The Experience Blog

Most problems with Windows Update can be solved by the simply renaming the folder SoftwareDistribution from the Windows directory. To be able to do so you are required to stop the service Automatic Updates (if you’re on Windows XP or Server 2003 or earlier) or the Windows Update service if you are on Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 and later.

The SoftwareDistribution folder is automatically recreated when you start the service again. Bear in mind that you will lose the update history when performing this trick, something you can get back of course if you change the name of the SoftwareDistribution folder instead of just deleting it.

Also keep in mind that deleting the SoftwareDistribution folder is for fixing problems with searching for updates or contacting a WSUS server for instance, you will not solve problems installing various hotfixes or updates using this method. To troubleshoot problems related to Windows Update or Automatic Updates look in the WindowsUpdate.log located in the root of thew Windows directory for clues. For problametic hotfix installations see the hotfix log file.

I’m extremely glad to have received the email from Microsoft which states that I have been awarded the MVP Award in the area of Windows Desktop Experience. Many years of hard work and dedication to the community has payed off :) Thanks to everyone that has supported me, especially I would like to thank my wife who has stood out with me and my computers for all these years. I will most certainly continue to contribute to the community in many ways. Stay tuned!

I would also like to congratulate fellow Swedes that received the reward for the first time as well as those that got it renewed: http://gerver.blogspot.com/2009/07/new-mvps-announced-july-2009.html

As i wrote in the beginning of May I took the “70-680 Windows 7, Configuring” exam and today I saw the score. It came back positive! :)

A few months ago I did some troubleshooting on Remote Web Workplace in Small Business Server 2008. The problem was with users being able to login to the RWW portal but when they tried to authenticate to their computer or Terminal Server via the Remote Web Workplace they just couldn’t login to the machines.

The simple solution to this problem was to activate Windows Authentication on the RPC virtual site of SBS Applications in the Internet Information Services Manager console.

The reason I am writing this is that some time ago I helped another user which experiences the same problem and if you ever encounter it you now know what to do to solve it.

The number of group policy settings that you can use to fine tune your client and server computers are constantly growing. The more settings there are the harder it is to find them. Therefore the option “All settings” in the Group Policy Manager in Windows Vista SP1 and later and Windows 7 is a pleasure. But the best part is that you can filter out and only show polices related to exactly what you are looking for, example only settings that contain “DNS” to see settings only related to DNS.

Start gpedit.msc or the full Group Policy manager which is a part of Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows Vista and Windows 7 and go to Computer Configuration > (Policies >) Administrative templates and click “All settings”. Right click anywhere in the right pane to filter out only settings that you are interested in.

As Windows 7 RTM is closing in really fast the Microsoft Remote Desktop Services team (formerly Terminal Services team) has announced that there are some last minute changes to the RDP protocol and that some code that was in the Windows 7 pre-RTM build is left out from the RTM code. Specifically this is related to DirectX 10.1 applications and instead of rendering those apps on the client these are in the Windows 7 RTM builds (and Windows Server 2008 R2) rendered on the host.

Other new features in the Windows 7/Server 2008 R2 RDP protocol such as playing high definition videos in Media Player and it being rendered on the client is still there, along with other optimizations and tweaks are still there to provide a significantly better RDP experience than in previous versions of Windows.

Source: RDS blog, http://blogs.msdn.com/rds/archive/2009/06/19/changes-to-remoting-model-in-rdp-7.aspx

A problem when Windows Vista was released some years ago was the fact that Creative wasn’t too “creative” to create drivers for older Soundblaster cards. This is where the kX Project comes in as it provides drivers for most older Soundblaster audio cards in newer operating systems.

But why on earth do I mention this now that Vista has ben out for a few years? Well the reason is that I’ve heard of users (some of which totally skipped Vista) that are testing Windows 7 on older machines and does not find a driver for their Creative Soundblaster audio card.

If you are looking for a Windows Vista och Windows 7 driver for your Soundblaster range of audio card go to http://www.kxproject.com.

EDIT: URL updated.

So Windows 7 RTM is really close now and Microsoft has just released the new Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 4.0 beta. The new MAP toolkit has some really nice features and besides from doing an inventory of your entire environment to prepare your clients and servers for upgrade to Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 respectively  you can now get an inventory of VMware Server hosts and guests as well as virtualization candidates for Hyper-V Server R2. Download MAP 4.0 beta from Microsoft Connect and see some great reports on if and how the hardware will be able to run Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2.

I just want to share a quick tip about something really smooth that many IT staff seems to be unaware of. Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 introduced the fact that you can install it without entering a product key. This was later introduced in Windows XP (with service pack 3 slipstreamed) and also later Windows Server 2003 R2 media. Nothing about this changes for Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2. So to sum it up you can install all current as well as coming operating systems without entering a product key and you will then have up to 30 days to enter it.

Some time ago I had the unfortunate job to do some manual cleaning of an old and since long disconnected (and not decommissioned) Exchange Server in Active Directory using adsiedit.msc and this is not something one want to do I can promise you. Anyway during the testing phase I had to make sure that certain keys and values in adsiedit.msc were safe to be deleted and to accomplish this I removed all permissions on the keys to make sure that no one could read the information. You might think that restoring the permissions on objects in adsiedit.msc is the same as the management with file and folders but that is not the fact.

Instead use the command DSACLS to control the access control lists of Active Directory objects and run for example the following command to let the group Everyone get full permission on the object “First administrative group”.

DSACLS "CN=First Administrative Group,CN=Administrative groups,CN=CONTOSO,
CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=CONTOSO,DC=LOCAL"
/G Everyone:GA

Beware when working in adsiedit.msc and be very certain about what you are doing before deleting stuff. Sometimes just removing all permissions on objects is the best way because then you can always use the above command to restore permission to the object(s).