The Experience Blog

Windows 7 domain join problems surface old NT4 problem

Issues joining a Windows 7 machine to a domain, where the domain controller handling the domain join request is having old NT4 rests on it, has surfaced. The problem is related to an old overload workaround when upgrading an NT4 domain to Windows Server 2000 or 2003 domain controllers. The KB article which provide the solution is now published, see KB2008652 for more information on the resolution. Note that the problem also applies to joining Windows Server 2008 R2 servers to the domain.

System Center ConfigMgr, what is up with that?

I haven’t been posting much about System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) but that will change, starting right now. Well System Center ConfigMgr plays a significant role in for instance deployment, management and inventory of Windows clients so it feels natural to extend the posting about SCCM.  I start off with hinting at these two add-ons:

Dashboard manager (beta): Present stats for ConfigMgr with charts, meters and such in a very graphical overview. See status for patch management, depployments and more! Sign up for beta and download at Microsoft Connect.

ACT (Application Compatibility Toolkit) Connector: An updated Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 – Application Compatibility Toolkit Connector has been released. This connector presents ACT information in the ConfigMgr console. Download at Microsoft Download center.

Don’t miss the AppLocker session at TechDays

TechDays is a two-day Swedish conference hosted yearly by Microsoft and partners. I will be there to speak about AppLocker in Windows 7. I will specifically talk about what makes it so great but I will focus on how to implement it and what to think about while doing so. There will be a bunch of other very interesting sessions on the latest Microsoft products so I hope I’ll see you at TechDays in March!

UAC off = IE protected mode off

Just wanted to post a quick reminder that if you turn off UAC (User Account Control) in Windows Vista or Windows 7 you also turn off “Protected mode” in Internet Explorer. Turning off UAC is not recommended but if you do, make sure that you run with a standard user account.

Beware of saved credentials

Saved credentials can be a good thing, but many times they are not. The last couple of weeks I have become involved in a couple of cases where saved credentials in all from Windows XP to Windows 7 have been the cause of strange problems, primarily accessing file servers.

The problems have been with accessing mapped network drives or browsing file servers, with various error messages. Even though Windows 7 sports the “new” credential manager, this feature has been there even in Windows XP. This means that you can add credentials for servers so that you won’t have to provide them when accessing resources on the network.

The cause of the problem is for instance when a user change his or her password and the saved credential become obsolete, causing the user to have serious problems authenticating to the network resources.

The settings for these saved credentials are as follows:

Windows XP: Start “User Accounts” control panel, choose an account and then go to “Manage my network passwords”.
Windows Vista: Start “User Accounts” control panel, choose an account and then go to “Manage your network passwords”.
Windows 7: Search for and start the “Credential Manager” control panel.”

Solve the problems accessing network resources by deleting the saved credentials once and for all!

Move from Windows 7 RC to RTM today!

If you or someone in your organization still are running the release candidate of Windows 7 now is the time to go to RTM. In one month from now all Windows 7 RC machines will start rebooting themselves every second hour. Remember that in-place upgrades from Windows 7 RC to RTM are not supported nor recommended.

HOW TO: List performance issues with your Vista or Windows 7 machine

In Windows Vista and Windows 7 there is one feature that many does not know about that lists performance issues with your system. It can show you for instance if a driver of any kind is making “sleep mode” take longer than expected or software the make your computer start or turn off slow.

You find this more or less hidden feature by starting “Performance Information and Tools”. Then click “Advanced tools” in the left menu and then look under the first section “Performance issues” for possible causes of system performance issue.

Let your users upgrade to Windows 7 automatically

Mikael Nyström, MVP on Windows Setup and Deployment, has written a rather short but very useful guide on how to easily deploy Windows 7 to end users. Read his blog post!

HOW TO: Solve printing problems via RDP #2

Just a quick follow-up on the post on solving printing problems via RDP as I for some not so obvious reason totally forgot about it in the last post. It is very easy to find out which driver a redirected printer actually uses by choosing Properties on the printer and noting what it says under “Model”.

It will state either “Remote Desktop Easy Print” (Terminal Services Easy Print) if you are indeed using the Easy Print printer driver or it will show the real driver name for the printer if it has been mapped with the real driver.

HOW TO: Solve printing problems via RDP #1

RDS Easy Print (previously TS Easy Print) in all its glory but sometimes you may look at problems printing when using the RDS Easy Print driver. Starting with Windows Vista and specifically RDP 6.0 it is possible to connect to remote machines via RDP and automatically get the locally installed printers available in the RDP/TS/RDS session. Previously one had to match the printers drivers with being the exact same on both the local and remote machine. This is done with something called a RDS/TS Easy Print printer driver.

In a few cases I have seen that printing does not work as expected when using the RDS Easy Print printer driver making the printer for example pause, print, pause, print and so on when printing a multiple page document.

The sweet thing here is that with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 comes a new group policy setting that allows us to first try to match the local print driver with a remote (the old fashioned way) before using the RDS Easy Print driver. The setting to activate this is named Use Remote Desktop Easy Print printer driver first and is found in Computer configuration – Administrative templates – Windows Components – Remote Desktop Services – Remote Desktop Session Host – Printer Redirection. Set it to disabled to make use of the “real” print driver first.