Daily IT Matters [DIM]

Microsoft released their Baseline Security Analyzer tool version 2.1. This tools can scan your own pc or another pc remotely for misconfiguration, updates and things like weak passwords.   For a serious sysadmin this tool is invaluable.

TITLE: Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express ------------------------------ Restore failed for Server 'SERVER\SQLEXPRESS'. (Microsoft.SqlServer.Express.Smo) For help, click: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?ProdName=Microsoft+SQL+Server&ProdVer=9.00.3042.00&EvtSrc=Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.ExceptionTemplates.FailedOperationExceptionText&EvtID=Restore+Server&LinkId=20476 ------------------------------ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: System.Data.SqlClient.SqlError: The backup set holds a backup of a database other than the existing 'DEVELOP' database. (Microsoft.SqlServer.Express.Smo) For help, click: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?ProdName=Microsoft+SQL+Server&ProdVer=9.00.3042.00&LinkId=20476 ------------------------------ BUTTONS: OK ------------------------------ I had the above message when I tried to restore a backup. The solution is simple. In the options pane, just select overwrite the existing database thats it.

When you have a vista pc with office 2007 in a domain you will encounter the following bug when you try to create a new user profile. Outlook Crashed and needs to close (The fault is in the wwlib.dll)   You can simply resolve this by opening word 2007 and acknowledge the first screen after you have done this Outlook 2007 will run happily. I really have no idea why this is this is happening with normal users and even domain administrator (I did just a test for it I do not use it)

When you export items with exmerge to an pst file and you try to limit the mail items by setting the date, items from dumpster will always be exported. Thats my rant of today.

Well this one is really simple. On your windows 2003 server go to DNS right click the server go to your forwarders and add the opendns dns servers. Also go to your root hints tab and remove those. (did you ever check if the default root hints are still valid nah I know, if you use em you should also update them) Now for all your outgoing lookups the windows server queries the opendns servers. Why is this safe? Block the bad sites and whitelist the good. Phishing Protection We operate PhishTank.com, the world's most trusted source of phishing data. We integrate that data into an intelligence feed on our DNS servers to keep everyone on your network safe from phony sites trying to steal personal information. Domain Blocking You want to secure your network and have control over what resolves. We give you that control by providing the tools to block any website or DNS zone on the Internet, all through an easy-to-use interface. ...

Ok this is really a significant improvement!!! I really love the pre-boot authentication. download links below New features: Ability to encrypt a system partition/drive (i.e. a partition/drive where Windows is installed) with pre-boot authentication (anyone who wants to gain access and use the system, read and write files, etc., needs to enter the correct password each time before the system starts). For more information, see the chapter System Encryption in the documentation . (Windows Vista/XP/2003) Pipelined operations increasing read/write speed by up to 100% (Windows) Mac OS X version Graphical user interface for the Linux version of TrueCrypt XTS mode of operation, which was designed by Phillip Rogaway in 2003 and which was recently approved as the IEEE 1619 standard for cryptographic protection of data on block-oriented storage devices. XTS is faster and more secure than LRW mode (for more information on XTS mode, see th...

We had this problem this morning suddenly the printer was buggy. Trying to edit the printer properties resulted in an Explorer.exe message somthing like this: C:\Winnt\Explorer.exe error. Function address 0x4f4c49f9 caused a protection fault. (exception code 0x0000005) Some or all property page(s) may not be displayed And I saw this in the application eventlog. An unhandled win32 exception occurred in spoolsv.exe [1084]. Luckily the spooler did still work for other printers connected than the HP one. I suspected a driver corruption and installed the drivers for the HP 2300n from the HP site. That did not help still the same message but I got into the printer properties and got to the driver properties. I then installed the old drivers we had backupped. But again at no avail. After searching the net I installed the HP Universal Print Driver [UPD]. http://h20338.www2.hp.com/Hpsub/cache/342988-0-0-225-121.html   This solved the problem. ...

  I created this image in Paint.NET I hope you like it. If you want to use it on your website please link back to me. www.noirextreme.com/earth this where I got the source from. and to NASA as they are the owners of the imagery.

This is because your system is probably to busy. I see this message when I create an ASR Backup of that system. You can safely ignore this message (If you know why your system is busy that is)

Well this is something what is easy to know. But I still have to get used to 2007 so I write this down.   To save excel 2007 sheets in old 2003 format Go to the big button. Go to Word Options.   Now in the dropdown select Word 97-2003 Document (*.doc)

I've been looking for a quater to find the email headers or internet headers as microsoft calls them. The option is tucked away nicely. First thing you have to do is to double click on the message to open it in a new window. Then click in the lower right op the options ribbon.     I hope this saves you some time.

