tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85516555202813378582024-03-13T02:28:11.911-07:00Anguel's Techie BlogComputers, IT, Electronics & Technology: Tips, Tricks, Solutions & News.
Website & Software: Reviews & Comments.
Sharing Experience.Anguelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11365435354410704225noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8551655520281337858.post-84749062892899972962019-01-29T07:21:00.003-08:002019-01-29T07:24:14.188-08:00SOLVED: Convert old Equation Editor 3 document to new Office equation format for freeMicrosoft has suddenly disabled Equation Editor 3 in Office for "security reasons" and in order to force you to buy new Office 365 / 2019 they don't even offer a way to convert your equations to the new format. Another option is to buy the expensive MathType. Look here:<br />
<a href="https://support.office.com/en-us/article/editing-equations-created-using-microsoft-equation-editor-08a44b8c-ae15-41a7-bc15-7239890c0cec#ID0EAADAAA=Office_2016,_2013,_or_2010">https://support.office.com/en-us/article/editing-equations-created-using-microsoft-equation-editor-08a44b8c-ae15-41a7-bc15-7239890c0cec#ID0EAADAAA=Office_2016,_2013,_or_2010</a><br />
<br />
This is really really annoying but fortunately I found a way to convert to the new equation editor format <b>for free using the great open source <a href="https://www.libreoffice.org/">LibreOffice</a></b>:<br />
<ol>
<li>Make sure that you have enabled Mathtype conversion in LibreOffice settings</li>
<li>Open your Word document in LibreOffice</li>
<li>Save your document as Microsoft Word .docx</li>
<li>Open the converted document in Word to see that it has been converted</li>
<li>Thank LibreOffice for offering you this great feature for free!!!</li>
<li>"Thank" Microsoft for making your life as hard as possible and think about that when buying their products next time!!!</li>
</ol>
<br />
Hope this helps!<br />
<br />
AnguelAnguelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12684801283689942402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8551655520281337858.post-55906943418940851032018-01-16T06:46:00.002-08:002018-01-17T02:18:12.180-08:00SOLVED: GPO blocks Windows Meltdown / Spectre Update KB4056892Dell was very fast to release BIOS updates (version A21) just a few days after the Meltdown / Spectre disaster became public. So I installed them on all of our Dell 9020 PCs and M4800 notebooks and I thought that everything was fine as I had automatic Windows Updates enabled...<br />
<br />
But then I noticed that the required Windows Meltdown / Spectre Update KB4056892 was not installed for some reason. So I decided to run the Meltdown / Spectre PowerShell test script released by Microsoft and the surprise was that everything showed up in red, i.e. <b>nothing </b>was patched, not even the BIOS!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDse15ZQ-QPmUDMOXvTDzpbcEKzI8xP7gdRsIoksI7huOrkrEd6miS6z-NZ4pxWDhA2sCRWOXCYK1zGSHdP9Qec2sMuyGLdqykXwQQE6mTVr6ZsxuvNnRxnRLw6OnQ_juTMm7eC7-vVS4X/s1600/Powershell_Test_fails.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="947" data-original-width="988" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDse15ZQ-QPmUDMOXvTDzpbcEKzI8xP7gdRsIoksI7huOrkrEd6miS6z-NZ4pxWDhA2sCRWOXCYK1zGSHdP9Qec2sMuyGLdqykXwQQE6mTVr6ZsxuvNnRxnRLw6OnQ_juTMm7eC7-vVS4X/s320/Powershell_Test_fails.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Then I suspected Kaspersky that might be preventing the Windows update from installing because I read about some AV conflicts. But Kaspersky did really fine this time - it had set the registry key allowing the update to install correctly on all computers.<br />
<br />
So what was the problem?<br />
<br />
Microsoft is the problem as usual! I had set some GPO to prevent preview builds and feature updates from installing immediately. This is under "Windows Update for Business":<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1TsncKQyy5wX1_4Q9QOtk5rox0OZfms2Lxp9WLwmqr7P3PqRBZC168YqhlO5zaE4Zxuf7b2egezpUbd01L8hQOS2sztQKrE5ZulbJU_r7ye_4cDHNeJqEVi6qdCso3rd9fMrn5iL3Xf8T/s1600/2018-01-16+15_24_23-Gruppenrichtlinienverwaltungs-Editor.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="191" data-original-width="1249" height="48" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1TsncKQyy5wX1_4Q9QOtk5rox0OZfms2Lxp9WLwmqr7P3PqRBZC168YqhlO5zaE4Zxuf7b2egezpUbd01L8hQOS2sztQKrE5ZulbJU_r7ye_4cDHNeJqEVi6qdCso3rd9fMrn5iL3Xf8T/s320/2018-01-16+15_24_23-Gruppenrichtlinienverwaltungs-Editor.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Windows Update for Business GPO settings</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h4>
<b>The question is: Why does Microsoft regard such a critical security update as a preview build???</b></h4>
But even after setting those GPO settings to be delayed for 0 days it did not work.<br />
<br />
The solution: I finally set all three Windows Update for Business GPO settings to <b>NOT CONFIGURED</b> (don't forget to run gpupdate /force on all PCs to force-apply the group policy) and this finally offered me the missing KB4056892 update. Puuuh!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ5R2FMsr9bQp3QcLP7iiXqHlcjpdc_LR7D1ilZEQ1s28_WoLyHg1Oo7O0enkTAaNLPFLBBQw5CCxqcqcihxl3SwnGouFGEBYyTbZ1-9dZE0-fijx_7TzIx-F-jHx_DX8IOfd5FKkNRTK-/s1600/Windows_Update_found.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="920" data-original-width="1428" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ5R2FMsr9bQp3QcLP7iiXqHlcjpdc_LR7D1ilZEQ1s28_WoLyHg1Oo7O0enkTAaNLPFLBBQw5CCxqcqcihxl3SwnGouFGEBYyTbZ1-9dZE0-fijx_7TzIx-F-jHx_DX8IOfd5FKkNRTK-/s320/Windows_Update_found.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Now if I run Microsoft's PowerShell vulnerability test everything has suddenly turned green, also the firmware stuff which shows me that Dell's BIOS update now also works ok.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHCqz7iqP8DjG9C3W9lVhZdUfWZFqcKamYMj7LQucjPCnky_e3sFluMynbCd73INzc-trCDJOTGpB6nLz-_KZpK1DFFKp4cbhJ8P-dRAo0oEEhADViMX6CyNre4_mWVkNUwhgD-kN0HA2k/s1600/Powershell_Test_success.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="946" data-original-width="991" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHCqz7iqP8DjG9C3W9lVhZdUfWZFqcKamYMj7LQucjPCnky_e3sFluMynbCd73INzc-trCDJOTGpB6nLz-_KZpK1DFFKp4cbhJ8P-dRAo0oEEhADViMX6CyNre4_mWVkNUwhgD-kN0HA2k/s320/Powershell_Test_success.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="font-family: "Segoe UI", SegoeUI, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; padding: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Segoe UI", SegoeUI, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; padding: 0px;">
If you still don't get the update what else to check?</div>
<div style="font-family: "Segoe UI", SegoeUI, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; padding: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Segoe UI", SegoeUI, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; padding: 0px;">
Try removing any special Windows Update settings in Group Policy. If you have 1709 you can go to the Windows Update settings - at the top you see in red that some settings are configured by your organization - then you can click below on the blue link that shows which update policies actually apply - see my screenshot (in German) below.</div>
<div style="font-family: "Segoe UI", SegoeUI, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; padding: 0px;">
You can see that I have some special installation time settings which is ok. But it is important that there are no special delivery settings defined (e.g. no semi-annual stuff or similar). Also make sure that you are not using O&O Shutup 10 or similar apps that can block Windows feature or preview build updates.</div>
<div style="font-family: "Segoe UI", SegoeUI, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; padding: 0px;">
Windows has become a real mess these days....</div>
<div style="font-family: "Segoe UI", SegoeUI, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; padding: 0px;">
<br class="k-br" /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Segoe UI", SegoeUI, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; padding: 0px;">
<a href="https://filestore.community.support.microsoft.com/api/images/a90ba836-039f-4ad3-821e-d47844c89f59?upload=true" style="color: #0000aa;" target="_blank"><img src="https://filestore.community.support.microsoft.com/api/images/a90ba836-039f-4ad3-821e-d47844c89f59?upload=true" style="border: none; max-width: 100%;" /></a></div>
<div style="font-family: "Segoe UI", SegoeUI, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; padding: 0px;">
<br class="k-br" /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Segoe UI", SegoeUI, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; padding: 0px;">
This leads to:</div>
<div style="font-family: "Segoe UI", SegoeUI, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; padding: 0px;">
<br class="k-br" /></div>
<div style="font-family: "Segoe UI", SegoeUI, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; padding: 0px;">
<a href="https://filestore.community.support.microsoft.com/api/images/6e99b3e6-d77a-44f9-bf59-a3ebcca3714b?upload=true" style="color: #0000aa;" target="_blank"><img src="https://filestore.community.support.microsoft.com/api/images/6e99b3e6-d77a-44f9-bf59-a3ebcca3714b?upload=true" style="border: none; max-width: 100%;" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
BTW: I am still waiting for BIOS updates from HP and Fujitsu.<br />
<br />
Hope this helps ;-)<br />
<br />
AnguelAnguelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12684801283689942402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8551655520281337858.post-84257996164961734922017-12-15T04:54:00.001-08:002017-12-15T04:54:59.703-08:00Adding a SATA controller to Dell PowerEdge T30 server - more drives and UEFIThe Dell PowerEdge T30 is a very compact and affordable server with Intel Xeon CPU and 8 GB RAM. In contrast to Lenovo and some others, drive caddies and SATA cables are included here and there are no artificial limitations built in.<br />
<br />
