Windows Server - Networking

The Blog for Networking solution from Microsoft. By Richard Wu
Network and Sharing Center Operations Guide
Another guide reviewed by me:
 
Network and Sharing Center Operations Guide
 

Acknowledgments

Produced by: Microsoft Windows Server User Assistance team

Project Writer: Dave Bishop, L. Joan Devraun

Project Editor: Scott Somohano

Technical Reviewers: Sen Veluswami, Alvin Tan, Amit Pethe

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Reviewers: Richard Wu, Wai Ho

Telnet Operations Guide

Telnet Operations Guide

haha! I help Microsoft to review their Telnet Operation Guide before. Now, it was published!
 
Look at the bottom of that page, you will see:

Acknowledgments

Produced by: Microsoft Windows Server User Assistance team

Project Writer: Dave Bishop, L. Joan Devraun

Project Editor: Scott Somohano

Technical Reviewers: Jeff Gollnick, Shamit Patel, Shanmugam Kulandaivel, Jay Munro

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Reviewers: Richard Wu, Wai HoHot

Changing local admin password?

Changing local admin password?

I just find a good method to change the local admin password of client PC remotely from MCPMAG. By using this method, you don't need to put the new password in script in order to make it work. You may reference this:
SysInternals offers a free too called PsPasswd
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/PsPasswd.html , which
allows you to remotely reset passwords on a range of computers
on your network. The tool will also report successes and
failures of changed passwords, and allows you to run a single
command against a list of computers. Since the password is just
included within the syntax of a command that you run, it will
never be stored as plain text in a batch or script file.

To use PsPasswd, you'll first need a list of all computers in
your domain. To enumerate all computer objects in a domain,
you could run this script:

LogFile = "C:\computers.txt"
Const ForWriting = 2
Const ADS_SCOPE_SUBTREE = 2

Set objConnection = CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
Set objCommand = CreateObject("ADODB.Command")
objConnection.Provider = "ADsDSOObject"
objConnection.Open "Active Directory Provider"

Set objCOmmand.ActiveConnection = objConnection
objCommand.CommandText = _
   "Select Name, Location from 'LDAP://DC=mcpmag,DC=com' " _
   & "Where objectClass='computer'"
objCommand.Properties("Page Size") = 1000
objCommand.Properties("Searchscope") = ADS_SCOPE_SUBTREE
Set objRecordSet = objCommand.Execute
objRecordSet.MoveFirst

Set objFSO =
CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set objFile = objFSO.CreateTextFile(LogFile, ForWriting)

Do Until objRecordSet.EOF
   objFile.WriteLine objRecordSet.Fields("Name").Value
   objRecordSet.MoveNext
Loop

Note that the script will output to a file named "computers.txt"
on the C drive. This could be changed by editing the LogFile
variable assignment in the first line of the script. Note that
in your environment, you will also need to change the domain
referenced in line 12. In my example, I use mcpmag.com
(DC=mcpmag,DC=com).

Once you have a list of all computers, you can then run
pspasswd.exe to change the local administrator password on
all systems in the list. Here's the syntax that I used on my
test network:

pspasswd.exe @c:\computers.txt administrator P@ssword!

Following the @ symbol in the command syntax is the path to
the file containing all computer names. The next part of the
syntax is the name of the account whose password will be
changed, followed by the new password (P@ssword!).

Now here is the output that was generated from the command:

PsPasswd v1.21 - Local and remote password changer
Copyright (C) 2003-2004 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

\\PC1:
Error changing password:
The network path was not found.

\\BSODME:
Password for BSODME\administrator successfully changed.

Since the output will list both success and failures, you will
be able to note the systems in which the password was not
successfully changed. In my case, the system named PC1 was not
located. So I would have to ensure that PC1 was online and then
run the command a second time. (Note that PsPasswd can also be
run against a single computer.) Since the command relies on UNC
paths to connect to systems, you will need to ensure that the
target systems have File and Print Sharing enabled and that File
and Print Sharing is not being blocked by the system's firewall.
By default, the Windows XP Pro SP2 firewall does not allow File
and Print sharing. However, this can be quickly changed via
Group Policy.

