you the chance to delete them.
3. Download and install the Google Toolbar from the Google web site. It blocks ads that it knows about and gives you the option to allow them, or block them, on a piecemeal basis.

These 3 things usually clean up the system well enough to work. You might have to re-run the first 2 occasionally to keep the definitions up to date.

If there are still some rogue tasks running, causing slow response time you might have to dig a little deeper. I'll give the standard disclaimer: Editing the registry incorrectly can cause permanent damage to the operating system and render it unusable. If you decide to remove or change anything, you do it at your own risk!

Investigate the Run keys in the registry and take the appropriate action to get rid of tasks that should not be running on the system. I won't give detailed instructions for this. If you don't feel comfortable doing it, DON'T. Ask for expert help:

• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
• There might be other Run keys to check; I declare this an incomplete list.

Roaming Profile Blues

Problem: The user couldn't logoff due to her user profile exceeding the roaming profile size limit. She attempted to delete some profile data but never got the size down under our 30 MB limit. So, she simply turned the machine off. Not good.

Solution: We moved her working data from her Desktop and My Documents folder to her mapped network drive. We also, deleted lots temporary internet files. This got her below the 30 MB limit and able to logoff gracefully. Tip: If you're having trouble determining the size of directories for tasks like this, download the free copy of Treesize from Jam Software. The free version will allow you to quickly see the size of directories on any local drive, listed in direcotry tree format. Then you can go about deleting as necessary.