Now you can connect 4 disks to Dell's onboard SATA Intel controller. But if you want to use it as e.g. a high performance NAS and run Windows Server 2016 you will probably need more than 4 SATA ports!<br />
<br />
In my situation I wanted to install a small Samsung SSD as a boot drive (there is space for it in the case), connect the internal DVD-ROM and also add 4 x 10 TB Seagate Enterprise Capacity (Exos) hard drives for NAS functionality - so a total of 6 drives. Using Windows storage spaces in mirror mode, maybe with ReFS 3.1 should replace a hardware RAID controller and make it even more reliable.<br />
<br />
So in order to be able to use 6+ SATA drives I needed an additional PCIe SATA controller; this is even stated in Dell's manual. After a lot of research it turned out that the affordable Syba sd-pex40099 4 Port SATA III PCI-EXPRESS 2.0 x 1 Controller with Marvell 88SE9215 chip from Amazon should work ok with the server so I immediately ordered it. What I received was actually an IOCREST SI-PEX40064 but it looks like this is the same card as the one ordered.<br />
<br />
Then I connected my SSD to the first port of the Syba (Iocrest) SATA controller and Dell's DVD-ROM to the second.<br />
<b>IMPORTANT:</b><br />
Now make sure that there is also at least one drive connected to the <b>ONBOARD </b>SATA controller, otherwise the server won't boot no matter what you do but give you this strange error:<br />
<b>"Alert! Hard Drive or Optical Drive not found."</b><i> (Thank you Dell for wasting my time before I found out what was causing this...)</i><br />
<div>
<b><br /></b></div>
Now another tricky part was the BIOS configuration, I did a lot of trial and error to make it work. It is important to perform the following steps:<br />
<br />
1. You can use <b>UEFI </b>so first enable it under Settings -> General -> Boot Sequence in the BIOS<br />
<br />
2. In order to be able to boot from the Add-On SATA card you also need to check <b>Enable Legacy Option ROMs</b> under Advanced Boot Options. Enable Attempt Legacy Boot is NOT needed.<br />
<br />
3. It looks like you <b>CANNOT use Secure Boot</b>, as this is not usable with the legacy option ROMs setting. But this is not so dramatic I think...<br />
<br />
That's it. I hope this post is helpful!<br />
<br />
Have fun,<br />
<br />
Anguel<br />
<br />
BTW: Performance for the SSD on the add-on SATA controller is quite good for a Samsung 840 Pro SSD: ~ 400 MB/s.<br />
<br />Anguelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12684801283689942402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8551655520281337858.post-50028204869158669192017-11-14T08:06:00.001-08:002017-11-16T03:55:48.342-08:00Veeam Backup & Replication: "Failed to execute script in guest OS" (Linux Guest VM on Hyper-V)<b>Problem:</b><br />
<br />
Veeam Pre-Freeze / Post-Thaw .sh Scripts Fail on Linux Guest VMs (e.g. Ubuntu) with "Failed to execute script in guest OS" although the scripts run fine. I use Hyper-V but that should not matter.<br />
<br />
Failing scripts are configured to "Require successful script execution" under "Application-Aware Processing Options" under "Guest Processing" in the Veeam backup job.<br />
<br />
<b>My Solution:</b><br />
<br />
Some commands executed inside the scripts seem to return error output which is passed back to Veeam through the script and confuse Veeam so it reports that the script was not successful.<br />
So we must redirect error output from such commands to <b>2>/dev/null</b> or some file, otherwise error status is passed back to this script and Veeam reports a failure. For information about discarding error output, see https://bash.cyberciti.biz/guide//dev/null_discards_unwanted_output<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Additional information:</b><br />
<br />
Also make sure that Veeam scripts (*.sh) are located on the Veeam Backup & Replication <b>Server</b>, <b>NOT </b>on the Linux guest. To me this did not become clear from Veeam docs! Veeam will copy the scripts every time to the Linux Guest /tmp/ directory, execute them and then remove them again. This should work if you have created a user that is able to elevate to root (add it to sudo group and modify the sudoers file).<br />
<br />
Format script files as UNIX in Notepad++ when writing them on Windows.Anguelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12684801283689942402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8551655520281337858.post-29017360663537421702014-10-06T02:49:00.000-07:002016-06-13T02:00:24.434-07:00SOLVED: Network connection problems (shares, domain) after Windows 8.x wakes up from standby (sleep)<h2>
The Windows 8.x Standby / Wakeup from Sleep Problem: </h2>
<br />
Some time ago I set up multiple Dell Optiplex
9020 mini towers with Windows 8.1. After testing standby / sleep mode I noticed a very strange and annoying problem: Whenever the PCs are waken up from sleep (standby) <b>all connections to open network shares and
open Office 2010 documents are lost</b>. All shares are on a Windows 2012 R2
ESSENTIALS server + domain controller which runs as a Hyper-V VM. So after
waking up a Dell 9020 from standby I get my Win 8.1 login prompt, log
in, but for any open shares that were open when the PC went to sleep in
explorer, now I randomly get either a domain authentication error
message or a new authentication prompt that asks me for domain username
and password. The connection to open Word 2010 docs is always lost and
Word tells me that the computer came back from standby but a connection
problem occured and the document is now read-only, i.e. it must be saved
as a new document. Very annoying! <br />
<h2>
</h2>
<h2>
What I tried (without success): </h2>
I googled around a lot and found some hints that might be related to the problem:<br />
<br />
1. Many people recommended to go to network adapter settings in device manager and completely disable standby for the network adapter, i.e. <u>uncheck </u><span class="uiterm">"Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power</span>". I found out that similar suggestions date back to Windows 7 or even XP. Unfortunately, this did not help. I also tried tweaking some more advanced power settings of the drivers but without success. The problem remained. BTW, I don't see the "computer can turn off this device to save power" in
Intel's latest drivers anyway. There are some other power management options but not this one.<br />
<br />
2. I tried installing the latest original Intel network drivers instead of Dell's. No success.<br />
<br />
3. On Dell's forums people reported that there are problems with the Dell Optiplex 9020 I217-LM NICs in standby, flooding the network with packets. The problems were related to Standby, IPv6, or even AMT. But I already had the latest drivers and BIOS and no AMT enabled. So this was not the problem.<br />
<br />
4. I tried tweaking some advanced power management settings like hybrid sleep, etc. Again, no success.<br />
<br />
5. Maybe the problem was related to IPv6? I tried turning it off but again no success.<br />
<br />
6. Maybe it was the <u>virtual</u> Server 2012 R2 domain controller? Turned out this is not the case (see below).<br />
<br />
7. Some people reported that a similar problem occurs with intelligent switches. I have a HP ProCurve 1810G. Dell ProSupport could not help me to solve the problem but they confirmed similar problems that could be solved with latest switch firmware updates. Indeed, attaching a simple Netgear gigabit switch seemed to solve the problem. So I spent much time updating the switch firmware and tweaking the switch options and finally decided to buy a brand new Netgear intelligent switch, just to make sure that the problem was not caused by the HP switch. Unfortunately, the same behavior appeared with the new switch.<br />
<br />
8. There was a Microsoft Office bug that caused problems when waking up a PC from standby but that should have been fixed meanwhile. A Microsoft fix did not help either.<br />
<br />
... I probably tested even more "solutions" but neither did help...<br />
<h2>
</h2>
<h2>
Solution to the Standby problem (cause: VirtualBox Bridged Network Driver):</h2>
Right before giving up and turning off standby in Windows completely I suddenly found a thread in Microsoft's forums (don't remember the url) where someone suggested that Oracle's VirtualBox may be causing similar problems. And in fact I had installed VirtualBox on each PC because I had virtualized the old XP computers to have them as VMs and to be able to run the old software.<br />
<br />
Indeed, the issue was caused by the Oracle <b>VirtualBox Bridged Network Driver</b>. So I disabled (unchecked) it on the network connection (where the IPv4, IPv6, etc. protocol settings are done) and no more problems. The computers now come out of standby and all network connections (shares, open Word docs) are still open. Everything seems to work properly.<br />
<br />
BTW, I am using "NAT" with VirtualBox, so I don't even need "Bridged".<br />
<br />
Hope this helps!<br />
<br />
AnguelAnguelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12684801283689942402noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8551655520281337858.post-68631708847309961672014-08-12T02:32:00.001-07:002014-08-12T02:33:33.520-07:00Changing the Reserved IP Address in a Static DHCP Reservation in Windows Server<h3>
</h3>
<h3>
Static IPs preferred</h3>
DHCP is a good thing if it works - set and forget. But what happens if the DHCP server is down for some reason? Exactly - the
whole network stops working. Another problem of DHCP are those random IPs a client gets each time. This is very bad for printers that use DHCP. Therefore I prefer static IPs over dynamic.<br />
<h3>
</h3>
<h3>
Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials: You cannot stop Windows LAN Configuration Service anymore</h3>
<br />
Unfortunately, there is some strange behavior on Server 2012 R2 Essentials if you just enter static IPs on your Windows clients - your Windows OS will show exclamation marks on your network connection from time to time, etc. There is actually a <span class="st"><i>Windows</i> Server <i>LAN Configuration service </i>which keeps
