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I was working in the Command Processor to fix a BitLocker problem. I needed to enter a couple of commands which were posted in the CoNetrix blog. To be sure I didn’t make any typing mistakes, I copied the first command into Notepad where I verified the input and then copied and pasted into the Command Processor. Doing that I got an error, the command wouldn’t work. I retried several times, none were successful. Eventually I resorted to typing the command directly into the Command Processor and, surprise, surprise, it worked.

For the second command I committed the same error (not always a fast learner). I got errors when pasting the command and success when I typed the command directly. [more]

Since this happened to me twice I began to research the problem with pasting info into the Command Processor and discovered it was a problem with two different characters entered for the dash (-) character. While one character was entered by pasting, a different character was entered when manually typing. In testing I discovered this is true both in Notepad and the Command Processor. (If I retyped the dash in Notepad before copying and pasting into the Command Processor, the command worked.) The problem comes because there is no visible difference in the characters, both look the same in Notepad and Windows processor, but behind the scenes, in the code for the characters, there is a difference. While I haven’t researched this beyond the dash characters, I would imagine there could also be problems with other special characters as well.

The gotcha is not to assume characters are the same just because they appear the same.

Outlook 2010 “Follow Up” feature allows you to set a reminder for a specific email.  If you have the email open, set the reminder by clicking on Follow Up, Custom, Reminder & set the date/time.  You can also right click on the email in Inbox to set the custom reminder with date/time.

Opening the reminder opens the email. [more]

BackupExec jobs may fail when they are set to append only, and the customer uses new media.  Either copy the job and set the new job to overwrite, or change the media settings to allow append.

BackupExec 2012 has a new feature that allows “no-metal restores.”  The restore actually performs a P2V conversion.

From time to time our IT auditors sync offline files back to the server and a file gets corrupt.  The corrupt file is typically 0 KB and is impossible to remove/change permissions/take ownership/etc.  I did some research the other day on how to remove these files.  One of the first "solutions" I came across was to reboot the server into Safe Mode and remove the file that way.  That was incredible unpractical, so I continued searching.  The next solution I came across was so simple it seemed ridiculous… but I tried it anyway… and it worked.  :-)  The solution was to rename the file's parent folder, then rename it back to the original name.  This procedure allowed the file to safely pass over to Elysium.

We began receiving warnings 180 days after installation of Office 2010 that the software was not activated and would stop working in less than 30 days.  A volume license download from Microsoft licensing portal had been installed on about a dozen PCs, but I guess it had not asked for a CD key during the installation.  Queries using slmgr.vbs commands indicated that Office was using the default keys assigned at installation.

This customer had KMS license keys for Office 2010, so we needed to install the Microsoft Office 2010 KMS Host on one of our servers.  First of all, be aware that Microsoft Office 2010 KMS Host cannot be installed on a Windows 2008 server.  It can only be installed on Windows 7, Server 2003, or Server 2008 R2.  When you install the Office KMS host on Windows 2003, you’ll need to have KMS server software patched to 1.1 and then to 1.2 also in order for it to work with Microsoft Office 2010 KMS Host (see this article for details http://blogs.technet.com/b/odsupport/archive/2010/06/01/office-2010-kms-installation-and-troubleshooting.aspx).

During the installation of the Office KMS host, it asks for the KMS key to use and then activates it over the Internet.  The KMS key that I pulled from the licensing portal for the customer said that it successfully activated, so my KMS host was ready to begin processing client requests.

I tried first to go through the help menu of Microsoft Word and change the CD key, but when I entered the KMS key, it kept telling me that the CD key was not valid.  I knew that it was valid because the KMS host activated.  I then tried to use slmgr.vbs commands to change the keys that way, but it also told me that the key was invalid.  At this point, I was stumped until I ran across Microsoft’s Volume Management Activation Tool (VAMT) 2.0 (you can get it from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=11936). [more]

After installing VAMT 2.0, I started poking around and saw that you could type in a manual KMS license key to use, assign the key to clients remotely, and request that the key activates with the KMS server.  I connected to all the PCs using VAMT 2.0 and then assigned the KMS key successfully to all the clients (no invalid key message).  After that, I told them to activate with the KMS server.  Now, when I queried the KMS server with slmgr.vbs commands, I was able to see that I had 15 clients listed for an activated Microsoft Office 2010 key.  The PCs immediately stopped saying that Office had not been activated.

At this time, I do not have an explanation why changing the license key on the client kept telling me that it was invalid, but it worked during KMS host installation and using VAMT 2.0.

Cisco IOS devices can use virtual tunnel interfaces (VTI) in order to create a GRE tunnel interface that is protected by IPSec.  Configuration of the encryption protection is performed from within the GRE tunnel interface.

You still need a pre-shared key, and other IPSec configuration options to match (such as ISAKMP policies and transform sets). 

I have not tested a VTI tunnel using NAT or PAT.  (I believe that PAT is incompatible with VTI connections, because all traffic uses GRE packets, which cannot be port address translated.)

A customer called a few weeks ago saying they did not have Internet access and could not access the network. A storm had gone through the area the night before, so I started by having them check to make sure the Internet equipment was online. There were no problems with the network equipment, so I asked the onsite IT person to check the server rack. Upon walking into the server room, I could hear alarms going off. He said it was the UPS that was beeping.

Their DHCP, DNS, WPAD, and File Server is all on one server, which is plugged into this UPS.  I went onsite and bypassed the UPS for power to their servers. The UPS would not turn the outlets on and referred to an overload error. I called APC tech support and they said this error meant that there was an internal fault in the UPS and it would have to be replaced. A replacement UPS was sent and installed. It appears that an electrical event occurred during the storm the night before and messed up the UPS. Since then, the company has purchased an additional UPS so that one power supply from each server can be plugged into each UPS. Hopefully, if this ever occurs in the future, one of the UPSs will remain online.

Ran across this issue three different times; a user installs Adobe Reader update and Google Chrome gets installed. The user then uninstalls Chrome and when they try to access hyperlinks from any program, it fails. They would receive the error "This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. Please contact your system administrator."  Going in and changing default browser settings did not fix the problem. It requires registry changes to fix the default browser.

Restore registry settings in the User Profile: [more]

1. Click Start, click Run, type Regedit in the Open box, and then click OK.
2. Locate the following subkey:
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.html
3. On the File menu, click Export.
4. In the Export Registry File dialog box, enter HKCU_Classes_HTML_Backup.reg and click Save.
   Note: This will create a backup of this registry key in the My Documents folder by default.
5. Right click the (Default) value for the .html key and select Modify...
6. Change the value from "ChromeHTML" to "htmlfile"  (or from FireFoxHTML to htmlfile)

Repeat steps 1-6 for .htm .shtml .xhtm and .xhtml k

I have read that you can change the default browser prior to uninstalling and this will not be a problem. However I have not tested this.