Technet Subscriptions Retirement

This morning I received an email that had a subject like this: “Technet Subscriptions Retirement”. I was a little bit shocked as I looked at it.

Then I looked at the anouncement on the technet homepage somewhat puzzled: http://technet.microsoft.com/subscriptions/default.aspx

What was that all about? As an IT Pro I was using this subscription for testing purposes (vm) and access to some resources like MS Dart, AGPM, etc and there were a bunch of other products that weren’t available as normal free/trial downloads.

And what now?! Am I going to reinstall every 150 days my vm just to use them? What?! Or buy full license only for testing? WTF!

So I’ve decided to talk to a costumer support. The guy pointed me out to this: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/subscriptions/buy/buy.aspx

So the option to the previous benefits would be the product MSDN Operating Systems which costs 699$; that’s almost 3 times the cost for a Standard Technet Subscription.

Well, that seems like a move to get rid of a product that was at a very good price for any IT Pro. Who knows to what else.

I can’t say I’m happy, yet my subscription expires next year on 24 Feb so I have plenty of time to think about this.

As for me, I see the later development of products at MS is only to maximize profit with no regards to the user well beiing.

Why do I say that. I’ll tell the story about how you activate Office 2013 later.

The story is so stupid that it’s funny.

Windows 8 – A new experience or a nightmare?

Well, it was a nightmare until a certain point.

In the beginning there was Windows 8 Developer Preview. Since I’m in the computer business since at least Win 3.11 (of course I had a Spectrum Z80 compatible in my childhood and played with it too, in our case these were
named HC-85 and HC-91) when I heard about the new Developer Preview for Windows 8 I was pleasantly surprised and installed it. And of course since I’m mainly using MS OS’es at work I’m somewhat if not a fan at least very well
accustomed to this kind of OS. And since Windows 7, which by the way is a very stable and robust OS MS has washed the bad image that they had since Vista or so.

The thing with the Developer Preview was that it worked very well for a semi-beta program, maybe too well. I really had no problem with that OS and used it for several months. Everything was working. On default drivers.

And now the RTM. Installed it and the fun began.First of all, my video adapter seemed to mysteriously fail once per two days or so. By failing, I mean that the screen went blank and nothing could bring the interface back, yet the computer was responding to pings from outside etc The solution was always reset. Have I mentioned that I never had problems with the video card(BFG NVIDIA 8800GTS) on any other os? After 2 or three weeks I ran out of patience and said: “Ok, maybe the default drivers are the problem, let’s install a driver from NVIDIA”. Said and done. Of course after installing the driver it looked like everything was going fine and no errors occurred. Until the next day. The same blank screen. The signed driver from NVIDIA. Waited for another month or so until a new driver was released. Installed it. Same thing. Blank screen once two days. So, if you want to play games on Windows 8 forget it for now. Half the games I’ve tried had problems with the video part and stability problems (were crashing very often).
And after countless more small harassments that doesn’t worth mentioning(the kind like: you can’t do this unless you do that. “But they’re not in any way related, I don’t understand why it’s like that.” We know better.) I was: “Ok, you’re done here.” Removed it and installed Windows 7 and happy since.

That’s my home experience.

Well, at work it’s a totally  different story. Here it either works or it doesn’t. You can’t explain to an employee that something “almost” works. So the first laptop I bought after the RTM, had Windows 8 despite the bad experience I had at home.
Laptop was a Dell Inspiron with Windows 8. No paying attention to the version because I always buy the Pro version for work so I supposed that my sales contact would offer me only Pro versions of the OS. Got it, and wanted to join the domain…
Surprise! It was grayed out. So I try powershell:
PS C:\> Get-WindowsEdition -Online

And the message?