As you can see, with a simple list of computers on your network,
remotely changing the local administrator password using PsPasswd
is a relatively painless process.
How to fix: Windows could not search for new updates Error Code 80245003

Here is the steps for solving the 80245003 error when you do Windows Update in Vista.

1. Start > Control Panel > System and Maintenence, then (under Windows Update) > Turn automatic updating on or off, then click "never check for updates"

2. Close Control Panel
3. REBOOT
4. Goto My Computer
5. Click on C: (or your Primary Drive)
6. Open the "Windows" folder
7. Rename the Folder called "SoftwareDistribution" to SoftwareDistributionOLD
8. Create a new folder named SoftwareDistribution
9. Close all windows and any running programs.
10. REBOOT
11. Go back to Step 1  (and back to > Turn automatic updating on or off), then turn the Automatic Updates back On.

12. Close all windows and any running programs.
13. REBOOT
14. then click on Start and type in Windows Automatic Updates
15. Click on the "Windows Automatic Updates" folder
16. Run Windows Automatic Updates.

OR

  1. Disable the Windows Update Service (Settings > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services). Just stop the service.
  2. Navigate to: C:\Windows (or whereever you Windows system is)
  3. Find the folder named: “SoftwareDistribution”
  4. Rename that folder to something like “SoftwareDistribution.old”
  5. Create a new folder called “SoftwareDistribution”
  6. Go back to your Services panel and start the Windows Update service
  7. Rerun Windows Update
Posted: Jun 25 2007, 11:34 AM by Richard | with 9 comment(s)
Filed under:
Sync GAL between Forest
I find a good guide on sync GAL between AD Forest.
Reference here:
http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/GAL-Sync-Identity-Integration-Feature-Pack-IIFP.html
Posted: Jun 25 2007, 03:00 AM by Richard | with no comments
Filed under:
HyperTerminal for Vista

Microsoft has removed HyperTerminal from Windows Vista, if you need to connect to a Cisco router through a local COM port, you can get HyperTerminal from Hilgraeve, the company that Microsoft licensed the application through.

You could also use the old XP Hyper terminal. Just extract two files hypertrm.dll and hypertrm.exe. You can put them anywhere on the disk, no installation required. Of course, for that you need to have XP to extract files from.

Besides, puTTY and SecureCRT are great too! I would prefer puTTY as it is FREE! :-p
PuTTY can now connect to local serial ports as well as making network connections!!!

Hilgraeve HyperTerminal for Personal Use
puTTY

Install/Upgrade UltraVNC v1.02 through Remote Desktop.

If you install VNC through Remote Desktop, you will face a problem that VNC Server can't run as a service even you choose the "Run As Services" option during the installation. To work around to this problem, I search through the net and find a solution which work on my server(W2K /w SP4):

1. Logon the Server by using Remote Desktop and install VNC, run the VNC Server by clicking it's icon in the VNC program group.(It may prompt you to configure the default password if it's a new installation. However, my case is not a new installation, so it don't prompt for configuring the default password).

Configure the default setting by clicking the "Show Default Settings" inside the UltraVNC program group(I configure my VNC password at that time) and click OK.

If it does not work, try copy the  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ORL\WinVNC3\Password to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ORL\WinVNC3\Default\Password

2. Then, created the registry value "AuthRequired" under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\ORL\WinVNC3 and set it to 0 (a DWORD value). That enabled "passwordless" VNC access(Remark: It's DANGER to do so!!!)

3. Go to the services console and start the VNC service.

Now since VNC is hooking video as if we were sitting in front of a console rather than RDP's session stuff, we can attach to the newly started vnc service. Go to start->program files->Ultra VNC->Ultra VNC Server [folder]->Show Default Settings (Assuming everything is in the default places/names at least...)

Now set your password. Do a save and get outta there. Exit VNC client locally, and reconnect - now it prompts for password. Remove the "authrequired" key.

Logging User logon event.

