Author: Andreas Stenhall

There is an issue with using “previous versions” (shadow copies) in Windows 7 when using it on folders stored on a Small Business Server 2003. The issue is that you cannot get to the previous versions. Read more about the solution at the SBS blog.

I’ve encountered an extremely interesting problem today. A user complained about Word 2007 appearing to hang when opening documents and the smallest document take around 30 seconds to open. This should be instant. First thing to try was to narrow the problem down by moving it locally and trying to open it. The problem remained the same, as did it when trying to open the file on a bunch of other clients.

As the Word documents the user was trying to open was in Word 97-2003 format I tried converting it to Word 2007 format but still the problem remained. Renaming the .docx file to .zip (yes, the new docx is just a bunch of xml files that are zipped :) ) and then opening it showed that in the directory “word/rels” there was a settings.xml file that contained references to a template refering to a retired file server. Removing this settings file and zipping the files back up and renaming it to docx and opening it worked like a charm, it opens instantly.

This made me suspect that Word was trying to locate this server but eventually timing out. After installing Network Monitor and running a trace when trying to open the document everything became clear. When opening the file it is actually trying to locate the file server referenced in the file, and it keeps trying until it times our some 30 seconds later. Searching support.microsoft.com gave a few pointers and there are a number of ways to attack this problem but they are all workarounds and half good solutions:

1. Edit the problematic files manually by doing what is described above. This is too time consuming if there are many files involved.
2. Open all documents, select all and copy and paste the information to a new document, then save it and replace the old one. Also too time consuming if there are many documents.
3. There are scripts that go through Word files and replace the bad information, see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/830561.
4. I found that KB970270 reference this type of problem and by installing the April 30th hotfix package combined with setting a registry value the problem is worked around. This is still not a solution but instead a work around. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/970270 for more information. This workaround also applies to the problem with opening documents, verified it myself.

Documentation from Microsoft regarding the new feature AppLocker in Windows 7 (and Windows Server 2008 R2) early stated that to be able to use AppLocker you must have a “Windows Server 2008 R2 Domain Controller to host the AppLocker rules”. I have seen this information several times since then and at a seminar I payed a quick visit to yesterday regarding Windows 7 this particular questions was raised.

Of course I had to make sure what’s really going on here and I have now verified that AppLocker works perfectly fine in environments where there are only Windows Server 2003 DCs or Windows Server 2008 DCs. I can see no reason what so ever for AppLocker to require a Windows Server 2008 R2 DC to function. The only requirement is that you’re running Windows 7 Enterprise or Windows 7 Ultimate edition to be able to use th powerful feature of AppLocker.

We saw an interesting issue with connecting via Remote Desktop from a Windows client to another machine using Remote Desktop Services in Windows Server 2008 R2. After doing some troubleshooting it turned out to be ESET NOD32 version 4 that caused the extreme slowdown. The work around is to turn off ”HTTPS filtering” in the NOD console.

Microsoft have just released a hotfix for Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 that potentially can reduce CPU power consumption by ten percent for AMD processors, specifically ones supporting the power state C1E. This includes popular CPUs such as AMD Phenom and Athlon range of CPUs.

The hotfix can only be obtained by contacting PSS (Product Support Services) or by requesting it for instant download via the KB article below.

KB974090: An update is available that allows for a potential power saving in an AMD multicore processor that is running an x64-based version of Windows Vista SP2, of Windows Server 2008 SP2, of Windows 7, or of Windows Server 2008 R2

I and Danwei Tran from Microsoft Sweden have done a pod cast about the top ten features of Windows 7, intended for IT pros.  It’s in Swedish and you can find the intro show today and the first episode tomorrow.  Have a look at Danwei’s blog for links to the podcast.

A new tool in Windows Server 2008 R2 that you must not miss is the Active Directory Administrative Center. The tool is far from the speediest to load but once you’ve got it started I promise you that you will find it very convenient to use for account and other Active Directory object management. As with the user interface, new search tools and more in Windows 7 the Active Direcory Administrative Center in Windows Server 2008 R2 makes you do things in fewer steps and eases your daily work!

One fairly common problem with Windows client is slow logons and this kind of problem is one of the most difficult to troubleshoot. Microsoft recently posted a two part guide on how to troubleshoot slow logons. Some really good reading!

Read more: So you have a slow logon…? (Part 1) (Part2)

In case you’ve missed it the second service pack for Windows Server Update Services was released a couple of weeks ago. Among many improvements you will notice official support for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Read more about SP2 for WSUS 3.0 at the official blog.

Starting with Windows Vista the defragmentation utility is scheduled to run on all drives once per week. The defrag is done in the middle of the night but if the machine is not on at that time, the defrag will start after next power on.

Anyway, you can disable, change the schedule or in other ways modify the task centrally by for instance deploying a script file by using GPO:s. The following command line disables the scheduled defrag task from running.

schtasks /change /tn "microsoft\windows\defrag\ScheduledDefrag" /disable