Job ended: dinsdag 15 januari 2008 at 0:35:07 Completed status: Failed Final error: 0xe00084c7 - The media is bad. Final error category: Backup Media Errors For additional information regarding this error refer to link V-79-57344-33991   Storage device "HP 1" reported an error on a request to read data from media. Error reported: Data error (cyclic redundancy check). This could be caused by either a dirty tape drive, bad media, or a SCSI problem. V-79-57344-33991 - The media is bad. The above message I got 2 consequitve times from backup exec. I used a cleaning tape to clean the heads. I used Quantum Software to verify my backupunit (HP VS80) and all was ok. But I still received the same error message.   Document ID: 192130 http://support.veritas.com/docs/192130 The error message "Bad Data" is reported by Backup Exec during backup or verify operations. Exact Error Message Backup Exec reported an error on a request to (read/write) data (to/from) sto...

I was seeing the below eventid in my windows application eventlog. --------------------------------------------------------- Event Type:    Error Event Source:    Userenv Event Category:    None Event ID:    1055 Date:        09-01-2008 Time:        10:46:36 User:        domain\user Computer:    TerminalServer_0001 Description: Windows cannot determine the computer name. (Access is denied. ). Group Policy processing aborted. For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp . ----------------------------------------------------------   This can easily be solved by creating a new profile for that particular user. That is it nothing more nothing less. We were using Terminal Server Profiles.

  This little program is a must have for everybody who manages devices with config files. Winmerge lets you compare side-by-side 2 files or even folders. Just use it to be amazed.   Download Winmerge Here

I use this quite alot when you create users in a site and you want a quick replication between another site. This is mostly the case when a manger tells you that a new employee has started to work as of today and that users wants to login now. go to Start , select Programs , select Administrative Tools , and then click Active Directory Sites and Services . Expand the Sites container in the left pane. Expand the container that represents the name of the site containing the target server that needs to be synchronized with its replication partners. Expand the Servers container, and then expand the target server to display the NTDS Settings object. This is the crucial step select the target. Click the NTDS Settings object. The connection objects in the right pane represent the target server's direct replication partners. Right-click a connection object in the right pane, and then click Replicate Now . Windows 2000 initiates replication of any changes fro...

I've got a quite substantial "extra" income with my Google Adsense ads on my blog. And I wll try to share the wealth with you, no I will not give you money I will post the most crucial tips into getting that extra bit of money every month. Write about something you know about don't just post keywords in a blog entry that will not help. Find a niche !  In what are you good at ? What do you do that makes you special ? Create channels to show relevant ADS for your blog / or do precisely the opposite. Post regular (bi-weekly seems best for me) Create a quite a few blogs where you apply all the above. Do not copy whole articles from other bloggers/sites google can/and will give you a penalty. Generate Traffic, signup by either feedburner / payperpost     There are quite a few more tricks you can use and I will write about them in the near future, so stay tuned.

If you followed my last posts about logmein you know that I ran into trouble, with going to fullscreen mode in internet explorer 7. Those problems seems to be resolved in the newest download of logmein.   download the latest version of logmein here     Above you can see a screenshot of a remote session I did. Tags van Technorati: logmein , free , update

The end is near (of 2007 that is) so its time for those lists again. Today I post my top 5 of the best freeware,crippleware,adware and opensource software I have used in 2007. To start off with this list I must first define a definition of freeware, freeware in my eyes is software that you can use freely. In that light also crippleware is included in my list. And so if opensource. This year has been quite a year for freeware. Just take a look at the amounts of money spiceworks and for example crossloop gathered through investors. see the pressreleases here for the spiceworks pressrelease and here for the crossloop press release. It seems that the industry is picking up those marbles out there. SpiceWorks Desktop Logmein Free Edition Comodo Personal Firewall Pro Nessus Security Scanner Prtg Traffic Grapher 1. Spiceworks Desktop This is for me a really handy application, it saves me time everyday I use it. It keeps tracks of all events i...

Today or Yesterday my favorite network management software went out of beta. I was using the beta version of 2.0 quite a while now, and didn't had any problem running it. So I followed the instructions to upgrade to the final release and all went smooth! If you are managing a network / computers this tool is really invaluable!

After my last rant about Backup Exec I'm here to unleash another one. You can't simply restore a file to a dfsroot! You will have to manually stop the DFS service first before you try to restore something in the dfsroot.   I hope BackupExec will try to resolve this issue right now!     Technorati tags: BackupExec 10d , Restore , DFS , DFSroot , net stop dfsroot.