Dell Latitude E6400 video artifact problem with the Intel GMA 4500MHD

Ran into a weird video problem with a E6400 recently. I tried updating drivers, changing settings, and all the usual stuff but it would show up again within the first 15 minutes, give or take a few. So I decided to research into the video chipset itself and found that users on multiple laptop makes and models appeared to be suffering the same problem. See example below.

I found the solution on one of the lenovo forums http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T500-with-intel-gma-4500mhd-increase-system-video-memory/m-p/132267 (See post by dragon-fly). Apparently, there's an issue when there are a unmatched pair of different size memory modules. This particular laptop had a 4GB and 2GB in it so I swapped out the 2GB for a 4GB. And entertainingly enough, the problem went away right after that. It's been a few days now and the problem hasn't reappeared once yet.

Getting around the Windows 2003 P2V Hyper-V Migration via SCVMM blue screen problem

Yeah I know that's one long winded title. Here's the scenario:
1. Used Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 to do a physical to virtual server conversion for one of my older Windows 2003 x64 servers.
2. Since it was an OEM OS, I had to buy another server license and do a Repair from a Win2k3 R2 CD1 since that's just about the only good way to get around that activation issue.
3. All attempts to boot the VM got me the dreaded Blue Screen with a 07B error code.

Solution:
1. Don't install the integration components during the migration. On the last step of the SCVMM physical to virtual wizard it has an option to View Script.
2. Add -SkipInstallVirtualizationGuestServices to the very last New-P2V command. Then run the "Windows powershell - virtual machine manager" shortcut from the start menu and paste in the script. If you started from an OEM installation, continue to step 3, otherwise jump to step 5.
3. Then after the conversion, boot the VM off a Win2k3 R2 CD1 ISO or real CD and hit Enter for the first screen, then R to repair once it finds the OS.
4. After that's done, install Service Pack 2 for windows 2003 as it's required for the integration components. Then reboot.
5. Install the Integration services but DO NOT REBOOT yet. Check the registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Wdf01000
The Group Value should be WdfLoadGroup and NOT "Base" or else bad things will happen.
(Thanks to the guys at this thread: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/winserverhyperv/thread/8c65fc96-f961-41dd-bfa2-8caa852f20c7 )

Now your virtual machine should boot up normally.

iTap RDP and group policy

A user recently complained that their iPad device wasn't able to RDP into their workstation. They were using iTap RDP (http://itap.mobi/itap-rdp) which seemed to work fine for old XP boxes and non-domain joined workstations. It would give a NLA error when it tried to connect even though this newest version does support NLA. I knew it had to be group policy related since it only affected domain joined PCs. I wound up having to unconfigure the policy "Always prompt for password upon connection" under Computer Configuration -> Policies -> Admin templates -> Windows Components -> Remote Desktop Services -> Remote Desktop Session Host -> Security. Then gpupdate on my domain controllers, then gpupdate on the host pc and rebooted it for good measure. Afterwards, then the iTap RDP client was able to work properly.

Dell Powerconnect 6224 slow vlan routing problem

So I noticed that intra-vlan network performance had decreased significantly recently but the effects were sporadic. Wireshark traces showed a lot of traffic bleeding over from multiple vlans and file copy performance between vlans was a staggeringly low. I ran the a cable qualification device on all the links and tested the speed between each switch. Everything was fine as long as I didn't do an inter-vlan activity. So I knew then that the problem was in the 6224 which I use for my layer 3 switching between vlans. While trolling through forums, I noticed someone had recommended STP as a place to start in troubleshooting. I set my 'root' switches priority 8192 (lower is higher in priority) and all the issues disappeared within a few seconds.



As far as I can tell the Multiple STP operation mode was running into problems when a load was applied. Since all the other switches are by default set to 32768 by default, now I shouldn't have this problem again.

Shrew VPN replacement for Juniper/Watchguard on Windows 7 x64

So I'd been waiting to see if anyone had managed to get the Juniper netscreen vpn client to work on windows 7 x64 and then I just gave up and decided to look for an alternate solution. I really didn't want to keep an XP box around just for the purpose of connecting to this one partner's site. So after digging around I found Shrew (http://www.shrew.net/home) which supports XP/Vista/7 in both 32 and 64 bit. And as an added bonus they have tutorial/howtos for setting it up to work with over a dozen vpn endpoint devices. So I sent the info for the Juniper SSG setup to our partner site and they generated a new client file for us.


