This is a pain. For some reason, unkown even to Microsoft aparently, I reboot my system only to login to a temporary profile in Windows Vista or Windows 7.   As of this writing, I am using the release candidate of Windows 7, but since I’ve seen this on Vista and even on Windows XP, I kind of suspect this has nothing to do with this being a beta product.  XP doesn’t give the same error.  I can’t remember what it says, but it basicaly does the same thing, it logs you in under the “Default” profile in windows, which is temporary and you lose everything once you logout.

You might see this error:

Your user profile was not loaded correctly! You have been logged on with a temporary profile.
Changes you make to this profile will be lost when you log off. Please see the event log for details or contact your administrator.

Why this happens is a mystery.  I found one article on the MS knowledge base about your account that is a member of Guests or Domain Guests, but that’s not the case for my issue.  I found this article, which led me to a quick fix.  (I doubt a fix permanently though)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947242

The solution in that article did not fix it for me.  Also, I’ve heard you can simply logout and back on, but that doesn’t fix it for me either.  What I did was delete the subkey in the ProfileList registy key mentioned in the article above.  If you go in there, you’ll see two keys with the same SID.  One will end in “.bak”, which should be your correct key.  Look within that key for the value of ProfileImagePath.  It should show the path to your windows profile.  Mine, for example, is : “C:\Users\greg”. Now look into the newly created profile key (SID without the “.bak”), this should show ImageProfilePath of “C:\Users\Temp”.   Obviously wrong.

The fix in the article tells you to delete the key with the “SID.bak”, but that just left in the temp profile and didn’t work for me.  I went back in to the registry, deleted the one with the C:\Users\Temp in the path, and then renamed my original one (Which I had exported! Named with the “.bak” and has your correct profile path.) by simply removing the “.bak” at the end.  Log off and back on, problem solved.

I hope this helps!  Backup your registry first!!

I love my new Env Touch, since I can’t get an iPhone it’s just awesome, but there’s a couple little things I don’t like. Like the fact that the dial pad goes blank when entering my PIN in voice mail. I have the screen set to 30 seconds timeout, but it still instantly goes blank. Well, guess what I discovered? If you just hold the phone flat, the screen lights up again! LOL! That’s the trick, just hold it flat, and you can see the numbers to enter!

Also, it drove me nuts that I couldn’t get all my contacts imported somehow.  I finally took some time to do a little searching and found this awesome post:

http://www.verizon-phones.org/verizon-lg-env3-and-env-touch-outlook-sync-software-update-download.html

I have all my contacts in Google Apps, but that was just a simple export to CSV, which I took and imported into Outlook 2007 easy enough.  I am using Windows 7 RC - 64bit.  I took the modem driver and the Outlook sync tool and set them both with Windows XP sp2 compatibility, then I ran them “As Administrator” as well.  The modem driver installed, can’t remember if it said success or not though.  Then the sync tool, that installed just fine.

I took my phone and set the USB to Modem mode, then plugged it in.  Windows 7 saw it, but the LG software to run updates didn’t see it.  I don’t care, because I just want my contacts.  So I opened Outlook, at the top toolbar was a new LG button.  Open that and do your sync.  I only ran the Contacts, so I don’t know if the Calendar will work yet, but all my contacts are now in my phone.  Now, I just need to setup a sync to Google Apps, and then a sync using this tool, and I’ll be dual syncing!

Download the Outlook sync tool here:

http://www.lgmobilephones.com/images/support/resources/LG_Outlook_Sync.msi

And the modem driver (URL is shortened):

http://www.lgmobilephones.com/…LGUSBModemDriver_Eng_WHQL_Ver_4.9.4_All.exe

It’s possible to email an mp3 as a TXT message to yourself, but that’s not going to work for me. I suppose there are other’s out there like myself, that do not have any data on their plan. I do have text messages, but no data, so no pictures or audio can text to me phone. (because Verizon rips you off on the data pricing!) I just don’t really need that, but it would be handy.

Anyway, down to business. I figured out how to add a ringtone to my Env Touch (LG-VX11000) using the SD Card!