overwriting your manual settings and the bad thing is that you cannot
stop that service in Server 2012 R2 any more for some reason...So, instead, I decided to
use DHCP on the server and add an Alternative IP Configuration with all
static data as a fallback if my server is down. This "alternative configuration" becomes available in the client's IP
Settings as a new tab as soon as you enable automatic DHCP configuration on the main tab.</span> <br />
<h3>
</h3>
<h3>
Creating Static DHCP Entries in Windows Server</h3>
So DHCP is running but I still need static IPs that don't change. To achieve this in Windows Server DHCP configuration I need to find the leases, right click and convert them to static reservations. Then under reservations if I look at the properties I see that now my client will always get a static IP. But wait! This IP is set by my DHCP server and not by me. What if I want to change that IP as I like? E.g. I want it to be the same as the static IP I have set in the alternate IP configuration on my clients as described above. But it is greyed out for some reason - only Microsoft knows why. Sometimes I wonder how stupid programmers can be. Oh sure, it is more
important to add new stupid features to a server OS than making the
everyday features we use work more efficiently.<br />
<br />
I googled around and even found this Microsoft Technet Howto from 2005 (!) regarding Windows Server 2003 (!):<br />
<br />
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc758459%28v=ws.10%29.aspx<br />
<br />
It states:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The IP address in an existing client reservation cannot be modified
directly. To achieve similar results, the existing reservation must be
deleted and a new reservation added.</i> </blockquote>
How stupid is that?!?!?! <br />
<br />
<h3>
</h3>
<h3>
Changing the Reserved IP Address</h3>
<br />
<span class="st">So, to make my desired static IPs work with DHCP I need to go through these "simple" steps (thank you Microsoft!):</span><br />
<ol>
<li>Open the DHCP configuration on my Windows Server</li>
<li>Find the address lease for the particular client - this is some random IP the DHCP server gave to my client </li>
<li>Create a reservation form that lease (right click + add to reservations)</li>
<li>Find the new reservation under reservations</li>
<li>Open reservation properties by right clicking - PROBLEM: IP is still "random", defined by the DHCP server and it is grayed out - can't change it!</li>
<li>Create and open a text file... </li>
<li>Manually copy the host name and the MAC address form the fields to my text file</li>
<li>Delete this reservation - isn't that stupid?</li>
<li>Create a new reservation by right clicking on reservations - once again...</li>
<li>Copy and paste the hostname and the MAC address from the text file to the fields of the new reservation</li>
<li>Finally: Enter your desired IP for the new reservation - that's all we wanted to achieve<br />
</li>
</ol>
Again: How complex is that Microsoft? Every modern router is easier to configure.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Hope this helps!<br />
<br />
AnguelAnguelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12684801283689942402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8551655520281337858.post-84484182444052754052014-04-09T04:15:00.001-07:002014-04-09T04:15:05.562-07:00Backup to USB disks: Do-it-yourself setup for USB drive rotation / swappingI was looking for a simple but effective solution to use external USB disk drives attached to my server for backup with backup applications that do not directly support USB drive rotation / swapping.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, Windows does not seem to support assigning the same drive letter to different USB drives, e.g. you cannot assign the letter U: to two different USB drives. This would be nice to be able to rotate the drives but it does not work. So my idea was to use a <b>network share</b> name that automatically mounts <u>different USB drives</u> to the <u>same share name</u>, depending on which USB drives are connected, that creates some sort of priority as we will see. An additional advantage is that drive can be also accessed directly from other computers through the network share.<br />
<br />
The first step is to <b>assign <u>different </u>drive letters to each USB disk</b> through Windows disk management, e.g. U: and V:. Then <b>create the same directory</b> to be shared on <b>each</b> drive, e.g. "USB_SHARE". Backups will be stored there.<br />
<br />
Then a simple batch file (usb_share.bat) can be created. First the share name USB_SHARE is auto-deleted (if it should already exist). Then we attempt to connect that share name to the USB drives. This will of course only succeed if the corresponding drive is attached to the PC. I.e. if U: is attached, it will be mounted as the share, if it is not attached, V: will be attempted to be mounted as the share. With "grant" we can give the appropriate network permissions, make sure that NTFS permissions also apply. So we can enter the following in the batch file:<br />
<br />
<b>net share USB_SHARE /delete<br />net share USB_SHARE=U:\USB_SHARE /grant:Everyone,FULL<br />net share USB_SHARE=V:\USB_SHARE /grant:Everyone,FULL</b><br />
<br />
This batch file can be executed <b>manually </b>after connecting a USB drive and it can also be setup to be run <b>automatically </b>on computer startup, e.g. through the task scheduler on a Windows Server OS (make sure you tell Windows to execute it with admin permissions).<br />
<br />
Hope this helps!<br />
<br />
AnguelAnguelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11365435354410704225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8551655520281337858.post-44338110158153493282014-03-26T05:47:00.000-07:002017-02-09T13:53:23.733-08:00SOLVED: Making Wake-on-Lan (WOL) work in Windows 10 / 8.xWINDOWS 10 UPDATE:<br />
THIS FIX ALSO APPLIES TO <b>WINDOWS 10</b>, IT IS EVEN MORE
IMPORTANT, BECAUSE WINDOWS 10 TURNS "FAST STARTUP" (read below) BACK ON AFTER
UPDATES (yes, Microsoft does not stop creating nonsense features /
bugs).<br />
TO DISABLE FAST STARTUP ON WIN 10 THROUGH <b>GROUP POLICY</b> PREFERENCES CREATE THE FOLLOWING KEY:<br />
<b>HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Power\HiberbootEnabled</b><br />
<b>and set its value to 0 !</b><br />
<br />
I had very serious problems getting Wake-On-Lan (WOL) to work on my new Dell Optiplex 9020 MT (MiniTower) on Windows 8.1 Pro. I finally got this to work and would like to share my experience here.<br />
<br />
Note: At the time of this writing the current Dell BIOS for Optiplex 9020 MT was A05.<br />
UPDATE: The same behavior is also observed with DELL BIOS A07. Maybe Dell needs to comply with some power saving requirements and
therefore enables Deep Sleep instead of Wake-On-LAN? Whatever the
reason is, it is extremely annoying that this is the default and it is not clearly documented.<br />
Note: I am using UEFI and Secure Boot.<br />
<br />
<b>UPDATE February 2017</b>: Besides the fix described here it might happen that you experience strange problems with your Dells like NOT waking up on WOL or the other way round - "MAGICALLY" waking up randomly for no reason (you see things in Windows log like "firmware" as start reason) - in both cases I recommend updating to latest Intel network drivers (the Dell drivers are often outdated). I don't know what is gouing on there with Dell hardware vs Microsoft vs Intel issues but it has become a nightmare to get simple things to work reliably these days...<br />
<h2>
WOL vs Dell Optiplex 9020</h2>
In Dells forums people recommended to downgrade the Dell BIOS or even to get their mainboard changed to get WOL to work:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/t/19539946.aspx?pi21953=1" target="_blank">http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/t/19539946.aspx?pi21953=1</a><br />
<br />
I don't like doing such things because newer BIOS also has other bugs fixed and downgrading may even break something.<br />
<br />
So I decided to look for a better solution. Actually nowadays things don't get easier but more and more complex as we will see...<br />
<h2>
How to test WOL?</h2>
First I downloaded a nice little utility and installed it on another PC to be able to send WOL wake-up packets to my Dell PC. It is called WinWOL is free and I found it here:<br />
<a href="http://www.telnetport25.com/2013/01/winwol-windows-wake-on-lan-version-1-0/" target="_blank">http://www.telnetport25.com/2013/01/winwol-windows-wake-on-lan-version-1-0/</a><br />
<br />
Of course you can also use another WOL packed sending utility.<br />
<br />
<h2>
1. Enable Wake on Lan in the BIOS </h2>
So the first step is to make sure your BIOS is set correctly:<br />
<br />
1. The obvious WOL setting in BIOS is under <b>Power Management > Wake on LAN</b>. You have to enable it by setting it to <b>LAN Only</b> for example.<br />
<br />
2. The not so obvious setting is under <b>Power Management > Deep Sleep Control</b>. You must set this to <b>Disabled</b>, otherwise WOL will just not work.<br />
<br />
<h2>
2. Enable Wake on Lan in the Network Adapter Settings </h2>
Now in Windows go to the <b>Device Manager > Network Adapter > Intel Ethernet Connection </b>I217-LM, in my case.<br />
Open the adapter settings and go to the <b>Power Management tab</b><br />
Make sure that all <b>Wake on LAN options are enabled</b>. I actually did not change any other energy settings on this tab, only activated the WOL options.<br />
<br />
<br />
These settings should already make it <b>possible to use wake on LAN in sleep and hibernate</b> modes (BTW: hibernate mode must be explicitly enabled in Windows 8 (some of Microsoft's "brilliant" developers decided to do so). <br />
<br />
<h2>
What about WOL after shutdown?</h2>
The problem that actually caused all my headaches was the fact that I tested WOL after shutting down the PC from Windows. My PC just did not wake up after a normal Windows shutdown.<br />
<br />
