Todays Tip: Are you using WSUS/SUS and your Windows XP systems get stuck saving settings?

Hi Folks,

Been dealing with Error event ID 454 in our event logs on our Windows XP SP2 machines and then they get stuck on saving settings when you try to log them off for quite some time. The only way to get rid of it is to shut the things down by hand.  If Windows update doesn't work for you this fix will help also.

 

I found this obscure posting out on the web that suggested reregistering a dll on the system.  I have to admit I was skeptical but it appears to have resolved the issue. So here are the steps.

 

Go to a command prompt and type

 

regsvr32 msxml3.dll

 

That is it.  Workstations should log off much quicker now.  Apparantly this dll gets corrupted or unregistered for some reason. If you add a /s the box won't pop up saying it is registered so you can do this on a script.  We pushed it out via Altiris today and XP machines seem to be much happier.

 

Jim Kenzig

Microsoft MVP - Terminal Services

Citrix Technology Professional

Provision Networks VIP
CEO The Kenzig Group
http://www.kenzig.com
Blog: http://www.techblink.com

Terminal Services Downloads: http://www.thinhelp.com

 

Read More

Citrix Posts CTP Page / Blogging Site

Citrix is stepping up to the plate in response to Brian Maddens posting back in July about Thought Leadership at http://www.brianmadden.com/content/content.asp?ID=607

 

They have created a Citrix Technology Professional Program (CTP) with a page about it at:

http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/feature.asp?contentID=38494

 

and now have an official blogging Community page of Citrites at:

http://citrixcommunity.com/Default.aspx

 

Pat on the back to Brian for lighting the fire. This is all good stuff!

 

One blog that I have found extremely helpful is Jay Tomlins.  A recent post on Web Interface completely solved a problem that I have been maddeningly try to figure out for months.  The issue at the end of his posting on the Web Garden Number in the app pool setting was it! Mine was set at 10! Thanks Jay...

Here is the link to the posting which is on why you get the Redirect message when you go to Web Interface... it is a good read!

http://www.jaytomlin.com/blog/2006/10/

 

 

 

 

Read More

DesktopStandard Corporation Is Acquired by Microsoft

Check out this recent press release! Expect to see some goodness as far as GPO's go from Microsoft now!

Jim

 

DesktopStandard Corporation Is Acquired by Microsoft

Customers can continue to purchase DesktopStandard products

Portsmouth, NH - October 2, 2006 – DesktopStandard Corporation, a leading developer of Group Policy-based enterprise desktop management products, today announced it has been acquired by Microsoft Corp. The addition of DesktopStandard demonstrates Microsoft’s commitment to help customers leverage the value of policy-based management and maximize the value of their investments in Microsoft Active Directory.

“Joining with Microsoft will allow DesktopStandard to more quickly meet our goal of helping customers extend Group Policy to handle the majority of their distributed management tasks and to provide a more manageable environment for doing so,” said DesktopStandard’s CTO and cofounder Eric Voskuil, who will join Microsoft’s Windows Enterprise Management Division in the role of Software Architect. “Customers will benefit now and into the future as our innovative team joins Microsoft in building the future of model-based policy management technologies.”

DesktopStandard was chosen by Microsoft to supplement its Group Policy technology because of DesktopStandard’s:

• Experience in policy-based management and tight integration with native Group Policy
• Mature, Award-winning products that are proven in deployments
• Broad and loyal customer base
• Talented employees who are motivated to help customers succeed

“DesktopStandard products are already seamlessly integrated with Microsoft Group Policy and are completely complementary with Microsoft technology,” said Larry Orecklin, General Manager, Microsoft’s Windows Enterprise Management Division “This acquisition enhances our ability to meet customers’ needs to perform Group Policy lifecycle management, consolidate the number of policy objects being managed, and increase desktop management functionality.”

DesktopStandard will continue to operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Microsoft while the DesktopStandard technology is transitioned to Microsoft. Customers can continue to purchase GPOVault®, ProfileMaker, PolicyMaker™ Standard Edition and Share Manager from DesktopStandard and existing partners. ProfileMaker will be available only from existing DesktopStandard partners. Microsoft will continue to support customers according to the terms and conditions of existing agreements. Microsoft is not acquiring the PolicyMaker™ Application Security business.