Make your ringtone MP3 file, then insert the SD card into your computer. Find the “my_sounds” folder. Copy ringtones into there. Next put the SD card back into your EnV Touch. Hit the center, blue icon (with the four white dots) to open the menu. Go to “Media Center” in the menu, and then “Music and Tones”. Next go to “My Sounds”, you should see the ring tones you’ve added in there. Click on one that you want, the “Options” menu should show, and select “Set As”. Then select “Ringtone”.

There you go! You now have your custom ringtone on your EnV Touch!

(This might work for the EnV 3 too! They have very similar menu’s and options.)

I found some info on Google searches to get Windows 7 to join a Samba domain controller.  I have Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty which runs Samba 3.3.2, which I guess does not work.  You need 3.3.4.   Windows 7 needs a registry change:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\LanmanWorkstation\Parameters]
“DomainCompatibilityMode”=dword:00000001
“DNSNameResolutionRequired”=dword:00000000

The above need to be added to allow the join to work.  Then find the key below and set those values to 0.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\Netlogon\Parameters]
“RequireSignOnSeal”=dword:00000000
“RequireStrongKey”=dword:00000000

The Netlogon values need to be updated, or Windows 7 will not allow domain logons.  You’ll get an error about credentials and no domain controller, or something like it.  Adding the second two will allow the logon.

Adding the registry keys above, plus upgrading Samba, did the trick.  I was able to join Windows 7 to Samba 3.3.4, but I did get a weird error about the DNS suffix being wrong.  I just said OK and left it.  I tried to change it several times after, too, but always get the same error.  System working fine so far though!

As for upgrading Samba, you’ll have to Google that one.  But here’s what I did, in a nutshell. (This is NOT a HOWTO, just a record of my experience, so if you follow this, it might break your system. Just be warned.)  I had a working domain controller, so I had a SAM database already with SID’s and passwords.  I didn’t want to lose those.  After backing up my server and Samba configs (including all the tdb files) I removed Samba 3.3.2 package from Ubuntu.  Then I downloaded the Samba source tar.gz for version 3.3.4, unpacked and “./configure” and then compiled. (make && make install)

At this point I found all my tdb files and copied them into the default Samba installation, which was different than the Ubuntu package.  I think the original tdb files from Ubuntu are in /var/lib/samba.  I copied all that to /usr/local/samba/var/lock. (the default when compiling from source)  I also setup a link from the original smb.conf in /etc/samba to /usr/local/samba/lib/smb.conf.

Now I’ve got my Windows 7 system logged in and joined to my Samba domain!

Just wanted to add a quick note about this as I couldn’t find a reason why dynamic DNS on my Ubuntu 9.04 system were failing. I had all the right perms, ownership, etc. I even opened up the files to full world writable and still, I got errors that the journal files could not be written to.

Log snippets:

error: journal open failed: unexpected error

jnl: create: permission denied

Learning as I go… there’s a thing in Ubuntu called Apparmor. Never even heard of this. This is what was keeping the files from being written to by the bind daemon.  I guess Apparmor has been in this for a while now, but for several yeas now, I have not run into a situation where I had to mess with it.

Here’s what you change.  And keep in mind, this is NOT the correct way to handle this on a production or public DNS server.  You’ll need to read up more on the correct config for this one.  But on my tiny LAN or at home, here’s what I did.  In the /etc/apparmor.d directory, edit the usr.sbin.named file.  Find the line:

/etc/bind/** r,

Change it to:

/etc/bind/** rw,

Then restart the apparmord daemon.  If your DDNS config in Bind and DHCP are correct, you should start seeing successful updates now.

Here’s a coulple links that were helpful on the DDNS setup:

http://brunogirin.blogspot.com/2007/11/dhcp-and-dynamic-dns-on-ubuntu-server.html
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=274665
http://www.ops.ietf.org/dns/dynupd/secure-ddns-howto.html

Also, I wanted to make a note to myself. Creating a new key for DDNS:

dnssec-keygen -a HMAC-MD5 -b 128 -n HOST dhcp-update-key

That creates keyfiles in which you’ll get your key string, this is added in your dhcpd.conf and named.conf.* files as “secret”.   RTFM dnssec-keygen. and read up on the links above. :)

Well I just have too much fun with things like this. I don’t know where it came from, but the Blogosphere was a great name people use. I suddenly thought of Nettiverse because I was trying to connect my blog with Facebook and Twitter. I thought they were pieces of the virtual universe we take part in, the Nettiverse. Now, many people out there are moving away from the Blogosphere and into the Twitterverse. Or maybe it should be called the Twittersphere. Personally, I like Twitterverse.