Normally, in a corporate environment you can't expect your users to put their PCs in sleep or hibernate only - they will also shut them down if they like. And shutdown definitely did not work with the WOL settings above alone.<br />
<br />
Then I noticed the following: To have at least a chance that Wake-on-Lan will work you must make sure that the some lights are still on on your Dell's network adapter while attempting to wake up the PC via LAN.<br />
<br />
But there was a problem: After a Windows shutdown of the PC all network card lights were OFF! Then I found out one more thing: If I switch on my Dell through the power button and then turn it off immediately (before Windows boots up) the network adapter lights are still ON - this means that WOL is possible! But after a Windows shutdown they stay OFF. So WOL is not possible.<br />
<br />
So to me the situation was clear: Something in Windows shutdown makes my Dell turn off the network adapter completely, although WOL is enabled in BIOS and in the Windows network adapter settings.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Microsoft did it again! Shutdown in Window 8 is "hybrid" and explicitly does not allow WOL!</h2>
After googling a lot I finally found an official Microsoft article describing that <b>WOL behavior has changed in Windows 8 / 8.1</b>:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2776718" target="_blank">http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2776718</a><br />
<br />
Quote:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>In Windows 8 and Windows 8.1, the default <b>shutdown </b>behavior puts the
system into the <b>hybrid shutdown state</b> (<b>S4</b>), and all devices are put into
D3. <b>WOL from S4 or S5 is unsupported</b>. <b>Network adapters are explicitly
not armed for WOL</b> in either S5 or S4 cases because <b>users expect zero
power consumption and battery drain in the shutdown state</b>. This behavior
removes the possibility of invalid wake-ups when an explicit shutdown
is requested. <b>Therefore, WOL is supported only from sleep (S3) or
hibernation (S4) states in Windows 8 and 8.1.</b></i></blockquote>
<br />
So WOL is <u>explicitly disabled</u> in shutdown in Windows 8 and 8.1. It is nice to hear that this is expected by Microsofts "brilliant" developers (they seem to expect a lot in Windows 8.x ...) but <b>what I expect is WOL to work in a corporate environment</b> and not to turn it off just because someone decided to save battery, especially on a desktop workstation (!) in this case.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h2>
WOL and Hybrid Shutdown in Windows 8.x</h2>
<h3>
Hybrid shutdown for faster startups </h3>
Another strange thing is that this Windows 8.x <b>WOL </b>behavior seems to be related to <b>hybrid shutdown</b> which MS describes as follows:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>In Windows 8 and 8.1, hybrid shutdown (S4) stops user sessions but lets
the contents of kernel sessions be written to the hard disk. This
<b>enables faster startups</b>.</i></blockquote>
<h3>
Why are faster startups related to Wake-on-LAN?</h3>
<br />
<br />
I don't know - ask Microsoft and their "brilliant" engineers!<br />
<br />
<h2>
Disable fast startups and get WOL to work!</h2>
<br />
So according to Microsofts article you can disable fast startups = hybrid sleep as follows (of course not recommended, bla bla bla ...):<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>To disable the S4 state in Windows 8 and 8.1, follow these steps.<br /><br /><b>Note</b> We do not recommend that you disable the hybrid shutdown (S4) state.</i><br />
<ol>
<li><i>In Control Panel, open the <b class="uiterm">Power Options</b> item.</i></li>
<li><i>Click the <b class="uiterm">Choose what the power buttons do</b> link.</i></li>
<li><i>Clear the <b class="uiterm">Turn on fast startup (recommended)</b> check box.</i></li>
<li><i>Click <b class="uiterm">Save Settings</b>.</i></li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
<b>Another important annoying fact: If it seems that you cannot just change the power button settings but you need to first click on the text saying something like: "Some settings are currently not available..." Again, very "user friendly", Microsoft...</b><br />
<br />
<h2>
It works! </h2>
The most amazing thing is that disabling the fast startup setting above really makes WOL work after Windows shutdown. Now if I shutdown my Dell from Windows 8.1 it leaves the network adapter powered, i.e. the green LED is lit and the orange LED is blinking. Sending a magic packet to the Dell wakes it up.<br />
<br />
So it looks like this stupid WOL behavior is expected and wanted by Microsoft! So I am not sure if Dell will ever give us a BIOS update that will change it.<br />
<br />
IMHO one thing is certain:<br />
<br />
<h2>
It has never been harder to get Wake-on-LAN to work!</h2>
<br />
I hope this helps! Again, thank Microsoft for wasting our time and making our life as hard as possible. In Windows 8.x everything illogical is possible! Expect the unexpected! Expect surprises everywhere!<br />
<br />
AnguelAnguelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11365435354410704225noreply@blogger.com34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8551655520281337858.post-47307201033327739652014-03-18T04:27:00.001-07:002014-03-18T04:27:56.606-07:00Domain Controller on top of Hyper-V - Firewall problem<h2>
The problem:</h2>
<br />
I have:<br />
<br />
1. A single physical server which is a Hyper-V host running Windows Server 2012 R2.<br />
2. A single Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials Guest VM running on top and acting as a domain controller.<br />
<br />
Now I have researched a lot whether I should join the host to the
domain running on top of it or leave it in a separate workgroup. There
is no best practice but many sources confirm that this is possible and
joining the domain offers many management benefits,
e.g. here see Option #4:<br />
<a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2008/11/24/the-domain-controller-dilemma.aspx">http://blogs.msdn.com/b/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2008/11/24/the-domain-controller-dilemma.aspx</a><br />
<br />
Now the problem is that after having joined the host to the domain
sometimes everything works fine and the host manages to join the domain
on startup but sometimes this seems to fail - I think that the join
process times out as the DC in the Guest VM does
not start up in time. In this case the firewall tells me that the host
is connected to a "public network" instead of the "domain network" and I
cannot connect to the server via remote desktop as this is not allowed
by default. If I disable
and reenable the network adapter the "domain network" is recognized
fine but this has to be done manually.<br />
<br />
<h2>
The solution:</h2>
In the meantime I am pretty sure that I solved the problem:<br />
<br />
On my host I had entered two DNS servers: The first was the IP of the
Server Essentials Guest VM and the second was Google's DNS server
(8.8.8.8); my idea was to have access to the internet even if my Guest
VM DNS does not run.<br />
<br />
Now I am pretty sure that
this second DNS server confused the firewall configuration on startup -
it could not detect the primary DNS because the Guest still has not
started up, but then saw this second DNS server and fell back to "public
network" instead of the desired "domain network"
mode. After removing Google's DNS server from the IP v4 configuration
now the host seems to start up fine and always ends up in the "domain
network".<br />
<br />
<h2>
Delayed domain join?</h2>
I really like the idea to delay domain joining on start up but I
have not found a way to do this. I only found how to add longer
timeouts but this is not really solving all problems:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://superuser.com/questions/328739/how-to-delay-windows-7-autologon-so-that-the-domain-will-be-available">http://superuser.com/questions/328739/how-to-delay-windows-7-autologon-so-that-the-domain-will-be-available</a><br />
<br />
Any hints on completely delaying domain join on startup are welcome. <br />
<br />
AnguelAnguelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11365435354410704225noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8551655520281337858.post-80447301257206176842014-03-14T08:52:00.001-07:002014-03-18T04:22:11.241-07:00How do client PC backups work in Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials?<h2>
The problem:</h2>
I was trying to get my Server 2012 R2 Essentials (Hyper-V VM) to do
nightly backups of my Win 8.1 client PCs. As far as I had understood from the Microsoft presentations the
server should be able to wake up the clients automatically from
hibernate (I selected this option during setup of the
connector). Unfortunately, Microsoft does not care about providing serious docs for their Windows / Server products. What is really annoying is that I
don't even find any documentation how the wake up procedure actually
works. Does it use Wake On Lan? Are there any magic
packets involved? You pay a lot and get something that either does not work or does not tell you how it works.<br />
<br />
What I had tested so far: I had setup the server to start client
backups at lets say 10:00. So at 9:50 I put my client computer in
hibernate and wait and wait ... but nothing happens. It is very sad to
have to guess and wait multiple hours or days to see if backup
actually works on a server system. I still don't know if the server
uses wake on lan or sets some timer on the client computer to wake it
up. If I know it uses WoL I will also check my BIOS and network
adapters. But this is a nightmare how a server OS is sold
without any serious docs. <br />
<h2>
The solution: </h2>
Finally I found a very nice YouTube video that explains in details how the whole process works:
<br />
<br />
According to the video, the server simply schedules a task on the
client PCs at some time in the range defined on the server: E.g. if I
enter 11:00 - 12:00 this task seems to set a random wake-up time at e.g.
