Restart Windows XP Print Spooler service

Sometimes you may find it helpful or necessary to restart the print spooler on your Windows XP computer. This can happen if you're having issues with a printer, or if a job gets stuck in the queue and you can't delete it. To restart the print spooler:

1. Right-click the My Computer icon and select to Manage

2. Go to Services and Applications->Services

3. Within Services, scroll down until you get to Print Spooler

4. Right-click on Print Spooler and choose to stop or restart

Be aware that if you stop the service without starting it afterward, your computer will not be able to print until you either start the print spooler or restart your computer.

Networked HP 1022n printer not printing

I have a user with an older HP 1022n laserjet printer at her desk, and all of a sudden today it stopped working. I found the jobs stuck in the printer queue on our Windows Server 2003 print server, but couldn't get rid of them. Restarting the spooler didn't seem to help either. However, I found an article on experts-exchange.com (membership required) with a solution, and it apparently works for some other HP Laserjet printers that experience the same type of problem. On the printer server, you have to modify two settings for the printer:

1. Log on to your print server, open your Printers, then right-click your HP printer and choose Properties

2. Go to the Ports tab and uncheck the box labeled "Bidirectional Support"

3. Go to the Advanced tab and change the setting for spooling to "Start printing after last page is spooled"

4. Click Apply and OK

5. Restart the print spooler service

I spent quite a while trying to diagnose the issue and come up with a solution because I thought it was related to a recent driver update on the print server. While it likely was related to that update, I would've never thought it to be a problem with the default driver settings. Hopefully this saves you some time if you come across the same type of situation.

McAfee ePO 4.0 won't update repository or allow manual package check-in

I was running into an issue with our ePO 4.0 server, where it wasn't updating the master repository like it should, and if I tried to manually check-in a package I would get an error that said "Unknown failure processing package". Trying to manually pull updates would also give a -1 error and say nothing was found. This turned out to be caused by the SQL Server install and the ePO server instance trying to communicate on different ports, which is fairly easy to fix and is documented in the McAfee knowledgebase under KB51620.

Instructions are for SQL 2005. If you're using a different version, check KB51620 for other instructions.

1. Identify which port SQL Server is using. To do this, go to Start->All Programs->Microsoft SQL Server 2005->Configuration Tools->SQL Server Configuration Manager

2. Go to SQL Server 2005 Network Configuration->Protocols for mySQLServer->TCP/IP

3. Right-click TCP/IP and choose Properties

4. Go to the IP Addresses tab, then scroll to the bottom where it says IPAll. Make note of the value in the TCP Dynamic Ports box, as this needs to match what your ePO server is set to use.

5. Close the SQL Configuration tool

6. Login to your ePO server

7. Change the URL to https://locahost:8443/core/config in order to access the ePO 4.0 Database Configuration Page

8. Scroll down to the Database Server Port. This value should match what your SQL Server had in the TCP Dynamic Ports box. If not, change it here so it matches your SQL Server and click Save at the bottom.

9. Close your browser

10. Now you have to restart your ePO services. To do this, right-click on My Computer and select Manage

11. Go to Services and Applications->Services

12. Stop the following services in this order: McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator 4.0.0 Server, McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator 4.0.0 Event Parser, McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator 4.0.0 Application Server

13. Start the services in the reverse order, so: McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator 4.0.0 Application Server, McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator 4.0.0 Event Parser, McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator 4.0.0 Server

14. Close the Services window

The KB article notes that doing this may lead to the Event Parser and Tomcat services to have high CPU utilization for a while until it catches up with processing, but then it will go back to normal. This is ok and you should let them finish.

After doing this you should be able to update your Master Repository, run a Pull Now, and also manually check-in packages.

Shared folders on iSCSI drive disappear after restart

I was finally given approval to purchase an iSCSI SAN a few months ago and have been enjoying the benefits of having a large amount of storage space with a RAID6 disk array. However, one problem I had with the iSCSI disk is that if I shared a folder in Windows Server 2003 from any of the logical iSCSI drives on the computer, after a restart the share would disappear and I would have to recreate it. Any shares from the hard drives of the server were fine, it was just affecting shares from the iSCSI disks. The problem is that the iSCSI software doesn't always start running before the Server service does, and since the Server service can't see the iSCSI drives, it doesn't share the folders. Luckily, MS KB870964 gives you the answer to fix this problem.