What’s bugging me is this, Facebook’s name. I haven’t seen or thought up a cool name for it as it exists in the Nettiverse. Anyone out there with a cool idea?

I thought of BookHole! Hahaha! I like it, makes me laugh because that’s exactly what it is, a Black Hole in the Nettiverse. Once you get in, you can’t get out! It sucks you in and wastes away time! But there must be something more fun to call it? Tweet me if you have any ideas. http://twitter.com/gregthegeek

By the way, as people more and more move away from blogs and on to Twitter, I’ve seen a post or two from people suggesting that blogs are a thing of the past. Well, I disagree. I feel they are useful tool. I use my blog mostly as a tech log. Things I like to remember, things I once fixed. The world out there could care less about it, but that’s not the point. It’s for me. I refer back to it, and it’s easy to get online while I am at a client and can’t remember how I solved a problem. Also, the little tidbits I post are found by Google searchers. So, if I find a solution and it helps just one person out there. Right on! Tweets are too short for that. So I like my blog, and I’ll keep using it alongside my Tweets and BookHole. (there’s got to be a better name than that! ??? )

This drove me nuts!  Why Microsoft had to take something totally simple in Windows 2000 and make it a complicated thing is NOT beyond me!  This is MS we’re talking about!  Of course it’s not easy with newer versions.

Took me a little bit, but here’s the commands I used on our primary domain controller, and it’s working great. that first w32tm command is all one line.

w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:”0.pool.ntp.org 1.pool.ntp.org 2.pool.ntp.org pool.ntp.org”,0×8 /syncfromflags:MANUAL /reliable:yes

w32tm /config /update

net stop w32time

net start w32time

w32tm /resync /rediscover

That should do it. However, always make sure you firewall is open to port 123 outbound!  I initially was receiving this error after running a “w32tm /resync” :

The computer did not resync because no time data was available.

In my case, that was caused by my firewall blocking port 123 for NTP traffic.  Go figure, we’ve been running this particular network for probably 2 years with that firewall blocking port 123, and only now did someone come and ask “why is our computer time off by 6 or  7 minutes?”  This is when you say, “Welcome to the world, can I help you?”  (Good old Beavis)  Well, at least we got our server configured better as a “reliable” time source with the right ntp.org pools.

Man, I haven’t posted in ages! Well, here’s something I want to remember for later. Force a computer to logoff at a particular time, but still allow logons later. Using Active Directory, I think, will force a logon schedule and dissallow users from logon if not within scheduled times.

On the computer you want to force logoff, open the C: drive and create a text file. Then rename it to, force-logoff.bat
Be sure you can view the extensions, or it will hide the .txt at the end and this wont work. (it can’t be force-logoff.bat.txt, which is what you’ll get if you have “hide extensions of known file types” selected)
Then right click, edit.
Put this in the file and save it.

PsShutdown.exe -o -f

After that, find PsShutdown.exe and copy/paste it into the C:\Windows dir on that system. Get it from here:
http://download.sysinternals.com/Files/PsTools.zip
You’ll have to unzip that and get the Psshutdown tool out of it.  I usually just put all the Pstools in the Windows directory anyway, it’s handy to have.
Then to test, just double click the force-logoff.bat file and it should log you out.  NOTE: The first time you run any of the PSTools, you’ll get a little EULA and you’ll need to agree to the terms.  Not big deal, then after that you won’t get a popup.

Last, make a schedule for it to run every day at your desired time.

Here’s the link to the Microsoft site regarding PsShutdown command line usage.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897541.aspx

In Exchange 2007, you have a nice little GUI to set your FQDN on your Send Connector. (Mine is called Outbound, as shown below.)

You can see my FQDN, set under the Hub Transport/Send Connectors of the Exchange Management Console.

However, if you send mail out to an external address, you’ll notice in the headers that your internal server name is still listed! What!? What’s the point of the GUI?

You have top open Exchange Management Shell, and type in a command to solve this. It’s easy.

As shown above, you just type in the command:

set-sendconnector “Outbound” –fqdn mail.1stbyte.com

Replace “outbound” with the name of your send connector, and of course, change to your own FQDN, not mine.

