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There is a conflict between some network providers and the PGP password filter that handles keeping the domain password synchronized with the boot password.  Specifically, if you have a Symantec SNAC Network Provider, it can cause a password change to break the single sign-on feature.  What you do to fix it is: [more]

Pull up the Provider Order screen via:

Control Panel -> Network and Sharing Center -> Manage network connections -> Advanced (I had to press and release the Alt key to get the Advanced option in the menu – you may or may not have to) -> Advanced Settings -> Provider Order tab.

Once in the Provider Order tab, I saw PGPpwflt was at the bottom of the list and Symantec SNAC Network Provider was at the top of the list.  I moved the Symantec provider to the bottom of the list which left things like:

This fixed the problem.

Note: This is best done before you change your password!

Networking, Security and Compliance, Encryption, PGP,
 

For Vista users you may have found that when you run ipconfig from the command prompt you are given an extremely long list of network interfaces. These are actually all IPv6 tunnels. In order to disable these tunnels there is a registry setting that has to be changed. The registry setting is located at:

HKLM>System>CurrentControlSet>Services>Tcpip6>Parameters

Within the parameters key you have to edit a dword called ‘DisabledComponents’. By setting this value to 1 this will disable your IPv6 tunnels and thus clean up your ipconfig results. Its possible that you may not have ‘DisabledComponents’ under the Parameters key in which case you will have to create one

Networking, Windows Vista,
 

To use BitLocker in Vista, you had to create a separate active drive partition.  When Vista first shipped this had to be created manually, but Microsoft released a BitLocker Drive Preparation Tool later to help with the partitioning.

With Windows 7 this partition is still required but is created automatically when BitLocker is enabled.  However the Drive Preparation Tool is still supported as a command line tool, intended mostly for scripting the BitLocker setup for multiple systems.

More information is available at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd875534%28WS.10%29.aspx

Networking, Windows 7, BitLocker,
 

I was installing Vista from a DVD under VMware and needed to the change the boot order in the BIOS to boot from the optical drive first.  The problem was the BIOS splash screen went by so fast I couldn’t hit the F2 key in time.  I found the solution by adding a line to the VMX file of the VM:

bios.bootDelay = “boot delay in milliseconds”
 
15000 gives you 15 seconds to hit F2.  Alternatively, you can add:
 
bios.forceSetupOnce = "TRUE"
 
to automatically enter the BIOS at the next boot.
Networking, VMware,
 

Prior to deploying Office 2007 enterprise wide at one of our customer sites, we selected a cross-section of users to test various Office applications that were used within the organization. One particular user was complaining of a typing delay when using a particular database application in Access 2007. Since this user was using Access 2007 on a Terminal Server across a WAN link, my initial suspect was a slow  WAN connection. Upon reviewing the user’s setup I discovered that the user was using a thin client to first connect to a production Terminal Server then launching another RDP session to connect to the Office 2007 test Terminal Server, this could cause delays as well. After reconfiguring the user’s thin client to connect directly to the test Terminal Server the user still complained of typing delay. Since the user was located in at a WAN location in the same city as the data center, I had the user come to the data center to test the database application thereby taking any WAN slowness out of the equation. The typing delay still remained though. [more]

After conducting further research on the issue, I discovered an article instructing those who experience Access 2007 performance problems to turn off the Access 2007 Status Bar. (Office Orb -> Access Options -> Advanced -> scroll down under DISPLAY and uncheck “Status Bar”) Thinking that I had nothing to lose I gave it a try and it immediately remedied the problem! Who knew that keeping track of the Caps Lock and Num Lock was so resource intensive! 

Networking, MS Access, Office,
 

If you’ve ever wanted to restore the original Outlook shortcut to the desktop, you’ve probably found that a normal shortcut that points to outlook.exe (the kind with an arrow on the icon) lacks some of the functionality that the original Outlook icon had (for instance the ability to edit your machines “Mail” settings by right clicking and choosing properties). To restore the Outlook original icon to the desktop, edit the registry as outlined in the following KB article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/238567

Networking, Outlook, Outlook 2007, Office,
 

Offline files are still sensitive to long path names.  I had a Word document open (deep in a folder tree and a long file name) and tried to create a PDF for uploading to a customer.  I kept getting errors - sometimes it indicated the file was read-only (which didn't make sense) and sometimes it said I didn't have access.  Ends up if I shortened the file name a little, it would work.

Networking, Windows Vista,
 

Normally, if you want to install Office Communicator Mobile on your phone you have to do so by running an MSI on you PC, then sync your phone to install the application through ActiveSync. If you prefer to just install directly from the .cab file, you can browse to www.getcomo.com (this is a Microsoft website) on your mobile phone, choose your phones OS, then install the .cab directly from the website, no PC or syncing involved!

Networking, ActiveSync, Office Communicator, Office,
 

A CPA client of ours runs a proprietary audit software called ProSystems Engagement that allows auditors to sync their data to each other. The auditors were having trouble syncing the data between their systems. The customer has some older Lenovo (T-42 and T-60/61) laptops and some new Lenovo W700 laptops. Their older laptops could sync with each other and their new laptops could sync to the old laptops. But neither could sync to the new laptops. I worked with the software vendor and ran about every query and test they had trying to pinpoint the cause. But was unable to determine why the new laptops could not be synced too. [more]

Luckily, the customer had order a new W-700 that I needed to setup. So using it as a test I began setting up the laptop as per their checklist. At every stage I tested the sync process. The last thing to be installed was the AT&T Communication management software for their 3G modems. (which they need) After completing the install Prosystems sync would not work. I uninstalled the AT&T software and sync worked. I reinstalled and it broke. I looked through the software settings and found that it installs a ByteMobile Acceleration program. I had previously, on another system, deselect the option to use the acceleration program and it still would not sync. I choose to uninstalled just the ByteMobile software and the sync worked, as well as the AT&T software and 3G modem.

The Bytemobile acceleration client is used to increased data reduction and speed-up the download process. It offers bidirectional optimization for dramatically reduced traffic on the uplink. It intercepts and optimizes all TCP network traffic generated from and received by the device. The software supports protocol-agnostic compression, lossy and lossless image file reduction, and delta compression techniques to ensure that the same data is not downloaded to the client repeatedly. It claims to preserves interoperability with third-party Windows applications such as internet security, personal firewall and VPN software. Client applications such as web browsers and remote applications such as web servers are suppose to be unaware of the application between them and operate as if communicating directly with each other. Since the sync process compare and transfers the same data throughout the process the acceleration client was causing the sync to fail.

Networking, 3G, Lenova, AT&T,
 

I cloned a Windows Desktop XP machine and could not access the machine via RDP.  I found that if I edited the registry with a key AllowDirectRDP=True, then I could RDP to the desktop. After researching the problem, I found that this behavior is “by design” for Virtual Desktop Manager “managed” machines. However, I do not believe the original machine was managed by the VDM, but it could have had roots in such a machine. 

Here is the relevant KB article from VMWare.  http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1006042

Networking, RDP, VMware, Windows XP,