Get-WindowsEdition : The requested operation requires elevation.
At line:1 char:1
+ Get-WindowsEdition -Online
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [Get-WindowsEdition], COMException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.Dism.Commands.GetWindowsEditionCommand
   
This seems rather stupid, why would I need elevation just to see what OS is installed? It hurts my head to think of this. Finally after opening an elevated session of powershell I get Windows 8 Something. Not Pro. So I called my seller and asked about the license. He confirmed that it was a basic edition and he had mistaken so he offers me a OEM license with the price of an upgrade license so that everyone is happy.
I don’t have to wait until I get the license, I can install the OS and activate it later with the key I get from him. Started installing, no key requirement (I was surprised by that) and when I finally want to join the domain …
Same version of windows. No PRO. I looked at the computer and can’t believe my eyes. And no chance to add a key or something to activate as PRO for example. I thought I got something wrong, and started installing again. Happily, from an usb stick the installation takes 8-9 minutes so no hassle here. Again no serial number requirement and same edition of Windows 8. Not PRO.
At this moment I was certain that something was very wrong and called my seller. He begins to laugh and says that I probably didn’t format the previous installation and some residual info remained. Of course I always install clean especially when the computer is new, simply delete all the partitions, create a new one and start installing on it. Of course, what he said seemed stupid so I proposed to him to install the OS. Sent the laptop and waited. After a few hours he calls me and says to me still laughing: “Well, you were right that’s for sure, but we have a problem”. The problem was that the key was embedded in BIOS and at installation the OS automatically acquires the corresponding key and activates the version that is embedded in BIOS. “So now we can’t install the PRO version on this hardware”. And I go “What? I bought an computer with an OS and I can’t have another version even if I pay for it?” He says that “Yes. We were talking to Microsoft support and Dell support and requested a resolution for this. For example if you want to have two versions of Windows 8 that you pay for you should be able to install both of them. We’re waiting for the resolution”.
So now I was already in a world of pain. This has already going on for too long and who would understand that you can’t deliver an fully configured workstation in 4 hours or less?
Then the next business day he told me they solved it but no resolution came from MS of DELL on this issue. They simply mounted the HDD on a non-embedded serial number hardware, started installing, and afterwards moved back the drive to the laptop. This can’t get more stupid than this would you say don’t you? Just carry on 🙂

Finally I delivered the computer to the user with the necessary excuses for the waiting time and now I had an upgrade licence to Win 8 PRO.

My laptop has an Windows 7 Pro OEM license and I wanted to migrate to Windows 8.This time everything has gone very well until I wanted to install mRemoteNG … The message was that I don’t have NET Framework installed.
Yes but I have NET Framework 4. Anyways at Add/Remove Windows features you have the option to Add NET Framework 3.5 which includes
version 2 and 3. Check the button, click OK and it simply gives an error like 0x800F0906. “Well, this is new” . I search on the net and what I find out: “If your computer is WSUS client (mine is by GPO of course), you will need the install disk or the Sources\SXS folder from the install media to run: dism /online /enable-feature

/featurename:NetFx3 /All /Source:e:\sxs /LimitAccess

. Whaaaaat?!?!!
So I can’t just download NET Framework 3.5 and install it?!! I need the windows install disk or files from sxs folder?!!!Microsoft you’re crazy?
Ok, I download the image from technet and finally get the Framework 3.5 installed to install mRemoteNG. 2-3 Hours of course, instead of 5 minutes.
We’re getting productive.

Now what would I need? Well RSAT of course. Download the package and install it. It took 10 seconds to install it. How nice! No errors!
Well, but were are the msc’s from RSAT? Searched even in %systemroot%\system32 and nothing. Well, this looks really interesting.
After a quick search on the net I find out that I can install RSAT ONLY if I have the EN-US Language Interface Pack installed.
Well I had EN-UK if you can imagine. So you Microsoft are telling me that only the EN-US users are interested in remotely administering servers??!?!

I didn’t even have vietnamese or something else. I had EN-UK for god sakes!?!? The solution? Simply download from technet the images with LIP’s and install from them.Now I was already so angry that at first I’ve downloaded the x86 image so I had to download again the x64. Namely mu_windows_8_language_pack_x64_dvd_917544.iso . Finally I had only to dism /online /add-package /packagepath:D:\langpacks\en-us or you can use RUN – lpksetup to install the EN-US language pack and the start the RSAT setup which took now at most 1 minute. So 2-3 hours instead of 1 minute. Greaaaaat!!!!

