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!

New Remote Desktop Client 7.0 for Windows XP and Vista

Windows 7 already contain RDC version 7.0 but now Microsoft has released the 7.0 client for Windows XP and Windows Vista. Some of the benefits of using the RDC 7.0 connecting from Windows XP or Windows Vista are:

• Windows Media Player Redirection.  This feature lets you play even a HD file on the remote machine without any lag as the video and audio is processed on the local machine.
• True multi monitor support!
• Performance improvements. This is alone a good reason to use the latest RDC 7.0 client.
• Many more new features and improvements, read more at RDS blog.

Note that the above features only work when you connect from Windows XP or Windows Vista with RDC 7.0 to a Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 machine.

 Download and more information at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969084

Add users to local groups on the Windows clients easily

If you want to add domain users or groups to a local group on a Windows client machine automatically, this can be done using group policies. One reason could be to easily put groups or users to the local group Remote Desktop Users to allow them to log on via RDP. To control which users or groups you want to add create a new GPO in the domain and go to Computer configuration > (Policies) > Windows settings > Security settings > Restricted groups.

Once there choose to add a group and in my example find the “Remote Desktop Users” group and after that add the user or group you want to add to the local machines which that particular group policy object applies to. More information about restricted groups can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/?id=810076

Control compatibility settings in IE8 using GPOs

As Internet Explorer 8 render web pages in a new way than previous versions of Internet Explorer there is a good chance that one or more web pages you or your users regularly visit are broken or not displaying properly in IE8. Fortunately there is a compatibility mode in IE8 that makes web pages render as though they were displayed in IE7. This action is normally a manual one and the main problem here is that very few users are aware of this compatibility mode. To alleviate problems for the end users you can control the settings and compatibility list of web sites using group policy objects.

Start the Group Policy manager and go to Computer configuration > Administrative templates > Windows Components > Internet Explorer > Compatibility view and there look for “Use Policy List of Internet Explorer 7 sites”. Add the URLs for the web sites that you want IE 8 to always render in IE7 mode.

Windows XP mode for Windows 7!

So it seams it isn’t a secret anymore that Windoyws 7 will get a feature (separate download) that using the latest Virtual PC technologies will make it possible to run applications in Windows XP directly integreated into the Windows 7  operating system. The feature is almost the same as MED-V which accomplishes basically the same thing, but The “Windows XP mode” has advantages like it is available for anyone running Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise or Ultimate SKUs.

With this Microsoft can guarantee compatilibty in a way no one could ever expect. This also makes the step from Windows XP to Windows 7 much easier and now there cannot be any apps holiding anyone back from upgrading the clients to Windows 7.

More information: Winsupersite