 If you want to keep track the user logon and logoff event to the domain, you can try this method:

Step 1: Create the following two files using Notepad or your favorite text editor:

------logon.cmd----
echo logon %username% %computername% %date% %time% >> \\dc1\share\logon.log

-----logoff.cmd-----
echo logoff %username% %computername% %date% %time% >> \\dc1\share\logoff.log

Step 2: Update Group Policy to run the appropriate batch file. In Group Policy, go to:
User Configuration-> Windows Settings-> Scripts (Logon/Logoff)-> Logon
User Configuration-> Windows Settings-> Scripts (Logon/Logoff)-> Logoff

Step 3:
As users log on and off, your log file should look something like this:

logon Richard WS01 Tue 22/02/2005 10:39:51.12
logon Peter WS02 Tue 22/02/2005 10:42:01.07

logoff Richard WS01 Tue 22/02/2005 10:41:08.45
logoff Peter WS02 Tue 22/02/2005 10:42:46.81

For paid solution and better reporting, you can use the software from:
http://manageengine.adventnet.com/products/desktop-central/

Publish IIS 6 on ISA2004/2006 Server when they are on the same server.

If you want to publish the HTTP service in IIS which was installed on the same machine as ISA, you are require to disable socket pooling on it. Otherise, HTTP service will bind itself to all network interfaces which prevent ISA to listen for incoming request.

1. Install the Support Tools form the W2K3 Server installation disc. It was located in the SUPPORT\TOOLS folder.
2. Run "net stop http /y" 
3. Run "net stop w3proxy" if you enabled the web proxy service.
4. Go to the Support Tools folder and Run "httpcfg delete iplisten -i 0.0.0.0"
5. Run "httpcfg set iplisten -i 192.168.8.8" where "192.168.8.8" is the IP of which HTTP service should be  listen to.
6. Run "net start http"
7. Run "net start w3svc"
8. Run "net start w3proxy"

You can run "httpcfg query iplisten" to check which IP does the HTTP service is currently listening to.
You can also run "netstat -na | more" to check the active listening ports.

 

If you want to stop socket pooling on FTP service, you can do this:

1. cd c:\Inetpub\AdminScripts
2. net stop msftpsvc
3. cscript adsutil.vbs set msftpsvc/disablesocketpooling true
4. net start msftpsvc

If you want to stop socket pooling on SMTP service, you can do this:

1. cd c:\Inetpub\AdminScripts
2. net stop smtpsvc
3. cscript adsutil.vbs set smtpsvc/disablesocketpooling true
4. net start smtpsvc

You can also disable socket pooling for POP3 and IMAP4 services by changing the command:
cscript adsutil.vbs set imap4svc/disablesocketpooling true
cscript adsutil.vbs set pop3svc/disablesocketpooling true

Setting up Cluster on Virtual Server 2005 R2.

I find a very good article which teach you the steps to configure cluster in Virtual Server.
It's from RoudyBob. Let's share here:

http://www.roudybob.net/downloads/Setting-Up-A-Windows-Server-2003-Cluster-in-VS2005-Part1.pdf

http://www.roudybob.net/downloads/Setting-Up-A-Windows-Server-2003-Cluster-in-VS2005-Part2.pdf

Disable Mapped Drive Reconnect Warning (Windows 95/98/Me)

Open your registry and find or create the key below.

Create a new DWORD value, or modify the existing value, called "RestoreDiskChecked" and set it according to the value data below.

Exit your registry; you may need to restart or log out of Windows for the change to take effect.

User Key: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Network]
Value Name: RestoreDiskChecked
Data Type: REG_DWORD (DWORD Value)
Value Data: (0 = disabled, 1 = enabled)

 

Posted: May 16 2007, 10:28 PM by Richard | with 1 comment(s)
Filed under:
Error message when you try to install Windows Vista on a computer that uses more than 3 GB of RAM: "STOP 0x0000000A"

When you try to install Windows Vista, you may receive an error message that resembles the following:

STOP 0x0000000A (parameter1, parameter2, parameter3, parameter4)
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
This problem occurs if the following conditions are true:
The computer uses more than 3 GB of RAM.
The computer uses a storage system that is running the Storport miniport driver.
The computer uses a controller that uses 32-bit direct memory access (DMA).

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, install update 929777.
To install this update, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
or
More Posts Next page »