Now I am expecting some more nice surprises like those. Hopefully I’ve installed almost every tool I need.

Hope you didn’t had my experience with Windows 8 and simply laughed at my adventures.

Thank you Microsoft, you never let me get bored!

Offline registry editing + regional settings

Always the most annoying problems are linked to when we migrate users to a new profile and those little but essential settings that are in place.

So after such an operation I was in the situation that an MS Access app wasn’t displaying what it should for the user and that was designed by a coworker that was in holidays (of course) and he made all of the regional settings by himself. He did port the app from Access 2003 to Access 2007 which we use. Of course, he rather modified the default regional settings that we use than make the modifications in his app.

So how could we reproduce the regional settings from the old profile to the new one?

Since I kept the old user profile I needed to connect to the offline user profile offline.

We’ll need the old user profile and the new one.

The user (target user profile) should be logged off (better make a restart of the computer before proceeding).

We’ll open each user profile in separate regedit windows for easier comparison:

1. Go to Start – Run and type regedit or Start – Type in Search Programs or Files regedit – Click on it.

2. Click on HKLM (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE).

3. From the File Menu select Load Hive and browse to the old user profile.

The registry hives are located as follows:

All except of HKEY_CURRENT_USER: %SystemRoot%\System32\Config .

HKEY_CURRENT_USER (or the user which has the settings of interest ) c:\Documents and Settings\username under Windows XP

c:\users\username under Windows Vista, 7

4. Type a key name in the Load Hive window.

5. Open another regedit as in step 1 and follow steps 2-4 for the new user profile.

6. The regional settings are located in HKEY_CURRENT_User\Control Panel\International .

7. Now all you have the two different hives opened and all you have to do is to reproduce the settings from the old one to the new one.

For more detailed info about the keys referring to the regional settings in registry try here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc978632.aspx

More details about registry hives:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms724877

and of registry:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/256986

XP SP3 Switches

Today I needed a Windows XP slipstreamed with sp3 so I ran again (the 3452345234 time) windowsxp-kb936929-sp3-x86-enu_c81472f7eeea2eca421e116cd4c03e2300ebfde4.exe /? for finding out.

Here’s the output:

—————————
Service Pack 3 Setup
—————————
AVAILABLE SWITCHES:
[/help] [/quiet] [/passive] [/norestart] [/forcerestart] [/warnrestart] [/promptrestart] [/overwriteoem] [/nobackup] [/forceappsclose] [/integrate:<fullpath>] [/d:<path>] [/log:<fullpath>]   

    /help            Displays this message

SETUP MODES

    /quiet            Quiet mode (no user interaction or display)
    /passive            Unattended mode (progress bar only)

RESTART OPTIONS

    /norestart          Do not restart when installation is complete
    /forcerestart        Restart after installation
    /warnrestart[:<seconds>]     Warn and restart automatically if required (default timeout 30 seconds)
    /promptrestart          Prompt if restart is required

SPECIAL OPTIONS

    /overwriteoem        Overwrite OEM files without prompting
    /nobackup        Do not backup files needed for uninstall
    /forceappsclose        Force other programs to close when the computer shuts down
    /integrate:<fullpath>    Integrate this software update into <fullpath>
    /d:<path>        Back up files into <path>
    /log:<fullpath>        Create log file at <fullpath>

—————————
OK  
—————————

So you’ll be interested in the following if you want to slipstream sp3:

windowsxp-kb936929-sp3-x86-enu_c81472f7eeea2eca421e116cd4c03e2300ebfde4.exe /integrate:pathtoxpfiles /passive

“windowsxp-kb936929-sp3-x86-enu_c81472f7eeea2eca421e116cd4c03e2300ebfde4.exe /integrate:d:\temp\xp /passive”

Windows Error Reporting(WER) huge files (ReportQueue)

Today the low disk space message hit me. It regarded the drive where the os (Vista x64) resided. By searching what took so much space I stumbled upon this folder:

c:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportQueue\ which contained a bunch of files that totally counted for a staggering 15 Gb!