11:25 on the client PC. This task is then scheduled
to wake up the PC - didn't know that this is possible.<br />
<br />
It seems to work now. As discussed above the clients are
woken up by the task set by the server in the task scheduler. This works
in hibernate mode, not in shutdown. Still wondering how the server exactly schedules
backups as it does not know how long a client backup
will take and therefore does not know when to schedule the next PC...<br />
<br />
In each case I am still very very disappointed and annoyed because of the lack of docs for the latest Windows Client/Server products.<br />
<br />
IMHO Windows Server should have offered the possibility to use Wake
On Lan too. This is a much nicer way to do backups. It can't be that
hard for Microsoft to send out a magic packet which would also be able
to wake up a client when the user has shut it
down.<br />
<br />
Here is the link to the video I talk about: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6ZOWjaZpIk">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6ZOWjaZpIk</a> <br />
<br />
BTW: Another possible problem may be some special BIOS power settings, for
example on my brand new Dell PCs there is a default Deep Sleep option
in the BIOS concerning states S4 and S5. When this option was turned on
(default) it prevented Wake On Lan from working
at all, although it was enabled in the BIOS, see e.g. here:<br />
<a href="http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/t/19434669.aspx">http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/t/19434669.aspx</a><br />
<br />
I first thought that Deep Sleep may be causing my wake-up problem but
now according to the video above backup seems to rely on task scheduler
only and not on WOL, let's see... <br />
<br />
Hope this helps! Thank Microsoft for wasting our time so successfully!<br />
<br />
AnguelAnguelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11365435354410704225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8551655520281337858.post-59918066196611218182014-02-27T08:07:00.000-08:002014-08-23T02:56:17.551-07:00Windows Server 2012 R2 ESSENTIALS: Virtualization How-To, Physical Hyper-V Host and Virtual Server (VM)<br />
This is intended to be a guide how to install Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 ESSENTIALS as a virtual server, i.e. inside a virtual machine (VM). This VM will run on a physical Hyper-V host which will be again Windows Server 2012 R2 ESSENTIALS itself. This type of installation is allowed by Microsoft but they have not included a tool to simplify the process. In order to achieve our aim, we need to modify the original ISO by removing the Essentials Role and Essentials Setup using Microsoft's own tools.<br />
<br />
<i>DISCLAIMER: To my best knowledge everything described here complies with the MS license terms. It worked for me but does not mean that it will work for you as is. So make sure that you have understood everything and check if each step applies to your system. There is no liability for damages.</i><br />
<h2>
Physical Hyper-V Host vs Virtual Server (Guest VM)</h2>
Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials is a very interesting operating system for small businesses. What many people don't know: Microsoft now allows you to do one physical installation - let's call it Hyper-V Host Installation - plus one virtual installation - let's call it the actual Server Essentials inside a Virtual Machine (VM). This is explained here:<br />
<a href="http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2013/09/03/understanding-licensing-for-windows-server-2012-r2-essentials-and-the-windows-server-essentials-experience-role.aspx">http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2013/09/03/understanding-licensing-for-windows-server-2012-r2-essentials-and-the-windows-server-essentials-experience-role.aspx</a><br />
<h2>
Virtualization Obstacles</h2>
Unfortunately, to make your life as complicated as possible, Microsoft has not made the virtualization straightforward. The problem is that the Essentials Role needs to be manually removed before doing the installation on the physical host: It is not only useless for the Hyper-V physical host but it will also
interfere with the Server Essentials we want to install later as a
virtual server in a VM. MS has not included an option to remove the Essentials role. They have decided to leave this option for OEMs only, so these have to decide for you if they want to include the virtualization for your server or not - stupid! At the time of this writing MS offers some explanations how the install image needs to be modified to remove the essentials role but these are complex and even include mistakes:<br />
<a href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn293253.aspx">http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn293253.aspx</a><br />
or<br />
<a href="http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/341bd905-1d99-4e3d-af16-04aadf9e9ab9/installing-windows-server-2012-essentials-r2-hyperv-role?forum=2012R2EssentialsPreview">http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/341bd905-1d99-4e3d-af16-04aadf9e9ab9/installing-windows-server-2012-essentials-r2-hyperv-role?forum=2012R2EssentialsPreview</a><br />
<h2>
Why not just use the free Microsoft Hyper-V Server for the Host?</h2>
I also thought about using the free Hyper-V Server instead of Server 2012 R2 Essentials on the physical host. Free Hyper-V Server even gives you
unlimited VMs, but it is "command line only" (no GUI!) and is hard to use for
entry level admins. Also it probably does not include Windows Server
Backup which is very handy to backup the Server Essentials VM from the host. Graphical tools for RAID monitoring etc. will not be usable without full
GUI. <br />
<h2>
The Idea </h2>
So I decided to write a step-by-step guide. But first I thank for the help I received from Moodjbow's blog:<br />
<a href="http://moodjbow.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/server-2012-r2-essentials-hyper-v-how-to/">http://moodjbow.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/server-2012-r2-essentials-hyper-v-how-to/</a><br />
<br />
So my basic idea was the following:<br />
<br />
1.
It should be possible to cleanly modify the original ISO according to
the MS guides to get a Hyper-V “Physical-Host-Only” ISO to install,
without
Active Directory, etc. IMHO there is no need to
auto-include the guest VM (as MS does in its guides) which just makes
things more complex and inflexible!<br />
<br />
2. The Server Essentials can then be just installed inside
that physical host from the original unmodified ISO as a Guest VM. This
way we can also configure the VM as we like before installing. Clean and easy!<br />
<br />
Let's get to work!<br />
<h2>
Step-by-Step: Creating the ISO for the Hyper-V-Host Installation</h2>
<br />
<h3>
Preparation: Install the Windows 8.1 ADK<span class="st"> (Assessment and Deployment Kit)</span></h3>
First you need to download and install the free Win 8.1 ADK on your PC where you will prepare the modified ISO. You should be able to do this on Windows 8.0, Windows 8.1 and probably on Server 2012 R2 but I have not tested them all. I have actually installed it on Windows 7 as it is also compatible with the Windows 8.1 ADK.<br />
<br />
After having installed the ADK to its default directory open a Windows COMMAND PROMPT AS ADMINISTRATOR.<br />
<br />
IMPORTANT !!! From now on every executable must be started by first changing to the correct ADK directory, otherwise Windows will execute the .exe from your OS path!!!<br />
<br />
<br />
### CREATE TWO WORKING DIRS: Create the following directories: <br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">md c:\essentials-host-image</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">md c:\essentials-host-mount</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
### COPY ISO CONTENTS: Insert your Windows Server 2012 R2 ESSENTIALS CD and copy all files and folders (including subfolders) to c:\essentials-host-image<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
## CHANGE TO ADK DIR (one line): <br />
<br />
cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Deployment Tools\amd64\DISM"<br />
<br />
### MOUNT IMAGE: Mounts the image into a temp directory - takes a while (one line)<br />
<br />
dism /Mount-Image /ImageFile:"C:\essentials-host-image\sources\install.wim" /Index:1 /MountDir:"C:\essentials-host-mount"<br />
<br />
### FOR MY INFO ONLY (you don't have to execute the two lines below):<br />
[ dism /Image:C:\essentials-host-mount /Get-Features > myfeatures.txt ] <br />
--> print all features to file<br />
[ dism /Image:C:\essentials-host-mount /Get-Packages > mypackages.txt] <br />
--> print all packages to file<br />
<br />
### THE MOST IMPORTANT: DEACTIVATE ESSENTIALS FEATURES (two lines):<br />
<br />
dism /Image:C:\essentials-host-mount /Disable-Feature:"WSS-Product-Package"<br />
dism /Image:C:\essentials-host-mount /Disable-Feature:"Microsoft-Windows-ServerEssentials-ServerSetup"<br />
<br />
### COMMIT AND UNMOUNT IMAGE:<br />
<br />
dism /unmount-Wim /MountDir:C:\essentials-host-mount /commit<br />
### INFO ONLY: /discard instead of /commit discards<br />
<br />
### CREATE ISO (change dir first, then create the ISO as C:\OEMEssentialsHost.iso (two lines below) :<br />
<br />
cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Deployment Tools\amd64\Oscdimg"<br />
<br />
oscdimg -m -o -u2 -udfver102 -bootdata:2#p0,e,bc:\essentials-host-image\boot\etfsboot.com#pEF,e,bc:\essentials-host-image\efi\microsoft\boot\efisys.bin C:\essentials-host-image C:\OEMEssentialsHost.iso<br />
<br />
### BURN ISO TO CD<br />
Burn your C:\OEMEssentialsHost.iso to a CD!<br />
<br />
Congratulations! You should now have a Host-Only installer CD without the Essentials stuff. Don't forget to thank Microsoft for making your life so complicated. <br />
<h2>
Installation of the physical host OS from the modified ISO </h2>
Install the physical host OS form the ISO. After installation, if needed, you can remove some more features and add-ons you don't need through the normal server manager GUI - the aim is to have a cleaned up host OS.<br />
<br />
Don't forget to install your Hyper-V role!<br />
<br />
Then create your Hyper-V VM and install your virtual Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials inside, this time from the original MS ISO, not from your modified host image!<br />
<br />
<h2>
UPDATE: Joining the Hyper-V host to the domain</h2>
Yes, after reading many comments and discussions on the topic I have decided to add the physical host to the domain, i.e. to the Server 2012 R2 Essentials VM running on itself. IMHO this has many benefits regarding administration etc. and seems to work fine (caution, see below). Ok, you may get some warnings in the logs because your host will not be able to immediately reach the virtual domain controller during startup, as it has not started yet (a kind of chicken-egg-problem) but this is nothing to really worry about.<br />
<br />
The only problem is again... Microsoft. Although the server is properly licensened, i.e. they allow you this type of installation as described here:<br />
<br />
http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2013/09/03/understanding-licensing-for-windows-server-2012-r2-essentials-and-the-windows-server-essentials-experience-role.aspx<br />
<br />
<div class="entry-title">
