End of the week has arrived again, no major problems today, just a few arguments with one teacher.
After telling her off for failing to return 2 laptops at the end of here lesson yesterday, she decieds an hour later would be a good time to ring me and request help plugging video/audio cables in so she can play a sound through her computer, now come on three phone cables colour coded red white and yellow, three sockets coloured red white and yellow, has it become so easy to become a teacher now that they do not need to know basic colour cordination. Left her waiting for ten mins then whent down myself to plug them in. Didn't bother testing just left without saying a word, havent heard anything else from her today.
Friday, March 31, 2006
Thursday, March 30, 2006
new registry setting found today
Thursday has come and past again, anouther non day as far as i'm concerned.
Did find a nice setting for the network to remove most error messages the students see, such as access denied messages.
The registry setting is as follows:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Controlcreate key: error message instrument
create dword: EnableDefaultReply
give it a value of 00000001
reset machine.
This is simple and effective, and should save me a lot of hassel.
Also managed to sort out what was preventing the teachers and admin staff from burning CDs, as it turned out it was simply the denied access to the c: that was causing the problem.
Did find a nice setting for the network to remove most error messages the students see, such as access denied messages.
The registry setting is as follows:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Controlcreate key: error message instrument
create dword: EnableDefaultReply
give it a value of 00000001
reset machine.
This is simple and effective, and should save me a lot of hassel.
Also managed to sort out what was preventing the teachers and admin staff from burning CDs, as it turned out it was simply the denied access to the c: that was causing the problem.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Why is it you only lurn something help full at the end of the day?
After a rather dull and pointless day i found something that is going to make life a hell of a lot easyer, I hope.
Casualy browsing through regedit i noticed an option called 'load hive' not not knowing what the hell a hive is (in regedit) thought i would investergate further, after a very short period of time noticed that i could open NTUser.dat from any profile that was not being used.
This may sound pointless but combined with mandatory profiles it means i can achive just about anything.
putting it to the test now, i will keep this blog up todate with the results.
Casualy browsing through regedit i noticed an option called 'load hive' not not knowing what the hell a hive is (in regedit) thought i would investergate further, after a very short period of time noticed that i could open NTUser.dat from any profile that was not being used.
This may sound pointless but combined with mandatory profiles it means i can achive just about anything.
putting it to the test now, i will keep this blog up todate with the results.
Kids with viruses
Virus report today from a students home directory (adware.starware in joke.exe), just anoying realy, students can't download *.exe throught our proxy so that means he has bought it in, students can't run *.exe from anywhere they can access so whats the point.
Doesn't affect server 2003 so just locked his computer account banned internet access, should see him soon.
Doesn't affect server 2003 so just locked his computer account banned internet access, should see him soon.
Dull day
Morning running so slowly today, doesn't help this pounding migrane i woke up with this morning.
Still waiting for the right time to give my assistant a verbal warning for all the hassel on monday morning, just hoping head clears before the right time.
Still waiting for the right time to give my assistant a verbal warning for all the hassel on monday morning, just hoping head clears before the right time.
Monday, March 27, 2006
{31B2F340-016D-11D2-945F-00C04FB984F9}
Monday morning is here again, with a week an hour shorter than the rest of the year to add that extra kick.
Turned up to my office today to find that no one could access there documents, and my assistant is no where to be found (by that i mean in the hall working with the music department.) After about 15 phone calls 3 people poping into my office i get a free couple of seconds to try and find the problem.
The usual checks arn ran to find that half the school is fine the other half is not just to confuse matters even more.
Thought to myselft this is monday morning 'screw it' set two domain controllers to restart then go and make a cup of coffee, once they have rebooted problem apears to have disapered, not the best fix but it works for now.
Had a look throuh the event viewer on the PDC to find a lot of errors under the application section:
Userenv
eventid 1030
'Description: Windows cannot access the file gpt.ini for GPO CN={31B2F340-016D-11D2-945F-00C04FB984F9},CN=Policies,CN=System,DC=domain,DC=com. The file must be present at the location <\\domain\sysvol\domain\Policies\{31B2F340-016D-11D2-945F-00C04FB984F9}\gpt.ini>. (The network path was not found. ).'
This error seems to be occurning every five mins, so i thought better do something about it.
As per usual searched the microsoft site and found a few interesting refrencs but nothing that would really solve the problem to thought it would wise to expand the problem a bit, get a bit more understanding of where it is coming from.
It turns out that the policy {31B2F340-016D-11D2-945F-00C04FB984F9} is the machine name of the default domain policy, now i know when i first setup this network i did make some changes in here which have sinced been moved to smaller GPOs. Had a second check to see if there were any custom settings left in the default domain policy to find none apart from Password age.