1. First, make the Server service independent of the iSCSI initiatior. To do this, use the command: sc config LanManServer depend= MSiSCSI

And yes, there is a space after the = and that is supposed to be there

2. Configure persistent logons to the iSCSI disk. To do this, open iSCSI initiator and go to the Persistent Targets tab. If your iSCSI disk is already listed there, then skip this step. If not, go to the Available Targets tab, select your disk from the list, and click on Log On. Check the box named "Automatically restore this connection when the system boots" and click OK.

3. Set the BindPersistentVolumes option for the iSCSI Initiator service. To do this, open iSCSI Initiator, go to the Bound Volumes/Devices tab, then click on Bind All. This should make your iSCSI disks available to the system before it attempts to load the iSCSI service.

There are some alternative methods listed in MS KB870964, so feel free to check that out if the above instructions are not clear or you can't seem to get it to work.

If you're simply looking to find a download location for Microsoft's iSCSI Initator software, you can get that from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=12cb3c1a-15d6-4585-b385-befd1319f825&displaylang=en

Group policy assigned software not being installed

I wanted to setup Office 2007 to be deployed through group policy. However, I could get it to work on the machine I was using to test the policy on, even though the rest of the GPO settings set on that OU were being applied correctly. Well, it turned out that it was the gigabit NIC installed in the laptop (IBM Thinkpad T42). Apparently there are some known issues (that I didn't know about) that are more prevalent on gigabit interfaces which cause the policy processing to timeout. Luckily there's a registry hack to fix it.

1. Open the Registry Editor (Start->Run, then regedit and click OK)

2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE->SOFTWARE->Microsoft->Windows NT->CurrentVersion->Winlogon

3. Add a new DWORD named "GpNetworkStartTimeoutPolicyValue" to the Winlogon folder

4. Change the "GpNetworkStartTimeoutPolicyValue" to decimal and give it a value of 60

5. Close the Registry Editor and restart the computer

What this does is extend the timeout for group policy processing from the default of 30 seconds to 60 seconds. As soon as I did this on my test machine the software installed on the reboot. One way you'll notice this may be needed is if you start seeing event 1054 in you Application event log.

I found the answer on experts-exchange.com, which just links to Microsoft KB 840669

OS X 10.5 Leopard includes better VPN support

We have a simple PPTP VPN setup using a Fortigate firewall, but the Mac OS X 10.4 users had a hard time with it. The problem was that there was no way to set the DNS servers for the PPTP connection within OS X 10.4, so everything had to use IP addresses. It appears that they've fixed this in OS X 10.5 Leopard, and I'm going to guess it is also fixed in Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6). You also do not use the Internet Connect application to configure VPN connections anymore either, but rather the Network section of System Preferences. For a nice guide on where to find this, and how to setup the VPN connection in OS X 10.5, check out this page over at www.publicvpn.com

Take screenshot of iPhone screen

Sometimes it would be nice to take a quick screenshot of my iPhone screen to be able to use to show someone something. Little did I know that Apple thought of that and it's really easy to do. All you have to do is press the home and power buttons quickly at the same time. The screen should flash as if you had just taken a picture, and then you can find the screenshot within your pictures on the phone. From there you can hook the phone to a computer and get your picture files. This also works as a free way to export andget your text messages off your phone into a printable format, rather than having to buy any software to do it.

This is found right in the manual, on page 80.

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/iPhone_User_Guide.pdf

Restore iPhone with error 13 or 1611 in iTunes

I had a user who accidentally unplugged their iPhone 3G while it was in the middle of updating. It appeared to render the phone useless, and trying to restore it didn't work. I even tried using recovery mode but that didn't help either. iTunes would get to a point where it would say "Preparing iPhone for Restore", then fail with error 13 or error 1611. Needless to say I called Apple iPhone support and they said it was a hardware issue that required me to send it in. However, while I was waiting for the Apple support person to finish writing up my case, I found the answer to fix it without the need to pay or send it away. It's called DFU mode, which is a step beyond Recovery mode. It boots the phone, but doesn't allow the OS to load, which then is supposed to allow you to downgrade, upgrade, or restore the phone. Thanks iHackintosh.com!