The files are created by Windows Error Reporting service that as by Microsoft does the following: “Windows Error Reporting: Windows Error Reporting in Windows Vista is a feature that allows Microsoft to track and address errors relating to the operating system, Windows features, and applications.”

Usually you won’t need these files so you can delete them by using the Disk Cleanup Utility: Start – All programs – Accessories – System Tools – Disk Cleanup, choose the drive that contains your operating system (for most of you will be C: ) and check the Windows Errors Reporting related files from the list, then click OK and it will clean the files.

You can also disable the service so that it won’t further create these files. Go to Control Panel – Problem Reports and Solutions on the Tasks pane choose : Change Settings and Advanced Settings. Here you check Off at the For my programs, problem reporting is:

The group policy that regards the settings of WER is this:

Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Error Reporting

For more details check out this Microsoft article:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc709644(WS.10).aspx

Failed SQL Server 2005 Uninstall – Pending reboot requierement

Since I needed to uninstall a SQL server 2005 instance, I was using the Add Remove Programs – Microsoft SQL Server Setup that returned me at the check the following message: “Pending reboot requierement” .

Usually than can mean that the system needs a restart after installing a patch or so. In my case I restarted and the message was the same.

So to get rid of the message and carry on with the changes that you want you’ll need to delete the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\PendingFileRenameOperations .

After the deletion of the key you’ll notice that the message has dissapeared and you can carry on.

Disable DEP (Data Execution Prevention) on Windows Xp

Sometimes it comes in handy to fully disable DEP. The way to do this:

Add to boot.ini the bold part:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=AlwaysOff

Of course you shouldn’t modify the rest of the line. Tested on Windows Xp Proffesional .

Windows Update Error 0x8DDD0018

Trying to update a computer and getting nowhere with Automatic Updates I tried on the Windows Update site. There it displayer error 0x8DDD0018 and suggesting some workarounds(verify the status of a few services).

On the Microsoft site I found something I would call a “killing spree”: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/910337

Then I stumbled on the solution to my problem:

simply go to Start – Run – cmd and type regsvr32.exe wuaueng.dll

It worked for me.

Terminal services client with network level authentication under Windows XP

This was something it really puzzled me: why can’t I connect to a host with network level authentication using an XP Sp3 operating sistem (TS Client 6.0.6001).

It seems that you don’t only need the new client, but also enable CREDSSP. The protocol specification can be found here:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/5/e/95ef66af-9026-4bb0-a41d-a4f81802d92c/%5bms-cssp%5d.pdf

To connect to a host that uses network level auth you need as a prerequisite to install XP SP3.

Afterwards you simply do the following steps:

Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then press ENTER.

In the navigation pane, locate and then click the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa . In the details pane, right-click Security Packages, and then click Modify.
In the Value data box, type tspkg. Leave any data that is specific to other SSPs, and then click OK.

In the navigation pane, locate and then click the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders
In the details pane, right-click SecurityProviders, and then click Modify.
In the Value data box, type credssp.dll. Leave any data that is specific to other SSPs, and then click OK.
Exit Registry Editor.
Restart the computer.

Et voila!

This is merely a digest. You can find the whole article here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951608

Have fun!

Slipstream SATA Drivers to XP CD

Have you ever seen what happens when you try to search on google or other search engine slipstream xp ? Well, one of these days I ONLY wanted to slipstream a single f****in’ SATA driver to a XP Install CD. And I though that it was simple… just google it. After say 5 minutes I was on the verge of starting to scream… stop the menace please. Of course there was nLite all over the place and so on. I didn’t need something that does even french fries, or a 451023 in 1 shampoo, I only wanted a SIMPLE slipstreamer tool. Then I did remember I stumbled on such a tool some time ago and tried to find it on my harddrive. After half an hour I did, here it is:

http://www.msfn.org/board/RAID-Slipstreamer-x86-x64-t85842.html

or here https://cid-82917aa8a2d86a68.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Project!%20Infrastructure%20development/XP/RAID%20SLIPSTREAMER

This tool ONLY does what it says: slipstream SATA RAID or SCSI DRIVERS to the install cd of Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 or the x64 version of these os’s .

NJOY using it, I really did.

Thank you MSFN for existing. And to the author too.