Install Windows XP in a VMWare ESXi environment, no hard disks found error

If you attempt to install Windows XP in an VMWare ESXi environment (at least v3.0-3.5), don't be surprised if you get an error about no hard disks available. This is because you need to manually install SCSI drivers for the VMWare disks. Luckily VMWare provides a floppy image for this purpose and it's free to download. Simply mount the image as a virtual floppy, then press F6 when the Windows install screen tells you to "Press F6 if you need to install third-party SCSI drivers" at the beginning of the install. Press S when prompted to specify the drivers and you should see VMWare SCSI driver as the only option. Press Enter and then proceed with the install.

Here's a link to the VMWare knowledge base document addressing this issue: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1006956

You can download the floppy image of the drivers from the link in the KB article linked above, or from this VMWare support page:  http://downloads.vmware.com/d/details/scsi_dt_server_wkst_ace/dCpiQGh3YmRAZQ==

Scripting a file transfer to an FTP server using a non-standard port (not 21)

I ran into an issue last week while trying to automated a file upload to an FTP site using a port other than the default of 21. For some reason I couldn't get it to work. It would continually get stuck at "150 Opening ASCII mode data connection". Checking the logs I was finding a 425 10060 error, which meant that the connection was being dropped. There were ghost files of 0KB being created on the FTP with the name of the file I was trying to upload, but the transfer would never happen. The good news is that I figured out the issue and am now sharing it with you.

It turned out I needed to use passive mode (PASV) for the FTP transfer and that isn't supported in the Windows ftp.exe command line application. In order to accomplish my upload I had to download and install NcFTP, which is a free, command-line client that DOES support PASV mode transfers. Once I did that I had no issue. If you're looking for the command to use with NcFTP to upload a file to an FTP server with a non-standard port, here's an example.

I have a file named test.txt located in C:\myFolder on the machine. I also have NcFTP installed to the default location. My goal is to upload test.txt to an FTP site called ftp.test.com that is using port 35987. I also have to login to the site using username "test" and password "T3ster!". Here's what that would look like using ncftpput.exe to script the upload:

"C:\Program Files\NcFTP\ncftpput.exe" -u test -p T3ster! -P 35987 ftp.test.com / "C:\myFolder\test.txt"

This calls ncftpput.exe, sets the username (-u) to test, the password (-p) to T3ster!, the port (-P) to 35987, specifies the FTP server, specifies the directory on the FTP server to put the file to (I used the root FTP directory, signified with the / symbol), then specifies the path on the local machine to the file I want to upload.

That is just a quick example. There are variations, and you can also do other things with it as well. To see more information, including a link to the complete list of available command line switches for ncftpput.exe and ncftpget.exe, check out the my previous post

Windows command line FTP client that support PASV (passive mode)

If you're trying to write an FTP transfer into a script and require a command line client that support passive mode transfers, you'll need a third-party solution. This is because ftp.exe that is built into Windows does not support passive mode. Luckily, there is a free third-party solution that works pretty well and I'm now using it for some of my scripts. It is NcFTP, and is a Windows adaptation of a Linux application. It has versions for multiple OS's, one of which is Windows. You can download it free from http://ncftp.com/download/, then scroll down to the Download NcFTP Client section and find the Windows download link. If you're wondering, NcFTP also provides an FTP server application at the same download location.

There is an installer involved, which will install ncftp.exe, ncftpput.exe, and ncftpget.exe. Using some switches, you can then use ncftpput.exe and ncftpget.exe to script transfers to and from FTP servers, including those that only support passive mode.

For command line switches and additional documentation, it can be found at http://www.ncftp.com/ncftp/doc/faq.html.

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

Update: 11-19-09

Ran into this again on a Dell Dimension 4550 I was working on. The common denominator appears to be certain older Intel NICs, or at least it has been in all the machines I've had the problem with. Adding the registry key fixed it in this case as well. If you're running into event ID 1054 in your Application event log, try the registry key addition and see if it'll fix your problem. This can also be related to other items within group policy not being applied as well, not just software deployment to computers.

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