there is some stupid Server Infrastructure Licensing Service (silsvc.exe) that is watching your server and thinks that you are running two 2012 R2 Essential Servers in your domain as soon as you have joined the host to your domain, although we have removed all roles on our physical server. This stupid silsvc.exe will then shut down your server and stop your business after one week, you will then need to manually restart the server and this shutdown will happen again after one week. I.e. Microsoft dares to shut down your properly licensed server (according to their own licensing information) without even giving you a clear warning that this will happen, which is IMHO inacceptable behavior! In their licensing blog they don't even tell you that the server host is not expected to be joined to the domain but has to stay in a workgroup. Leaving it in a workgroup has some other serious drawbacks I am not going to discuss here. It is also ridiculous that Microsoft posts licensing information on a some blog - but as you know nowadays they don't seem to even care about writing some serious documentation for the products they sell. This is no open source, we pay for this stupid software and expect it to at least not intentionally shut down our business because it has incorrectly (!) implemented licensing watchguards. Looks like they don't understand their own licensing... For a workaround to this stupid problem read here:</div>
<div class="entry-title">
<br /></div>
<div class="entry-title">
http://moodjbow.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/essentials-2012-r2-hyper-v-shuts-down-weekly/</div>
<div class="entry-title">
<br /></div>
<div class="entry-title">
and here</div>
<div class="entry-title">
</div>
<div class="entry-title">
<br /></div>
<div class="entry-title">
http://moodjbow.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/how-to-disable-server-infrastructure-licensing-service/</div>
<br />
Hope this helps!<br />
<br />
Regards,<br />
<br />
AnguelAnguelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11365435354410704225noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8551655520281337858.post-12164018578132349442013-12-28T11:39:00.002-08:002014-02-27T06:21:27.797-08:00Nexus 5 Display ProblemsA few days ago I received my new Nexus 5 smartphone. At first look, the display looked ok, not the quality of Samsung or even the higher priced LG Android phones but ok for the price.<br />
<br />
But then, while sliding my finger over the touchscreen I noticed something uneven. It looked like a small black dot, similar to a dead pixel but I asked myself why I could feel this spot with my finger? First I thought that it was some particle attached to the screen and tried to carefully scratch it off with my finger nail. But it did not go away. It was definitely NOT a dead pixel. Looking more carefully at the screen I also noticed other similar small black dots, the size of a few pixels.<br />
<br />
So I finally decided to look what these were under a microscope. And it turned out these were black metal or paint spots melted into the screen! I did not expect that. I mean I expect some drawbacks because of the lower price but I don't expect such quality problems. Google and LG cannot advertise the phone with latest Gorilla Glass 3 and then deliver a screen that has some particles melted into the glass because of a faulty production process.<br />
<br />
<br />
I have the impression that whatever you buy these days you can expect bad quality everywhere. Very annoying! I will definitely try to return the phone! Let's see what will happen...<br />
<br />
UPDATE: Google refunded the money for the Nexus 5 without problems. They did not even ask why I want to return it... <br />
<br />
AnguelAnguelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11365435354410704225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8551655520281337858.post-75041114121490236722012-08-26T03:13:00.005-07:002012-08-26T03:13:49.582-07:00Facebook not usable on Android in August 2012!<span class="commentBody" data-jsid="text">The whole UI concept is nuts.
Share is probably the most used function. Now lets see what happens on
an Android tablet if you want to share a photo one of your friends has
shared.</span><br />
<span class="commentBody" data-jsid="text"><br /> 1. Facebook App: NO "share" button at all. So you must click
on a photo to open it in full size first, then select "share" from the
Android options menu but this stupid app starts sharing this as your own
photo - it even asks where the photo was taken!</span><br />
<span class="commentBody" data-jsid="text"><br /> 2. In the Browser:<br />
Firefox for Android: Facebook site as intelligent as it is, opens some
crippled mobile version of the site that looks like Netscape 1.0 and
again NO "share" link - here there is NO way to share something.<br />
Opera for Android: Here for some unknown reason I finally see the normal
facebook website including a "share" link. Unfortunately the facebook
site uses some stupid scripts that will screw up the Opera browser at
some point.</span><br />
<span class="commentBody" data-jsid="text"><br /> Bottom line: There is no user friendly / working way to use facebook on Android!</span>Anguelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11365435354410704225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8551655520281337858.post-29347862563293014152010-11-25T04:23:00.000-08:002010-11-25T04:30:54.882-08:00How I unbricked my Samsung Galaxy S I9000 and installed a new firmware with OdinThe Samsung Galaxy S I9000<iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=angstecblo-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B003SIDVRA&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe> is one of the best smartphones and a real iPhone killer. Unfortunately the firmware update is done through a Samsung program called Kies wich is really bad.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">How Kies bricked my Galaxy S during firmware update</span><br />
<br />
I would like to report how I recovered from a really bad flash (actually a brick) caused during firmware update using Samsung Kies on the Galaxy S I9000. First of all, I was not prepared that official Samsung firmware flashing could cause me such problems and could brick a smartphone at the end of 2010! But this is what happened to me! Really bad what Samsung gives to its customers. BTW, I would describe myself as a computer pro, programmer and hardware developer, so I am not a complete newbie regarding firmware updates ;)<br />
<br />
I had bought my Galaxy S I9000 in Germany and its official firmware stated:<br />
pda: i9000xxjm1, phone: i9000xxjm1, csc: i9000xajm1, pccode: gt-i9000hkddbt<br />
<br />
I had installed multiple progs on the phone but had NOT modded it in any way. When Andoid 2.2 (Froyo) came out I decided to wait for the upgrade to become available through Kies (rinning it under Win XP) because I wanted to flash it the official way. I thought that this would be more secure (it is not as you will see later). I had not experienced any serious problems with Kies until then, although I had not worked a lot with it. So when the XXJPO Update arrived through Kies, before beginning with flashing I restarted my phone (normal mode, not recovery mode) and plugged in the phone. Kies recognized the phone and I started flashing the firmware. The download screen with the digging android appeared on the I9000. If I remember correctly at this point Kies or the phone itself disconnected for short and maybe some drivers tried to reload but I am not sure about this.<br />
<br />
When I looked at the phone at some point, the digging Android was NOT there anymore - instead the whole screen was green (or yellow). Kies did not report any error but the firmware update progress bar did not move on. After some time I realized that the phone had crashed. So I disconnected the phone and restarted it. Now the only thing that appeared on the screen was a phone icon connected to a PC icon with an exclamation mark icon inbetween - I call this the screen of death ;-) The phone could not be recognized anymore by my PC. Kies offered me some kind of firmware recovery option (which will disappear if you try to uninstall and reinstall Kies) but Win XP and Kies just did not see the phone anymore so I could not recover anything.<br />
<br />
Trying to get the Samsung Galaxy S into recovery mode by pressing Volume Down + Home + Power (or any other key combos) did not work, no matter how many times I tried. Most of the forums reported that the phone is bricked when you can't get into download mode and the only way to get it back to life is to give it back to Samsung for repair. At this point I want to emphasize that the recovery mode key combination must have worked on that phone previously, because my brother has the same phone (bought them at the same time) and his download mode combination works!<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">How to unbrick the Galaxy S I9000 - Download mode</span><br />
<br />
So it turned out that the phone has been bricked - thank you Samsung! I decided to call Samsung but then I suddenly found an amazing thread <a href="http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=819551">http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=819551</a> and a video <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cbUo8K4z2o">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cbUo8K4z2o</a> stating that with a modified micro USB plug and a resistor one can bring the phone back to life. I was a bit sceptical first BUT IT IS TRUE, IT REALLY WORKS! So a colleague of mine prepared the USB jig and it really brought the phone right into download mode when I inserted the battery. The phone had been unbricked! Now Windows recognized the phone again but Kies was still not able to connect (I had not expected anything else).<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">How I installed a new firmware on the Galaxy S I9000 using Odin</span><br />
<br />
Now I finally decided to try Odin (the unofficial but much better alternative to Kies) and flash the latest official Samsung firmware I9000XFJP7 (many thanks to Richthofen) that I downloaded from <a href="http://www.samfirmware.com/">http://www.samfirmware.com</a>. So once again I used the USB jig to get into download mode and flashed the I9000XFJP7 firmware with the Germany only CSC CSC_I9000DBTJP3 as described here:<br />
<a href="http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=844459">http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=844459</a><br />
After the first repartitioning-only step with Odin where Richthofen says "Plug out your phone, remove the battery, put it back in and put phone to download mode again." the phone seemed completely dead. It was another shock for me. Nothing happened, even the phone + PC + exclamation mark icons did not appear anymore - the screen remained black and pressing power, home, vol down did not do anything. But then I put in the "magic" USB jig again and the phone started in download mode again. So I continued flashing the firmware as described in Richthofen's thread. Finally the phone restarted and the new Android 2.2 Froyo booted.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The Galaxy S - Back to life :)</span><br />
<br />
