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Robocopy that ships with Windows 7/2008 seems to have a bug. If you specify /MT (for multiple threads), it forces /E (copy empty directories).  This causes it to run much more slowly.  Even if all the destination directories have already been created, it still accesses each one.  If copying over a relatively slow connection,  it can be very slow if you use /MT. [more]

Some discussion is here: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itprogeneral/thread/155d47ea-2523-4343-80dc-f0a987971b62

The need for SSL Certificates should be considered when utilizing a non-registered domain such as “.dom” or “.local”.

http://support.godaddy.com/help/article/6935/using-intranet-and-reserved-ip-addresses-as-the-primary-domain-or-subject-alternative-name-in-ssls
Using Intranet and Reserved IP Addresses as the Primary Domain or Subject Alternative Name in SSLs

The Internet security community is phasing out the use of intranet and reserved IP addresses as the Primary Domain Name or the Subject Alternative Name in SSL certificates.

This is an industry-wide decision, not one specific to our company...

As a result of this decision, on July 1, 2012, we no longer accept new requests, process rekeys or renewals, or allow any management of Subject Alternative Names for certificates that contain intranet names or reserved IP addresses, and are valid beyond November 1, 2015...

I had worked on a server that had corrupted NTOSKRNL.EXE and HAL.DLL files causing the server to be unable to boot.  With the Windows 2003 CD in the system, I could access the recovery console.  The files are compressed on the Windows CD in the i386 folder in files ntoskrnl.ex_ and hal.dl_ respectively.

*TIP* By typing the command "MAP" you can see which drive the cd-rom is mapped to as well as the local hard disks.

In order to extract the files, you are supposed to use the expand command like the following: "expand <cd-drive-letter>:\i386\ntoskrnl.ex_ c:\windows\system32".  Do the same for hal.dl_.

The problem that I had was that it said "access denied" when trying to expand the files or copy anything to the C drive.  I could rename the existing files as a backup without any problems.  In order to get around this problem to expand the files from the disk, you can use the SET command. [more]

Typing "SET" command in recovery console will show you the following four settings. By default all entries are set to FALSE.

allowwildcards = Turning this variable on will allow you to use wildcards (the asterisk) with certain commands.
allowallpaths = This variable, when enabled, will allow you to change directories to any folder on any drive.
allowremovablemedia = Turning on this variable will allow you to copy files from the hard drive to any removable media that Windows recognizes.
nocopyprompt = When this variable is enabled, you will not see a message when you try to copy over another file.

Type "set AllowRemovableMedia = TRUE" and then it will let you expand the files from the CD to the hard disk.

I had been troubleshooting a failed vCenter upgrade recently and trying to restart the upgrade process. Every time I would run the installer, it would fail on some piece and rollback the install. I had opened up several windows trying to figure this out, including Event Viewer, Services.msc, log files, etc. and wasn’t easily able to find a reason for the failures. At one point, the error that I was getting was something about permissions denied; which was strange, as the account I was using had full admin rights on the system and SQL server.

I found an obscure posting on some forum somewhere that suggested closing down the services.msc window and then running the install again. I did so and the install was successful! I’ve never seen an application that had to have the Services.msc window closed in order to add or remove services, but some portion of this install process seemed to require it.

Recently I ran into a problem where I couldn't remove songs and podcasts from my iPhone.  iTunes showed the songs should be deleted but they remained on the phone and wouldn't delete.  After some research I found out how to remove them directly from the phone.

From a song or podcast list, swipe to the right on the item you want to delete, and a red delete button should appear. [more]

Do you know how much additional disk space is needed to delete 4GB of data? Over 10GB of disk space.

According to http://blogs.vmware.com/kb/2010/09/dealing-with-vcenter-41-database-tables-growth.html, “In larger VirtualCenter installations you might notice the VPX_EVENT_ARG and VPX_EVENT tables can become very large.” The KB article includes instructions for clearing out old events. In this particular case, I had several million entries over a few days. Issuing a broad delete statement was filling up the transaction log before it could complete, resulting in vCenter service crashes and other database problems. Rather than increase the transaction log allowed size significantly (including expanding the virtual disk), I resolved this by deleting one hour’s worth of  events at a time. This allowed the smaller transactions to complete and then re-use the space in the transaction log (since the database was set to use the Simple Recovery Model per VMware suggestions). [more]

Windows has a command line tool fsutil which performs file system related tasks.  You must be an administrator on the local machine to use it.  There are a couple of commands that could speed up disk access.

By default, every time a file is accessed, even read, the last access date is updated.  This can be disabled.

fsutil behavior query DisableLastAccess
fsutil behavior set   DisableLastAccess 1

Every file created with a “long” file name, an 8.3 name is created and stored.  This can be disabled. [more]

fsutil 8dot3name query
fsutil 8dot3name scan /s c:
(check log file for registry entries for applications that might break)
fsutil 8dot3name set c: 1

Help text is available by just entering fsutil.  More complete documentation at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753059(v=ws.10).

There are various chargers for the iPad, iPhone and iPod. They will ALL work, but chosing the wrong charger will result in extended re-charge times.  The iPad should use a 10W power brick, the iPhone and iPod a 5W power brick. Unfortunately, some of the power bricks that look identical are 5W and some are 10W.  You can read the wattage on the 10W power bricks right on the unit, but the information is light grey on white and hard to read. It will NOT damage any device by using the wrong wattage power recharger, but it will be slower if the recharger does not output the correct wattage( e.g. 10W for iPad, 5W for iPhone and iPod).

Remember that the USB port on a computer typically puts out 2.5 watts. [more]

See the complete analysis at:  http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/watt_to_know_about_iphone_ipad_power_adapters/

One of our Tandem Software users was having difficulty downloading a risk assessment document.  The download would start, run for a while, and then error out.  The user was able to download other documents in our software and we were aware of no other users experiencing this same problem.  The problematic document does take a little longer than other documents to download, but not much and the user has been able to download this document in the past.  After some troubleshooting on the user’s computer we could see the download GET request being initiated, but it was aborting before any results were returned. 

Internet explorer doesn’t expose a timeout setting through the Internet Options.  However, there is a registry key that can be set to control the timeout.  I checked my system and this registry key was not set.  When I checked the user’s registry, the key did exist and it was set to a relatively low value.  The user did not recall setting the value and since the only way I’m aware of changing it is through the registry we’re not sure how it was changed.  Increasing the value in the registry key fixed the problem.

Here are the steps to add/change the timeout registry key: [more]

1. Start Registry Editor
2. Locate the following subkey: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings
3. If a DWORD entry does not exist named “ReceiveTimeout” then create one.
4. Set the “ReceiveTimeout” value to a number of milliseconds.
5. Restart the computer