To enter DFU mode:

1. Connect your iPhone to your computer

2 . Turn iPhone off. You may have to hold the power and home buttons down together to force the phone off

3. Once the phone is off, hold the power and home buttons together for 10 seconds exactly

4. After 10 seconds, release the power button but keep holding home until the computer recognizes that a USB device was plugged in

5. iTunes should detect your iPhone correctly, and also allow you to restore to the factory default settings

Note that the screen should be black, even though the phone is on and recognized by the computer. If the Restore Logo is present on the phone's screen (it's the iTunes logo, CD with musical notes, and the picture of the cord), you are in Recovery Mode. If this is the case, shut the phone off and start over at step #3.

Weird iPhone issue when trying to sync with Exchange

Ok, so first off I solved the issue I was seeing, but I have to post it anyway because I spent much too long figuring it out. Secondly, if you're having an error about encryption and you recently upgraded to the iPhone 3.1 OS, this isn't that problem. However, you can find the Apple discussion about that issue at:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2151382&tstart=0

The problem I had may be a problem with the iPhone, or it might be an Exchange issue. I honestly don't know, which is another reason I decided to post this. Ok, here goes

I received a new iPhone 3G a few days ago. I already support about a dozen or so iPhone users using Exchange email and have had no complaints. However, I finally ran into something that wasn't normal. We have a single Exchange 2003 server hosting email for a few different domain names. For this to make sense, lets say those domains are email1.com and email2.com. The server itself is in the DNS as exchange.email1.com, which is manually set in the ActiveSync configuration when it asks for the server name. I have successfully setup email for users in both email1.com and email2.com with no problems. Now is where the weirdness begins...

We have a proprietary application that requires users to have no more than 8 characters in their username, but we standardize on using the entire last name in the email address. For an example, let's say we have two employees named John and Tom Anderson. John works the email1.com company and Tom works for the email2.com company. This means their usernames would be janderso and tanderso, but their default email addresses would be janderson@email1.com and tanderson@email2.com. The problem I have found is that this is fine for janderson@email1.com and ActiveSync on the iPhone works correctly. However, tanderson@email2.com has no such luck and the account will verify but will not sync. This is true with SSL turned on or off. On occassion it will work, but eventually it will fail and anything synchronized to the phone will mysteriously disappear and then the phone begins giving errors connecting.

Now what I found will fix this problem is matching the username to the email address. In my case, I was able to change the logon for this particular user since they didn't need access to the proprietary application. Changing the username from tanderso to tanderson, then leaving the email as tanderson@email2.com and reconfiguring ActiveSync on the iPhone worked. This was not required for users with an email address of user@domain1.com who are able to have differing usernames and email addresses without any issue.

I first ran into this with an iPhone with a 3.1 OS installed, but have since been able to test it on the 3.0.1 OS and it failed there as well. Like I said, this may be a problem with the iPhone software or my Exchange server, but since I don't know which it is hopefully if it is an iPhone problem this will save you the time of trying to figure out what is going on.

Select preferred DNS or WINS network interface in Windows Server

I recently installed a second NIC card in one of the Windows 2003 servers that I manage. After installation everything appeared to be working correctly, but I noticed that the server was registering the new NIC's IP address in the DNS and WINS consoles. DNS selects to use all available interfaces by default, which I was aware of, so I right-clicked on the server within the DNS console, went to Properties, then removed the new NIC's IP address and selected "Only the following IP addresses" on the Interfaces tab. However, that didn't fix the WINS problem, and I couldn't find any settings within the WINS console for determining which interface should be the primary. After thinking about it for a little while I finally realized what was happening. When you install new NIC cards, they're added to the network services priority list in the order of installation. Since I installed this NIC after the primary NIC, it was made to be the primary by the default system action. All I had to do was change the network services priority list.

1. Open Control Panel->Network Connections

2. Go to Advanced->Advanced Settings...

3. Here you'll find all your connection objects in the Connections section, listed in the priority they're used in. Rearrange them to be in the order you want, with the highest priority connection at the top of the window

4. Click OK

This will make the highest priority connection you set be the first place network services look when trying to use a connection. Sure enough, my newly installed NIC had top priority, so moving it down the list took care of the issue. Connectivity and everything else seemed to be working fine, but it is best to make sure you have the priorities set correctly so the system isn't wasting time trying to use other connections.