The biggest surprise for me was that all my 3rd party programs were still there. Only some of Samsungs built-in progs seemed to have been updated and had lost their data. Also some widgets on the front-screen were missing but these can be reinserted on the I9000 desktop.<br />
<br />
On the one hand I hope that Samsung will get a lot of negative feedback from its customers in order to finally rewrite and improve its bad software. On the other hand I hope that this report will help other people to solve the firmware upgrade problems and show them how to unbrick their Samsung smartphones (the Samsung hardware is really nice). I also encourage people to support the firmware contributors at XDA Developers (<a href="http://xda-developers.com/">xda-developers.com</a>).<br />
<br />
AnguelAnguelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11365435354410704225noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8551655520281337858.post-44205392350766244142010-10-15T08:39:00.000-07:002010-10-15T08:39:20.461-07:00Content Management Systems (CMS) Comparison and Usage Statistics<iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=angstecblo-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0596804946&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>While looking for the <a href="http://www.contao.org/">amazing Contao CMS (aka TypoLight)<img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=angstecblo-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /></a> I discovered two nice links:<br />
<br />
The first link is an interactive CMS feature comparison matrix:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.cmsmatrix.org/">http://www.cmsmatrix.org/</a><br />
<br />
The second link offers CMS (and other) usage statistics:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://trends.builtwith.com/cms">http://trends.builtwith.com/cms</a>Anguelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11365435354410704225noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8551655520281337858.post-42546438674398969612010-10-15T08:23:00.000-07:002010-10-15T08:26:26.056-07:00MyComputer & Taskbar Freezing / Hanging Not Responding (Windows XP)<iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=angstecblo-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B002DHLUWK&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>Some time ago I noticed a problem with my Windows XP Pro. While browsing MyComputer the folders window freezes / hangs / does not respond anymore. The taskbar also becomes unresponsive. The only thing I can do is to kill the process. Of course this is not a good solution. Fortunately running chkdsk does not report any problems on the drive after that.<br />
<br />
I found a post on another blog regarding this problem with some possible solutions and I would like to share it:<br />
<a href="http://www.raymond.cc/blog/archives/2007/08/15/solutions-to-taskbar-hangs-or-freezes-in-windows-xp/">Solutions to Taskbar Hangs or Freezes in Windows XP</a><br />
<br />
I have done the first two steps and will watch if this has solved the problem...Anguelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11365435354410704225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8551655520281337858.post-73400055442840864672010-10-14T08:37:00.000-07:002010-10-15T08:41:06.624-07:00Spelling Alphabet Tool (also spells special characters)<h1><a href="http://www.spelltool.com/"><iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=angstecblo-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B001C33Q46&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>www.spelltool.com</a></h1><h1><span style="font-size: large;">Have a Look at My New Website!</span><a href="http://www.spelltool.com/"></a></h1><h1><span style="font-size: large;"></span></h1><h1><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">I have developed a new web site with the features listed below:</span></span></h1><h1><span style="font-size: large;">English: Spell According to the ICAO/ITU/NATO Spelling Alphabet</span></h1><ul><li>Avoid confusion on the phone!</li>
<li>Let us spell names, e-mail addresses, foreign words and technical terms automatically for you.</li>
<li>Letters and numbers are spelled according to the international spelling alphabet adopted by: <a href="http://www.icao.int/" target="_blank">ICAO</a> (International Civil Aviation Organization), <a href="http://www.itu.int/" target="_blank">ITU</a> (International Telecommunication Union), <a href="http://www.nato.int/" target="_blank">NATO</a> (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), <a href="http://www.imo.org/" target="_blank">IMO</a> (International Maritime Organization), <a href="http://www.faa.gov/" target="_blank">FAA</a> (American Federal Aviation Administration), <a href="http://www.ansi.org/" target="_blank">ANSI</a> (American National Standards Institute), <a href="http://www.arrl.org/" target="_blank">ARRL</a> (American Radio Relay League) </li>
<li>Punctuation marks, signs and special characters are also presented with their full names.</li>
<li>Very helpful when talking to your business partners on the phone, but also for dicatation and voice radio.</li>
<li>On this page you will also find all tables containing the letters, digits as well as most often used punctuation marks, signs and special characters with their names.</li>
<li><b>FREE OF CHARGE!</b></li>
</ul>Just type the word and it will be spelled automatically according to the international ICAO/ITU/NATO spelling alphabet (also called phonetic alphabet or radiotelephony spelling alphabet) - from "Alfa for A", "Bravo for B", "Charlie for C" and so on to "Zulu for Z". Now you can spell the word immediately on the phone without having to think about it.<br />
<br />
<h1><span style="font-size: large;">German: Buchstabieren nach DIN 5009</span></h1><ul><li>Vermeiden Sie Missverständnisse am Telefon!</li>
<li>Lassen Sie Namen, E-Mail-Adressen, Fremdwörter, Fachausdrücke automatisch buchstabieren.</li>
<li>Buchstaben und Zahlen werden nach DIN 5009 buchstabiert.</li>
<li>Satzzeichen und Sonderzeichen werden mit ihren Namen angegeben.</li>
<li>Sehr praktisch nicht nur beim Telefonieren, sondern auch beim Diktieren oder für den Sprechfunk.</li>
<li>Auf dieser Seite finden Sie auch alle Tabellen mit Buchstaben und Ziffern nach DIN 5009 sowie Tabellen mit den am meisten verwendeten Zeichen wie Satzzeichen und Sonderzeichen und deren Bennenung.</li>
<li><b>KOSTENLOSE NUTZUNG!</b></li>
</ul>Tippen Sie einfach das Wort ein und es wird automatisch mit Hilfe der Buchstabiertafel (auch Buchstabieralphabet, Telefonalphabet, Funkalphabet oder Fliegeralphabet gennannt) in entsprechende Wörter umgesetzt - von "A wie Anton", "B wie Berta", "C wie Cäsar" bis "Z wie Zacharias". Nun können Sie das Wort sofort am Telefon buchstabieren, ohne nachdenken zu müssen.Anguelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11365435354410704225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8551655520281337858.post-58517151866724270872010-10-13T06:55:00.000-07:002010-10-15T08:45:23.710-07:00Content Management Systems (CMS) Explained: Drupal vs. Joomla vs. Wordpress<iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=angstecblo-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0596804946&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>I found some good explanation what content management systems (CMS) are and a short comparison of three main CMS: Drupal vs. Joomla vs. Wordpress. Although Contao aka TypoLight and Typo3 are missing in the comparisons, these are very nice videos:<br />
<br />
<object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/PbJkTiRil3E?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/PbJkTiRil3E?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br />
<iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=angstecblo-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0596515804&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe><br />
<br />
<object height="289" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Onf_SUv61i4?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Onf_SUv61i4?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="289"></embed></object><iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=angstecblo-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0470592745&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>Anguelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11365435354410704225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8551655520281337858.post-73542436514186327122010-10-13T03:46:00.000-07:002010-10-15T08:53:19.548-07:00Installing MS Office 2007 (SP2) on Asus Eee PC 901<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&tag=angstecblo-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&search-alias=aps&field-keywords=Eee%20PC" target="_blank"><iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=angstecblo-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B003UNOVCC&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>Eee PC</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=angstecblo-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> 901 Hard Drive Size Problems</span><br />
<br />
The Asus <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&tag=angstecblo-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&search-alias=aps&field-keywords=Eee%20PC" target="_blank">Eee PC</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=angstecblo-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> 901 is a very nice netbook featuring two (!) SSD harddrives. I don't know why Asus has chosen this configuration - probably this was cheaper. Unfortunately the SSD "feature" is also its biggest problem. The two SSD drives have 4 GB and 8 GB. And the Windows XP system drive C: is the smaller 4 GB drive which means that you are going to <b>run out of hard drive space</b> as soon as you need to install a bigger application like <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Office-Home-Student-2007/dp/B000HCZ8EO?ie=UTF8&tag=angstecblo-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Microsoft Office 2007</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=angstecblo-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000HCZ8EO" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=angstecblo-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> (I have not tested <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Office-Home-Student-2007/dp/B000HCZ8EO?ie=UTF8&tag=angstecblo-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Microsoft Office 2010</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=angstecblo-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000HCZ8EO" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=angstecblo-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000HCZ8EO" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />). This will happen <b>although </b>you chose to install the programs on drive D: which is strongly recommended!<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Backup First!</span><br />