Reset the Default Domain Policy
So simple, restore it to its previous pointless glory.
now this sounds simple, and it is in a complercated way, all you have to do is modify the 'GptTmpl.inf' located under \sysvol\\{31B2F340-016D-11D2-945F-00C04FB984F9}\">\\\sysvol\\{31B2F340-016D-11D2-945F-00C04FB984F9}\ MACHINE\Microsoft\Windows NT\SecEditto read:
[Unicode]Unicode=yes
[System Access]MinimumPasswordLength = 2
PasswordComplexity = 0
LockoutBadCount = 0
RequireLogonToChangePassword = 0
ForceLogoffWhenHourExpire = 0
ClearTextPassword = 0
[Kerberos Policy]MaxTicketAge = 10
MaxRenewAge = 7
MaxServiceAge = 600
MaxClockSkew = 5
TicketValidateClient = 1
[Version]
signature="$CHICAGO$"
Revision=1
[Registry Values]
Then edit the version number in the '\sysvol\\{31B2F340-016D-11D2-945F-00C04FB984F9}\GPT.INI'">\\\sysvol\\{31B2F340-016D-11D2-945F-00C04FB984F9}\GPT.INI' simply add a '0' to the end.
Run gpudate /force
there is no need to restart the server or logoff.
No errors for 2 hours now!
Turned up to my office today to find that no one could access there documents, and my assistant is no where to be found (by that i mean in the hall working with the music department.) After about 15 phone calls 3 people poping into my office i get a free couple of seconds to try and find the problem.
The usual checks arn ran to find that half the school is fine the other half is not just to confuse matters even more.
Thought to myselft this is monday morning 'screw it' set two domain controllers to restart then go and make a cup of coffee, once they have rebooted problem apears to have disapered, not the best fix but it works for now.
Had a look throuh the event viewer on the PDC to find a lot of errors under the application section:
Userenv
eventid 1030
'Description: Windows cannot access the file gpt.ini for GPO CN={31B2F340-016D-11D2-945F-00C04FB984F9},CN=Policies,CN=System,DC=domain,DC=com. The file must be present at the location <\\domain\sysvol\domain\Policies\{31B2F340-016D-11D2-945F-00C04FB984F9}\gpt.ini>. (The network path was not found. ).'
This error seems to be occurning every five mins, so i thought better do something about it.
As per usual searched the microsoft site and found a few interesting refrencs but nothing that would really solve the problem to thought it would wise to expand the problem a bit, get a bit more understanding of where it is coming from.
It turns out that the policy {31B2F340-016D-11D2-945F-00C04FB984F9} is the machine name of the default domain policy, now i know when i first setup this network i did make some changes in here which have sinced been moved to smaller GPOs. Had a second check to see if there were any custom settings left in the default domain policy to find none apart from Password age.
Reset the Default Domain Policy
So simple, restore it to its previous pointless glory.
now this sounds simple, and it is in a complercated way, all you have to do is modify the 'GptTmpl.inf' located under \sysvol\
[Unicode]Unicode=yes
[System Access]MinimumPasswordLength = 2
PasswordComplexity = 0
LockoutBadCount = 0
RequireLogonToChangePassword = 0
ForceLogoffWhenHourExpire = 0
ClearTextPassword = 0
[Kerberos Policy]MaxTicketAge = 10
MaxRenewAge = 7
MaxServiceAge = 600
MaxClockSkew = 5
TicketValidateClient = 1
[Version]
signature="$CHICAGO$"
Revision=1
[Registry Values]
Then edit the version number in the '\sysvol\
Run gpudate /force
there is no need to restart the server or logoff.
No errors for 2 hours now!
Friday, March 24, 2006
Its Friday
Turned up early this morning to make up fo time of required yesterday, to find my assistant walking out the door of the office, he didn't return untill lunch time. This means i have been stuck in the office all morning unable to sort out the few problems that have been reported.
Managed to test the new user manager software i wrote this morning, password reset for students works great.
Managed to test the new user manager software i wrote this morning, password reset for students works great.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Wednesday morning
Too late a night at the pub last night, thirst thing this morning chucked half a cup of coffee over my workstation keyboard and laptop display, (missed the server by about 6 inches).
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Tuesdays are dull
So many simple small problems in one day they are barley worth mentioning but here we go any way.
Projector bulb needs replacing, found a replacement cost £340, to replace the projector with a new one with a free extra bulb £550, I will go for the new projector I think.
My documents link on desktop not working, changed GPO and wait for every single member of staff to ring/pop in to tell me, I say log off the log on again.
Keyboard replaced.
More Mice ordered.
Lots of coffee drank.
Move to an Exchange server approved, £6k to play with.
White board pen broken, 3 ordered to replace it.
Software that I have spent an hour trying to get working get told that it is not required.
Crocodile clips physics is now wanted on five different machines, only five licensees in the building.
Assistant out all day doing work for another department.
God Tuesdays are dull.
Projector bulb needs replacing, found a replacement cost £340, to replace the projector with a new one with a free extra bulb £550, I will go for the new projector I think.
My documents link on desktop not working, changed GPO and wait for every single member of staff to ring/pop in to tell me, I say log off the log on again.
Keyboard replaced.
More Mice ordered.
Lots of coffee drank.
Move to an Exchange server approved, £6k to play with.
White board pen broken, 3 ordered to replace it.
Software that I have spent an hour trying to get working get told that it is not required.
