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After migrating an Orion server to its own standalone server and a separate SQL server (the server was installed with a SQL Express instance running on the same VM). During the re-setup process, we needed to enter the SA account credentials to log into the migrated database. We found the username as “SolarWindsDatabaseUser”, but had no idea what the password was. The original setup never prompted to enter the password and seemed to generate it itself. After some research, we found it is stored in SWNetPerfMon.db in the Orion subfolder of the install – C:\Program Files (x86)\SolarWinds\Orion\SWNetPerfMon.db. This is just a plaintext file that you can open in notepad/wordpad.
Networking, SQL, Orion,
 

PROBLEM: Regular (non-admin) user selects to ‘Repair Adobe Reader Installation’ from the Help menu within Adobe Reader application. After repair is completed, the user is prompted to restart the machine. If Adobe Reader is running on a multi-user server (RDS or Citrix XenApp), selecting yes to reboot the machine would forcibly disconnect all other users sessions which could interrupt their work.[more]

CAUSE: The user was able to do this because the Reader update\repair was performed by the Windows Installer running in the System context.

SOLUTION: Disable Adobe Reader repair option by adding the following registry key (specific to Adobe Reader XI):

  • 64bit OS - HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\11.0\Installer\
  • 32bit OS - HKLM\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\11.0\Installer\
    • “DisableMaintenance”=DWORD:00000001
Networking, Adobe,
 
 

Belarc Advisor (http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html) is free for personal use only.  It is designed to provide a detailed report on your software and hardware, but can also be used to find product keys used for software on the system. 

Windows Repair (All In One) (http://www.tweaking.com/content/page/windows_repair_all_in_one.html) is free to use.  I first found out about it when I saw a technician from Microsoft install and run it while trying to fix Windows Update problems on a support call.  The program can help fix a large majority of known Windows problems. 

General, Windows Repair, Belarc Advisor,
 
 

The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) today launched a web page dedicated to cybersecurity (http://www.ffiec.gov/cybersecurity.htm). The website is designed to be "a central repository for current and future FFIEC-related materials on cybersecurity." [more]

As a part of the Press Release announcing the launch of the cybersecurity web page, the FFIEC also noted the launch of the website "coincides with a pilot program at more than 500 community institutions, to be conducted by state and federal regulators, which will be completed during regularly scheduled examinations."  According to the press release, the focus of the pilot program will be on:

  1. Risk Management and Oversight
  2. Threat Intelligence and Collaboration
  3. Cybersecurity Controls
  4. Service Provider and Vendor Risk Management
  5. Cyber Incident Management and Resilience
The pilot program is expected to last about 4 weeks and include regulators from the FDIC, OCC, Federal Reserve, NCUA, and the States.
Financial Institutions, Security and Compliance, Cybersecurity, FFIEC,
 

Upon installing an Adobe update on a PC, it installed Chrome as the new default browser.  After the installation finished, Chrome was uninstalled.  Sometime later, the user found they couldn't click on any URL links in Outlook messages without getting an error message.  The solution is to either remove certain registry entries left behind by Chrome or reinstall Chrome. In this case, Chrome was reinstalled and IE was left as the default browser and everything began to work.
General, Email, Outlook, Chrome,
 

Users of Microsoft Office 2013 32-bit may experience the following behavior on an RDS server. Each time a user starts Outlook 2013, a window is briefly shown with the message: "Configuring Microsoft Office 64-bit Components 2013." The message appears for restricted users and administrators alike, but there's no apparent effect that Outlook is impaired in functionality. [more]

Solution: To resolve the issue, install the Windows Search Service role. As soon as this role is installed and its services running, the message will no longer appear. A reboot is not required.

Cause: The components it configures are necessary to link the search indexer to the Outlook's data stores (OTS and PST). Because the Search Service is not installed, this part of the configuration process of Outlook fails, and therefore it is re-attempted each time.

Notes: Both XenApp and RDS best practices suggest to disable the Windows Search Service. In fact, the Citrix PVS Target Device Optimizer disables the service when it is run on the server. After installing the service, you might consider setting the service to disabled. This does not cause the message above to reappear; however, when the service is disabled, Outlook will display a message, "The Windows Search Engine is currently disable. Outlook will not be able to provide fast search results using the Instant Search functionality unless this service is running. Do not show this message again."

Networking, Microsoft Office, Outlook,
 

According to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/251335/EN-US, the default quota for adding computers by a user to a Domain is 10.  If you attempt to add more than 10, you will likely get the error message:

"Your computer could not be joined to the domain. You have exceeded the maximum number of computer accounts you are allowed to create in this domain. Contact your system administrator to have this limit reset or increased."

To resolve the problem, you can run adsiedit.msc on the domain controller and from there change the DOMAIN attribute "ms-DS-MachineAccountQuota" from 10 to something larger like 500.

Networking, Domain,