PolicyMaker™ Application Security will be exclusively available from BeyondTrust™ Corporation, formerly a wholly-owned subsidiary of DesktopStandard. BeyondTrust is focused on enterprise security products that eliminate the need for security administrators to place trust in computers or users. BeyondTrust will continue to develop, sell and support PolicyMaker Application Security under the product name, BeyondTrust™ Privilege Manager.

John Moyer, DesktopStandard’s CEO and cofounder, states, “It is an exciting opportunity to move forward with BeyondTrust at a time when organizations are focused on increasing protection from zero-hour exploits, data theft, and unauthorized malicious use.” Moyer will be joining BeyondTrust in the position of CEO. “By enabling the security best practice of Least Privilege with BeyondTrust Privilege Manager organizations find that they not only achieve these security goals, but also increase business productivity and regulatory compliance.”

Press contact information:
DesktopStandard and BeyondTrust Corporation
Tony Keller
S&S Public Relations
(719) 634-8279
tony@sspr.com


The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Read More

TIP/IDEA: Make a virtual Internet Explorer browser and solve all your lockdown problems using Altiris Software Virtualization Solution

Hi Everyone,
Altiris software recently released a product called Software
Virtualization Solution. This little gem of a program is Free for
personal use and under $4 a user for educational use.

The program basically allows you to take any program you want to lock
down or force settings to and put it in its own "virtual environment" So
for example instead of waiting for the IE7 windows vista version where
Internet explorer plays in its own memory space and cannot interact at
all with the Windows Operating system, you can now do that on your
current Windows 2000 and XP systems.

I figured out how to do this in about 4 seconds after playing with the
product and realized what a GREAT THING this could be for a library
system. No longer will you need to be clearing out or rebooting systems
in order to clear the browser, just close it. All Users previous
browsing is gone! The site http://www.svsdownloads.com/download.php has
some great other programs that you can virtualize.


1 Download the Altiris SVS program from
http://www.svsdownloads.com/download_svs.php
2. Download the Internet Explorer Reset on Close Virtual App on close
and Save it to the root of your C: drive from
http://www.svsdownloads.com/download.php?filename=archives/Internet%20Ex
plorer%20-%20Reset%20On%20Close.vsa
(note the above line is the full link you may have to copy and paste it
or just get it from the svsdownloads site)

3. Use Explorer and navigate to and rename the Internet Explorer Reset
On Close.vsa you just downloaded to just Iexplorer.vsa.

4 Install the Altiris SVS client click on the Get Key from Altiris link
in the installation and insert the Key from the download.

4. Navigate to C:\Program Files\Altiris\Software Virtualization Agent
and right click on the SVSCmd.exe and create a shortcut to it.

5. Copy the shortcut you just created to your Desktop.

6. Right click on the shortcut you just created and choose properties
and click in the target line field and add the following to the end of
the line:

Iexplorer A

7. You can now right click and rename the shortcut to Explorer or
anything else you want to call.

8. Clicking on the Shortcut opens up a sandboxed Internet Explorer
browser that when it is closed clears out every site, cookie and
everything else that was done in the browser session.

Now buy the product and follow the same steps on your patron
workstations and put the shortcut in the Startup folder of their Start
menu and change out the Internet Explorer shortcut with the SVS one.

You can then also pick up the free Autorestart utility from
http://www.teamsoftwaresolutions.com/files/AutoRestart.zip

Put autorestart in your startup folder and then add the SVS shortcut
location into autorestart and you will always have an open browser.

Peruse the SVSdownloads site as there are a lot of applications you
could do this with. If you use OpenOffice this would be ideal way to run
it also. If you download the admin kit for this product from Altiris you
can create your own vsa files and virtualize and sandbox any application
you want!

Now think about the possibilities of doing this through Terminal
Services!

Pretty exciting stuff!