Crocodile clips physics is now wanted on five different machines, only five licensees in the building.
Assistant out all day doing work for another department.
God Tuesdays are dull.
Monday, March 20, 2006
access violation at address 0064c3be in module attendw.exe
Bloddy hate sims useless error message handed to me to sort out today. Spoke to sims support they suggested removing all installs of it from the network, then deleting all files it fails to uninstall, reboot workstation, reinstall sims, reboot workstation, run sims update, REPEAT FOR 30+ WORKSTATIONS. what a supprise still doesn't fix the problem.
Is it possible they are just trying to put off the problem for a while.
tried there fix on one (correct errors on there email for how to fix the error) didn't work so sent email straight back to them, waiting for anouther fix to be sent.
Is it possible they are just trying to put off the problem for a while.
tried there fix on one (correct errors on there email for how to fix the error) didn't work so sent email straight back to them, waiting for anouther fix to be sent.
Install Printer per workstation not user
Right it begins:
Having recently rebuilt our entire computer network to a windows 2003 domain with XP clients it became necessary to sort out our printer issues once and for all.
Using start-up scripts to map printers.
The problem we are having is this:
Using roaming profiles, when a user logs onto one workstation they get the printer mapped to them, when they log off and move to a different room the keep the printer installed in there profile.
The first solution.
I decided as a quick fix to add an extra start-up script that removes all printers that are not supposed to be installed when the user logs on.
This worked for a while but was very messy needing a lot of scripts.
The Big Idea.
After a long time searching the web for answers I found a few ideas that put together would form the solution, and would not cost anything. First it was necessary to switch everyone over to mandatory profiles (I have been meaning to do this save some space on our servers anyway).
1) I created a folder called printers and inside placed another folder called installed.
2) For each printer I wanted to be installed I created a file with no extension in the format “@@servername@printersharename”
3) Created a simple VB program that checked the ‘installed’ directory for files, upon finding them, replaced the ‘@’ with ‘\’ (‘\’ can’t be used in file names). Then using the shell command mapped the printer.
So far this has sorted the whole issue out.
Having recently rebuilt our entire computer network to a windows 2003 domain with XP clients it became necessary to sort out our printer issues once and for all.
Using start-up scripts to map printers.
The problem we are having is this:
Using roaming profiles, when a user logs onto one workstation they get the printer mapped to them, when they log off and move to a different room the keep the printer installed in there profile.
The first solution.
I decided as a quick fix to add an extra start-up script that removes all printers that are not supposed to be installed when the user logs on.
This worked for a while but was very messy needing a lot of scripts.
The Big Idea.
After a long time searching the web for answers I found a few ideas that put together would form the solution, and would not cost anything. First it was necessary to switch everyone over to mandatory profiles (I have been meaning to do this save some space on our servers anyway).
1) I created a folder called printers and inside placed another folder called installed.
2) For each printer I wanted to be installed I created a file with no extension in the format “@@servername@printersharename”
3) Created a simple VB program that checked the ‘installed’ directory for files, upon finding them, replaced the ‘@’ with ‘\’ (‘\’ can’t be used in file names). Then using the shell command mapped the printer.
So far this has sorted the whole issue out.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Eclipse2
New application today for library management. Sales person nicely informed us that it is very simple to install, even comes with an MSI to enable it to be installed down the network, great! Found the MSI installed it onto my workstation ran the icon to find an error displayed straight away, ‘unable to locate database’ not to unusual, the program has not asked where the database is being stored. Had a quick search for an MSI for the server side of the program, to find it doesn’t exists, ran the main setup program to be presented with an option to install the program, not what I was after but ran it any way, then there it is an option right at the bottom to install database files only SORTED.
Client installed from MSI, database now located on a server share, but still the program has not requested the location of the database so just supplies an error message. Searching through the files the MSI installed found a file called Local.ini containing a target line pointing to a database that does not exists, upon correcting this it worked.
Great now it seems I have to correct this file on every workstation that has the program installed.
Client installed from MSI, database now located on a server share, but still the program has not requested the location of the database so just supplies an error message. Searching through the files the MSI installed found a file called Local.ini containing a target line pointing to a database that does not exists, upon correcting this it worked.
Great now it seems I have to correct this file on every workstation that has the program installed.
Decided after sorting out many confusing computer problems around the work network, and the many simple problems I have sorted out from home for anyone who has ever met me, or it seems met anyone I know, I should keep some sort of record to help others who get stuck searching through many web pages for simple answers.
I will make it clear now at the beginning that not all of the fixes have come simply from me, but are a combination of information I have found through the web and books and word of mouth.
One more thing I am fully aware how bad my English skills are (spelling and punctuation,) I will try to correct it as I go along but I will not make any promises, so there will be mistakes.
I will make it clear now at the beginning that not all of the fixes have come simply from me, but are a combination of information I have found through the web and books and word of mouth.
One more thing I am fully aware how bad my English skills are (spelling and punctuation,) I will try to correct it as I go along but I will not make any promises, so there will be mistakes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)