Dell XPS M1210 & nvidia 7400 & Games

I just went the hard way with my new laptop.. I wanted to see how it handle games ! I just put the Need For Speed Most Wanted DVD and fire the setup.

When i launch the game, it does nothing...hugh.. I upgraded to 1.3 of NFS, already have the latest drivers & firmware...

Anyway, i just bought "Just cause". Guess what ? It refuses to launch, saying my video card doesn't do pixel shader 1.1 or vertex shader 1.1.

After looking at the 7400's spec, it does the job.

As you may know, official nvidia or ati driver don't work on laptop, you normally must install the manufacturer one.

Thanks to Internet, guys modify the official drivers to work on laptop.

For ATI, look for DHmodtool3

For Nvidia, go to http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/index.php?drivers

Now both games works great. A Dell customer advocate contacted me for another problem (weird noise), i sent him a mail about this issue.

Hard drive failure ? freeze it!

I just read an article about people puttint their dying hard drive into the refrigerator about an hour...Working again enough time to get the data back !

Here is the article (in french): Here

MSDE2000A install error 1603

Everything look fine, the windows installer is stepping forward...until it rollback while it needed only 3 seconds to finish..

MSDE2000A need the server service started to be able to install itself.

I found this information in a chm from Application analyzer for Lotus.

Microsoft Application Analyzer 2006 for Lotus Domino

everything goes fine except when generating the report:

---------------------------
Microsoft Application Analyzer 2006 for Lotus Domino
---------------------------
Error showing the report - Error in File C:\Program Files\Microsoft Application Analyzer 2006 for Lotus Domino\ReportFiles\ExecutiveMainReport.rpt:
Invalid table number.
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------

 

I have looked on the net without result... anyone knows what's going wrong ?

I installed a clean station : XP + SP2 + Last update + MSDE2000A + last DotNet.

Vista RC1 & VmWare : blocking in "loading file"

Do not start crying, just do this trick:

Create you VM

add the following to the vmx:

svga.maxWidth = "640"
svga.maxHeight = "480"

Install Vista

Install VmWare Tools

remove the 2 lines inserted before

enjoy

NLB monitoring

One subject I am working at the moment is: How to monitor NLB Cluster ? How to automatically remove any member still alive but with the application clustered down ?

I have two applications about to be NLB cluster:

-ISA 2004 as reverse proxy

-IIS 6.0

 

ISA 2004 enterprise can work in NLB integrated mode: If ISA is in bad mood, it remove itself from NLB. NLB is not aware of ISA, but ISA is aware of NLB. That's better than nothing !

Old fashion way was to use cluster sentinel, that came with the Windows 2000 resource kit.

The actual way would be to monitor through MOM, which have packages for both IIS and NLB, and can trigger action on event.

My vmware is burning, i will try out MOM 2005 :)

printer & default user & changed profile location

we had an issue in our citrix environnment:

-All new users didn't have their default printer mapped, and could not set one. They have roaming profile but they forced to use local profile for performance.

-Another main trouble : their registry was missing critical key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows

We are using Citrix policies and a lot of GPO to tail down the environnement (no client drive, no desktop, windows task locked, windows keyboard shortcut disabled, no to everything...).

We finally found out: The "default user" profile was still in the original Documents and settings, while all users profiles were stored on another folder. Moving the "Default User" to the same directory made everything back !

I know, it sound obvious this way, but reality is different...

CA eTrust kill lsass.exe

eTrust bug is currently hitting windows server. This antivirus things taht lsass.exe contains the Win32/Lassrv.B virus. Then it kill lsass.exe.

check it out

RSS Feeds by feedburner

If anyone is interested in RSS Feeds for my Blog, just hit the orange button.. :)

redirection folder uncovered

Before starting : I am not spealing about My Documents 's redirection.

Redirection folder may seems a great solution to US. Logon/logoff is fast, but data remains on the server, which means protected.

As we have been using redirection of both Application data, desktop and start menu, i would like to explain the downside which made us going back to standard roaming profile.

We encountered 4 main troubles:

1/When the file server is not available, users feel it immediately:

Redirection:Desktop

consequence:all files on the desktop disappear

Redirection:Application Data

consequence:softwares using it don't work anymore. Quick Launch icons disappear

Redirection:Start Menu

consequence:all shortcuts disappear

2/A lot of software use relative path, which doesn't work with application data

With redirection folder, the local profile doesn't have an application folder. Many software, once in the user profile, issue a nice "cd ..\Application data", which fails.

3/Even clustered, when doing a failover, users feel it

Same consequences as 1/. They have to issue a refresh to get the desktop back

4/ redirection & Internet Explorer maintenance issue

Having both IE maintenance (proxy settings) and redirection was an issue. Even if splitted into 2 GPO. We had to apply an hotfix for Windows XP SP1 and SP2.

For now, we just have roaming profile and My documents redirection + offline.

Hope it helps,

MS NLB and crossover = bad trip

For those that are installing MS NLB, do not think about a private network !

To the contrary of MSCS cluster, you mustn't have a cross over or isolated network:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;242248

vbscript: dumping printer published in AD

If like us, you have a cluster as printer server, you have noticed that you can't dump printer info from wmi. This is referenced at Microsoft.

Else, you can dump them if they are published in Active Directory.