I expect that you are an experienced XP user if you want to proceed here. I know that you sometimes get the recommendation to backup although this is not really required <b>but in this case I strongly recommend to do a backup (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Acronis-TI-14-DV-RT-W-EN-True-Image-Home/dp/B003VIVY7G?ie=UTF8&tag=angstecblo-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Acronis True Image</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=angstecblo-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B003VIVY7G" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Symantec-Norton-Ghost-15-0-PC/dp/B002SRNS7A?ie=UTF8&tag=angstecblo-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Norton Ghost</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=angstecblo-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B002SRNS7A" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />, etc.) because you will run out of disk space during the Office 2007 SP2 update and you will have 0 bytes free on your C: drive which can make Windows XP run into unpredictable problems!</b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Office-Home-Student-2007/dp/B000HCZ8EO?ie=UTF8&tag=angstecblo-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"><iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=angstecblo-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B003UNF0JK&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>Microsoft Office 2007</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=angstecblo-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000HCZ8EO" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> Installation</span><br />
The initial installation of Office 2007 is just where the problems start. First of all you need to get rid of all the Eee PC software you don't need. I removed as many programs as I could including all that I did not need, e.g. the preinstalled StarOffice. It is an older version anyway and I would have replaced it with the latest <a href="http://www.openoffice.org/">OpenOffice</a> if I wanted to use a free office suite. But I wanted to have Microsoft Office because this is what I use at my company and I am used to it. So I freed up as much space as I could and the initial installation of MS Office succeeded without problems. make sure that you install only the Microsoft Office components that you really need. You are short on disks space!<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Office-Home-Student-2007/dp/B000HCZ8EO?ie=UTF8&tag=angstecblo-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Microsoft Office 2007</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=angstecblo-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000HCZ8EO" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> Service Pack 2 (SP2) = Out of Disk Space</span><br />
In the meantime Microsoft has released Service Pack 2 (SP2) of MS Office 2007 including improvements and security fixes that have to be installed. Although you can download Office 2007 from the official Microsoft site <a href="http://www.getmicrosoftoffice.com/">www.getmicrosoftoffice.com</a>, unfortunately you <b>cannot</b> get it with Service Pack 2 already integrated. When doing the SP2 update through Windows/Microsoft update it looks like Service Pack 1 (SP1) is installed first and then SP2 is installed (at least in my case). But you can also download the <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyId=B444BF18-79EA-46C6-8A81-9DB49B4AB6E5&displaylang=en">full Service Pack 2 (SP2)</a> and install it immediately after Office 2007 installation. This is what I recommend. But turn off your network connection to prevent Win XP from automatically downloading the Office updates prior to Office 2007 installation and do not turn it on until you have finished SP2 installation. I recommend to have a second PC to be able to look for troubleshooting on the Internet and download utilities during installation.<br />
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<iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=angstecblo-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B003UNF0IQ&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>Unfortunately you will see that <b>SP2 will fill up your harddrive before finishing installation</b>. And this also happens with the standalone SP2 installer. The problem is that the SP2 installer will have to unpack files first and then starts installing those files which requires much more than 1 GB of free disk space on your C: drive. You don't have that space on your EeePC and therefore your C: drive will become full and the SP2 installation will fail. The annoying thing is that this will also leave installer files on your C: drive and you will have no space or much less space than you had before starting the SP2 installation. This behavior does not speak in favor of Microsoft. Restarting Windows does not free up the space either.<br />
So I first tried to <a href="http://vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/environment.htm">change my TEMP system variables</a> in Windows XP to point to D:\TEMP instead of my user profile on C: and to make the installer unpack the install files there this way but this did not solve the problem completely, I still could not complete the install process. Finally I discovered those <a href="http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?pid=352761">tips in the EeeUser Forum describing how to clean up space on your C: drive in Windows XP</a> which you should only apply if you have the experience and understand what you are doing exactly and have backed up your Eee PC. After having run the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility to remove orphaned installer files I got a lot more free disk space. <b>That way I could finally install the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&tag=angstecblo-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&search-alias=aps&field-keywords=Microsoft%20Office" target="_blank">Microsoft Office</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=angstecblo-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> 2007 with Service Pack 2 (SP2) on the Asus <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&tag=angstecblo-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&search-alias=aps&field-keywords=Eee%20PC" target="_blank">Eee PC</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=angstecblo-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />.</b><br />
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Hope this helps!<br />
AnguelAnguelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11365435354410704225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8551655520281337858.post-72818307136192187662010-10-12T14:01:00.000-07:002010-10-13T07:11:57.895-07:00Do you like YouTube? I think it needs improvement!Everybody uses YouTube. It is one of the most popular sites. But is it really good? I am not a real YouTube expert but I think there is a lot of room for improvement:<br />
<ul><li>Videos sometimes freeze while loading or simply load too slowly.</li>
<li> When I want to play multiple videos and switch to full screen YouTube turns off full-screen for the next video in the queue.</li>
<li>Whenever I use YouTube I feel lost on the site. I don't know where to click next.</li>
<li> I think that the search engine is not the best and the search results are not always the most relevant.</li>
<li>When (or if) I have finally found an interesting video it often turns out that it is a part of a series of videos that go together. I have real problems to figure out how to play the whole series in the correct order or even to find the other videos (some people post a lot of videos). I don't know if this is my problem, a problem of the users that have added the videos or rather a problem of the YouTube site but I hate the site interface.</li>
<li>The posting date of a video is important for me to know if the information is up-to-date or not. YouTube makes it very small and displays it in gray so that one cannot find it easily.</li>
<li>There seems to be no way to see the comments you have posted to videos. So you don't know which videos you have commented on. Very poor.</li>
<li>And it looks like everybody can take any name as his channel name on a first come basis. And he keeps it forever. This means that if there is some idiot who takes let's say your company name and posts stupid stuff you have no chance to do anything against it. And to make things even more annoying the YouTube channel with your company name and the stupid stuff will appear on top of the Google search results...</li>
</ul>Well if it is my mistake that I am not able to use the YouTube site I apologize for my statements. But searching on Google lets me believe that there are a lot of other angry users that would be very happy about some changes, e.g. <a href="http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/youtube/thread?tid=1c506abe5c6300bd&hl=en">here</a>.Anguelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11365435354410704225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8551655520281337858.post-43777860202109759592010-10-12T13:18:00.000-07:002010-10-13T07:11:57.895-07:00Why Blogger? Blogger vs WordPress vs ...<span style="font-size: large;">So why Blogger?</span><br />
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Although I classify myself as a rather experienced computer user I must admit that I have had no experience with blogging before. So I looked at some comparisons first (primarily on YouTube) and came to the conclusion that the choice will be between Blogger and WordPress.<br />
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Looks like WordPress is very powerful but to use all the power one should go with the install version from wordpress.org and one would have to put it on his own server. Because I have to manage and update other websites and do not have much time I did not want that, so I decided to use something that is ready to go and constantly updated so I can just blog and not care about installations, databases, updates and so on. On the other hand the free version from wordpress.com seems to have some limitations...<br />
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Well and then there is Blogger. By Google. This looks like SEO (search engine optimization) out of the box. And I also like the other Google products I use. As any other product they are not perfect but they do their job pretty well. And it looks like integration with AdSense is also something you get out of the Google box :)<br />
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Some people may not like Google getting everywhere in their life but on the one hand one has to admit that it offers a lot of nice and cool things for free. Google has the techie-factor and makes our life easier... So I decided to go with Blogger for now. And as far as I can see one can even tweak some things I did not expect to be able to tweak, e.g. the blog's name and even the URL...Anguelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11365435354410704225noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8551655520281337858.post-11347745254891502072010-10-12T09:17:00.000-07:002010-10-12T12:36:03.978-07:00Hello World!<span style="font-size: small;">Hello World!</span><br />
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From time to time I have some techie stuff or IT topics I would like to share with others...<br />
So I finally decided to create this blog. More coming soon...<br />
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AnguelAnguelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11365435354410704225noreply@blogger.com0