Yesterday, a client called me complaining that, after installing Vista SP2, she couldn’t access a folder on a file share. She could access that same folder from her XP workstation, logged in with the same account.
I paid a service call (across the parking lot; any excuse to get up and walk outside ), [...]
Geoff @ UVM
Geoffrey Duke ∈ System Administrator ∈ Enterprise Technology Services
Vista
List folder contents – XP vs. Vista
Troubleshooting Wifi logon
I’ve been working with client to try to identify why we sometime log onto the UVM wifi network successfully before workstation logon, but frequently this fails and drive mappings are not performed successfully.
In consulting with a colleague, he suggested that it could be a race condition between the network authorizing the connection and the Windows [...]
Wednesday – April 29
Some Microsoft updates released yesterday, including Office 2007 SP2. TSGateway server Web and Terminal services didn’t restart gracefully. Investigating, I find some weird behavior from our Networker backup software. However, installing two outstanding updates and rebooting resolved the issue TS issue. Now I have two Networker issues to follow-up on: restoring .Net config files, and [...]
Friday – April 17
Last night, I stumbled across this video:
Office Casual: How to work with the ribbon
The Inside Office Online blog post for the video includes links to the interactive guides for the big five office applications.
I haven’t watched the whole thing, yet, but it also links to video of a presentation that discusses [...]
Pandora Windows Gadget
If you enjoy Pandora’s online music service, and you’re using Vista or Windows 7, you might enjoy the Pandora Gadget. I find it convenient because I don’t accidently close the browser window and stop the music.
Elevated ShellRunAs
Back in the day, I was a good Windows admin and did my administration using the Windows Server admin tools from my workstation, logged in with a non-admin user, using the RunAs shell feature (shift+right-click) to start the admin tool with administrator credentials.
Vista’s “Run as administrator” feature will run a program with elevated (i.e., administrator) [...]
Recalcitrant Vista SP1 install
I have spent a number of hours troubleshooting the installation of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 on a particular Dell Optiplex 755, but I finally succeeded.
Symptoms: The SP1 update was downloaded and queued for installation via the Automatic Updates engine. When initiated, the install would look like it had completed (going to 100% through [...]
Troubleshooting Vista Activation
Troubleshooting Vista volume activation via KMS
Disabling IPv6 in Vista
As part of troubleshooting the Cisco VPN with my Vista system, I’ve been asked to “turn off” IPv6, just in case. I decided to take the comprehensive approach, as described in the IPv6 for Microsoft Windows FAQ, and use the registry:
Add the following registry value (DWORD type) set to 0xFFFFFFFF:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip6\Parameters\DisabledComponents
This method disables IPv6 on all [...]
Reset Offline Files cache
For my reference, mostly…
In Windows XP: In Explore’s Tools → Folder Options → Offline Files, then press CTRL+SHIFT and click the “Delete Files” button. How Macintosh is that? I’ve had to perform that maneuver a few times.
With Windows Vista, the reworked Offline Files facility has worked much better. Only once did I need to reset [...]