Jim Kenzig
Network Manager
Cuyahoga County Public Library

Read More

Don't Spend any money on a content management system until you have looked at Joomla a "Cutting Edge" CMS!

OK my company has just spent 10's of thousands of dollars on a content management system by a company called Ektron. It is a world class system but it still has it's limitations.

My ISP host is one of the best ones out there in my opinion, a company called enom.com. I host 20+ sites for under $10 a month with database and .Net support and over 250 meg of storage for many years. Recently Enom.com added support for both community server and Joomla.

I've used Community server in the past and it never suited my needs, so I thought I would take a look at Joomla. Enom made it sooo easy to set up... create a DB, pick the domain you want to install Joomla to in your account and click on the Joomla add application link. The pointing of the database was a little tricky but within 15 minutes I had a full blown CMS set up and running. I wanted it for a site I am starting called CIPA.US about E-Rate and the childrens internet protection act. So I got the site up and was able to immediatly start adding links and information to it. By 9:00 pm the next day the site was already receiving over 15,000 unique user hits in the first day!!! What can I say I am good at promoting.

Anyways the next day I dug more into Joomla and it was one of those times when I started getting more excited and going Wow look at this... I can add this, Wow, cool, and ended up adding things and playing of course until 2:00 am in the morning before I realized it. It was just one of those times
when you find something that is so great you are mesmerized by it!

OK before you start asking how much, let me tell you how much.. 0 that is zero, zilch, nada...not 10s of thousands of dollars, nothing, under the GNU GPL, it is THE most powerful open source CMS that I have come across and has more modules and components wrtiten for it than any other. It has a simple web based admin form to install components and modules, you download the component or module as a zip and browse to it and click install and it will add the component to the control panel!

Once you get the thing going the first module you will want to load is Community Builder, once you get this one going you need little else! Get it from here

Then start browsing the extensions, mods, and components and you to will start to be amazed at what is out there! Joomla just turned 1 year old on September 1st, 2006 so they are now well established and several bug fixes and versions into being Stable. You'll need PHP and MySql on your server but check out Enom.com if you want a host that already has it for you and you can easily set it up. It runs on Linux or Windows.

2 snaps and 2 thumbs up to Joomla, a must check out if you run web sites. Peruse the Joomla website at http://www.joomla.org

Read More

Download Pick of the Week: VirtualCD Control Panel

Want an easy way to mount CD ISO files without burning them to disk on your Windows XP machine? Well this download is for you, the Windows VirtualCD Control Panel from Microsoft will allow you to do just that:

Get it from:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/b/6/7b6abd84-7841-4978-96f5-bd58df02efa2/winxpvirtualcdcontrolpanel_21.exe

This little unsupported utility will allow you to open up an ISO file as a Virtual CD on your system.

Read More

Link Pick: Microsoft Activesync Troubleshooting guide

How many aggravating hours have you taken to get your Windows Mobile device synced up to your PC and watched and listened to the connection wizard go boop, boop, boop, and never connect? What is going on here?

Well I'll tell you. ActiveSync uses TCP/IP ports for connection. And most new Antivirus products are coming with a built in firewall, not to mention the good old Windows XP Firewall (which already knows about these ports, yay).
Turns out that the ActiveSync processes use the following ports which need to be open in your firewall application:

Inbound
990
999
5678
5721
26675

Outbound
5679

If these ports are not open.. No tickie, no workie, no sync.

Here is a link from Microsoft page on troubleshooting your ActiveSync 4.x connectivity and my pick for the week:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/help/activesync/default.mspx

I found this out when we upgraded our network to the new version of Trend Officescan which snuck in it's own firewall service and our directors telephone all of sudden stopped syncing. After several maddening hours of reinstalling activesync, getting a new phone and cradle and still not working, I had to count back the hours and figure out exactly what changed. Didn't figure for trend to throw that curve at us but you live, you learn.

Oh and here is another gotcha... if you unplug your cradle with a Smartphone be sure and plug it back into the SAME USB PORT that you unplugged it from or you'll end up going through the whole device recognition, syncing wizard again.

Read More