Installation of the client went smoothly and it imported the client file with no problems.

How to disable SoftAP (aka Windows 7 Wireless Hosted Networks) via Group Policy

Windows 7 comes with a nifty feature that allows it to function as a wireless hotspot. For home users and technical enthusiasts, it's a cool feature. For paranoid network admins like me that feature is a problem. You don't want users opening up wireless APs inside your building or if they're remote, functioning as conduits for outsiders to piggyback into your networks.

To disable this function via group policy, create a new group policy or modify and existing one and go to Computer Configuration -> Policies -> Windows Settings -> Security Settings -> Wireless Network (IEEE 802.11) Policies. right click on there and Create a new policy.



Now be careful what you select in here or else you'll wind up causing havoc for your wireless users.

Name your Wireless policy whatever you want, then go to the "Network Permissions" tab. Select the checkbox for "Don't allow hosted networks" and that will block the SoftAP feature.


Do not check the other boxes that I've marked in blue unless you want to lock down your users to only using your wireless APs (which will also block APs at airports, starbucks, etc). That "Only use group policy..." setting is bad news for your traveling employees.

Once these settings go into effect, the windows 7 clients may require a reboot or two before the changes kick in. These changes also will only work if they are using the default built in wlan client that comes with windows 7. (See checkbox setting on first tab of that policy window).

For more details on what these settings are:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd815243(VS.85).aspx

TFSWarehouse Event 3000 Failed to load adapter with SQL 2008 data tier

So I had my nice, mostly stable TFS implementation consisting of a SQL 2005 SP3 data tier and a TFS 2008 SP1 (9.0.30729.1) Application tier. I decided to upgrade the Data Tier to SQL 2008 since I'll need it to be there when we upgrade this year to TFS 2010. I followed Bill Wang's blog post http://billwg.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-to-upgrade-tfs-data-tier-to-sql.html

Everything went fine except the warehouse stopped refreshing. In the Event Log on the Application Tier I had this error:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: TFS Warehouse
Event Category: None
Event ID: 3000
Date: 2/3/2010
Time: 1:13:47 PM
User: N/A
Computer: TFS1
Description:
TF53010: The following error has occurred in a Team Foundation component or extension:
Date (UTC): 2/3/2010 6:13:47 PM
Machine: TFS1
Application Domain: /LM/W3SVC/3/Root/Warehouse-3-129096944229185149
Assembly: Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Warehouse, Version=9.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a; v2.0.50727
Process Details:
Process Name: w3wp
Process Id: 5444
Thread Id: 5576
Account name: PS_NT\TFSSERVICE

Detailed Message: Failed to load adapter Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Warehouse.CommonStructureAdapter. Exception Info: \n System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.AnalysisServices, Version=10.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.

After much head-banging I realized that I hadn't upgraded the SQL Client Connectivity on the App Tier to 2008 to match. D'oh. After installing the SQL 2008 Connectivity and Management tools and rebooting, I went to the http://localhost:8080/Warehouse/v1.0/warehousecontroller.asmx and hit 'Run', then invoke to force the update. Then used the 'GetWarehouseStatus' to watch the Adapter running. Fixed.

Symantec Backup Exec 2010 first impressions

Now it may be too early to say, but so far I'm actually impressed with BE 2010 (Trial edition of course). Normally I'm pretty skeptical about new releases but after a colleague of mine told me that it fixed his backup issues with a 2008 x64 R2 Hyper-V machine I decided to give it a look over. He had that dreaded "Snapshot provider error (0xE000FED1): A failure occurred querying the Writer status." error. I set up a couple of test x64 servers in the lab with copies of the real VMs and loaded up BE 2010 and set it for some Disk to Disk tests. While I did get some GRT related errors even though I wasn't using GRT at the time, it still backed up the server images themselves.
As far as installation goes, the UI continues to improve with each release and it's pretty straightforward. Upgrading an existing BE 12.5 install was a breeze. The remote installation process has undergone a major makeover and now makes it easier to roll out multiple agents with different options selected. And to boot, it lists all the previously rolled out agents in the console. The management console is a bit more refined looking and they've integrated a lot of new little icons into the selection windows.

They've also added a few new agents that will be interesting to try (as soon as I get the budget). The DeDuplication agent could be useful for reducing backup sizes and the new Exchange archiving agent has potential as well.

As always, I recommend fully testing out any new software product in a test environment prior to rolling it out into production...