It will come back in error, or success. If success, you can check your headers on and external account right away.

Have fun!

Had to spend a few minutes reminding myself how to configure this. Easy as pie! Even works with images now!!! Yay!

While in a “New Blog” in Word 2007, click the Manage Accounts buton. (A wizard will probably start the process the first time you do this, but here’s the manual way.) This assumes you already have a WordPress blog setup, of course. I tested this with my own WordPress installation, on my own web host, so I am not sure if this works the same with “Wordpress.com”, but I would assume so.

In the Blog Accounts, you can click New or Change.

In the next screen, enter your domain URL and make sure it ends with /xmlrpc.php.

Add your username and password, and for me, I like to Remember, but that’s up to you.

Then click Picture Options.

Make sure you have selected “My Blog Provider”, and click OK.

Then you’ll be back at the New WordPress Account windows, just click OK.

You should see a message that “Account created successfully” or something like that. If not, the errors are not very helpful, but when I did get one, it was just that I didn’t enter the right password. And remember, this will be the username and password IN YOUR WORDPRESS system, NOT your hosting system. (stupid mistake I made, I knew better!)

One thing I don’t see how to do, is select the account I want to publish to within Word, besides the obvious “default” setting. Maybe I need to do that in each doc. I will post when I test it.

EDIT: Duh! Right in Word, at the top of the doc is an Account selection. Just select the account for the blog, if you have more than one.

See how they run

Well for the larger businesses out there, this may not be a useful tip. But for those of us that support small networks, like less than 50 or even 10 systems, utilizing shares on workstations is sometimes needed. For example, I have servers in most all of my networks, and their hard drives are fairly large, but I don’t want to save all my downloads and application CD’s on the server. With newer workstations loaded with larger drives than servers sometimes, I’d rather make use of that space there. Not with the main, business critical data, but only things that are not needed for backups or maybe read only archives. These 500+ GB drives give us a ton of space, and when you only have less than 10 people accessing this data periodically, this makes perfect sense. Constant read/write access with lots of users would require the server, rarely accessed stuff goes on a workstation.

Here’s the problem I ran into though. I like to use DFS and create a single shared, mapped drive for all the users. In there I might have a couple shares pointing to workstations. On XP SP2, this works fine, EXCEPT if you are accessing the DFS link from the system where the share resides. You will get an Access Denied error, even with all the correct permissions.

Here’s a registry fix that will overcome the issue.
(Remember, use the registry at your own risk. Back it up if you must. Heck, backup your whole system!)

Open this key on the XP system:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Mup\Parameters

Add a DWORD value:

EnableDfsLoopbackTargets

Change its value to 1.

Reboot the system.

Your share should now be working from DFS mapped drive from the local system. (the local system where the share is located.)

So you went to add a new address to a user account in Active Directory, and you got an error that this address already exists? Sucks huh? Especially when you don’t know where it could be? Here’s one way to track it down.

On your domain root in AD Users and Computers, right click, select Find. Select Custom Search, click the Advanced tab, and enter an LDAP query like so:

proxyaddresses=smtp:emailaddress@youwanttofind.com

(I am assuming you are not a complete NEWB and you know you should replace that email with the one you want.)

Then click the Find Now button. You should see a in the results below any object that may have this address on it.

I’ve run into this a few times, thought I’d record the solution for once so I remember it.

After adding a new user account, the user does not show up in Outlook’s Global Address List, but does show in All Users. (If you click “To” in a new message, for example, and in the Select Names windows under “Show names from the:” drop down, you select All Users.) Even if I go into Active Directory Sites and Services and manually force replication it does not work. (under the NTDS Settings for each server) Normally, I would even go into Recipient Update Services and manually update, but this does not work either.

I found out that if you have Outlook in Cached Exchange Mode, the Global Address List does not update for up to 24 hours. I don’t know the details on that, but I can force it to update. This is on a per-machine basis, so doing this across the whole network won’t work. (Although, there may be a way to do this, I just don’t know how.)

Go into Outlook, go to Tools, Send/Receive, then click Download Address Book. Make sure you have Global Address List under the Choose Address Book drop down, and click OK. Problem solved.

By the way, I am using Exchange 2003 and Outlook 2003.