The following script works great on a W2K3 AD (with a W2K3 cluster):

Const ADS_SCOPE_SUBTREE = 2
Set objConnection = CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
Set objCommand = CreateObject("ADODB.Command")
objConnection.Provider = "ADsDSOObject"
objConnection.Open "Active Directory Provider"
Set objCommand.ActiveConnection = objConnection
objCommand.CommandText = "Select printerName, serverName from " _
& " 'LDAP://DC=mydomain,DC=com' where objectClass='printQueue'"
objCommand.Properties("Page Size") = 1000
objCommand.Properties("Timeout") = 30
objCommand.Properties("Searchscope") = ADS_SCOPE_SUBTREE
objCommand.Properties("Cache Results") = False
Set objRecordSet = objCommand.Execute
objRecordSet.MoveFirst
Do Until objRecordSet.EOF
Wscript.Echo "Printer Name: " & objRecordSet.Fields("printerName").Value
Wscript.Echo "Server Name: " & objRecordSet.Fields("serverName").Value
objRecordSet.MoveNext
Loop

Sending mail through vbscript natively

For those who want to send mail direclty from a vbscript, but without any third damn thing, here is a great function:

 

Sub SendMail
Set objEmail = CreateObject("CDO.Message")
objEmail.From = me@me.com
objEmail.To = "you@you.com"
objEmail.Subject = "this is my subject"
objEmail.Textbody = "this is my body"
objEmail.Configuration.Fields.Item _
("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendusing") = 2
objEmail.Configuration.Fields.Item _
("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserver") = "mail.mydomain.com"
objEmail.Configuration.Fields.Item _
("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserverport") = 25
objEmail.Configuration.Fields.Update
objEmail.Send
Set objEmail = Nothing
End Sub

tested on XP, 2000, 2003, without Outlook installed, and without any  access to internet

Force WSUS client update

here is what you would put in a script to force immediate WSUS checkup by client:
--------
net stop wuauserv

REG DELETE "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update" /v LastWaitTimeout /f

REG DELETE "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update" /v DetectionStartTime /f

Reg Delete "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update" /v NextDetectionTime /f

net start wuauserv
-----------
A more lightweight command:
wuauclt /detectnow

TSE License headache ? take a pill!

If TSE License is pain for you, read this!
The grace mode is 90 Days. So you may not notice that you are in the grace mode...until the next 91 Days!.
TS Server may auto locate the license server, but you can set it manually; see KB 239107.
The big road:
KLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TermService\Parameters

Add the following value:
Name: DefaultLicenseServer
Data type: REG_SZ
Data value: ServerName

To make a workstation working again immediately, you can reset it's token. Upon the next connection, the station will generate a new token that will be in grace mode for 90 days.
The key to delete:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSLicensing

If you are on a per user mode, TSE doesn't count users. So it's just a declarative status.

VBScript : add folder to outlook

I just answered to a request on a mailing list. It looks simple to add a folder to the inbox, but I needed some time before getting it right..

On Error Resume Next

set olApp = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")
set inbox = olApp.GetNamespace("MAPI").getDefaultFolder(6)
set temp5 = inbox.folders.add("Added by vbscript",6)

6 is for the inbox

chkdsk VS O&O Defrag : who is right ?

I am a bit perplexed today..

When doing a chkdsk in read-only on our cluster filer, no error.

Now If i do a "check of error" through O&O, it complain that the FileSystem is damaged...

I contacted O&O support,it's not possible to get more details about which error it find. It just complain.

I Contacted PSS to ask about hidden read-only option, but they don't seems to have.

O&O Support says they do a deeper check.

Well, i fired up O&O without error checking, that should not be serious error since chkdsk find nothing.

I wouldn't notice much normally, except we just had a big issue with security descriptor last week, which we noticed thanks to O&O error checking !

Life is too bad!

my first news with Windows Live

If you can read tis, it should work!

CHKDSK / SD : Resolved

hello all,

We worked this saturday to resolve our security descriptor issue.
What we did:
-Backup via backup software
-Snapshot on the san (two better than one!)
-We tagged the cluster partition to dirty with fsutil
-Moved the group to the other cluster node
-Since the disk is dirty, the other node fired up chkdsk in correct mode
-Then we started the MS CorrectSD tool... Well, they do not support it...And it didn't work for us. The tool reported many errors (Skipping SD, fails to change SD).
We stoppped it before the end, since the filed known to be corrected were weird. We could open them (i mean we had access), but the security tab was completely empty (even no system).

We decided to use the FilesMapping text files created by correctSD to restore impacted folders. 80% of the problems where in a single root folder (the roaming profile one).

Guess what ? restoring with the backup software didn't correct the security tab..We decided to remove all impacted folder and then restore. That Worked !

To conclude, interesting things:
-While chkdsk reported Security descriptors errors, it didn't change anything (read only). Our backup software could correctly save the data with the associated good Security descriptors.
Only After the chkdsk in correct mode, all SD were broken.
-We fired up a chkdsk in read only after all, the bug is gone.

Maybe we didn't use correctly the correctSD tool. At least, this tool is great, it read a chkdsk dump file which contains only FilesID (numbers), and then it give you the mapping between the numbers and the file name and path. So you know which files are in troubles.

My new laptop is here !

turn the order on "urgent mode" is really efficient at Dell. At the beginning I should got it by the 19 of September.
Thanks to the urgent flag, i got it 5 days after the order :)

Guess what ? the XPS M1210 is really great! I have never seen wmare running this fast on a laptop ! going from standby to resume is instant !

This laptop seems to have the Intel VT capacity. My vmware doesn't seem put the
monitor_control.vt32 = "TRUE" .
I will try to set it manually..

and now the downsides:
-The webcam doesn't record video in resolution higher than 640x480 (photos works in 1,3M)
-I hear a noisy sound while on the AC. I will open a call to dell about it.