Quick note about using chntpw command to reset Windows passwords. Mostly, I just couldn’t remember what the command line program was or the switches.

Boot to System Rescue CD.
mount the Windows drive RW (mine was RO)
cd to the config dir: cd /mnt/sda1/Windows/System32/config
Backup your sam,security,system,software (just copy them to another directory)

Now run this to list user while in the config directory:
chntpw -l ./sam

And this will run in interactive mode and ask you which user to edit the password.
chntpw -i ./sam

Chntpw can also edit your registry. One time it really saved the day when I was locked out of a computer and something was causing boot to fail. This made it pretty quick to edit the registry in a way that allowed me access to the system again. (then we proceeded to run a bunch of antivirus checks)  By the way, this worked for me on Windows XP and Windows 7.

Great tool!

We have Exchange accounts in Outlook 2010 and the Global Address List would not update. One reason was due to an error on our server (address in another post), but then the default times to update are 24 ours, and that’s too long. On our internal systems, we want Cached Mode exchange accounts, but direct/real-time addess to the Global Address List in Active Directory.

1.

Add this to a new registry file and/or add to your user’s registry (not system, each user on workstation). Create a text file on your desktop, copy/paste the text below, save, then double click to add to your registry:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook\Cached Mode]
"DownloadOAB"=dword:00000000

The above is for Outlook 2010, but for 2007 and 2003, replace the 14.0 with 12.0 and 11.0 respectively.

2.

If you have and OAB files, you need to remove them. In this folder:
%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook
If you see “Offline Address Books”, rename that folder. Close Outlook and reopen.

You should now have direct GAL access and updates are immediate.

Reference more detail here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/841273

The shortest interval to download user email with the Exchange Pop3 connector is 15 minutes. Too long for most people. To shorten that to 5 minutes, you have to update/add a registry value in this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SmallBusinessServer\Network\POP3 Connector

Add Dword:

“ScheduleAccelerator”=dword:00000003

 

It works by dividing the default schedule interval by that value. For example, the server connector is set to 15 minutes, the lowest setting. Set the reg value to 3, so 15 divided by 3 equals 5. This makes it a 5 minute interval.

All the logical fixes didn’t work. Reinstall, removed ide drivers, reinstalled again, no worky.

I was getting an Error code 39 (and 37 on another machine), and the DVD/CD drives would not show up in Windows.

“Windows cannot initialize the device driver for this hardware. (Code 37)”

The problem seems to be caused by CD Burner software that is not loading or installed properly. It’s odd because I’ve found this on several machines lately.  It occurred to me that there are a lot of programs now that can burn CD or DVD.  Itunes, or other music programs for one, they are very common now.  But there’s other things, like some accounting software that can backup to CD.  You have to watch for any of them that might install their own burning capability.

The solution was to remove the upperfilters and lowerfilters in the registry key below:

Find  "UpperFilters" and "LowerFilters" values in this key and delete them:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

After that, I uninstalled the device in Device Manager, and scanned for new hardware.  The drive came right back up!

More details on this page:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/314060

We had some computers showing a set of numbers as the computer on a mapped drive. They happened to be some numbers auto-added by Dell setup, I think. But that’s not the issue. It’s just showing the wrong thing on a mapped drive.

For example: Running “net view” shows a server like so:

Server Name   Remark

\\server    8400238585

So on our mapped drive it looked like this:

N: Sharename on 8400238585 (Server)

That is so annoying!!!

The fix…

First, change the server comment so it makes sense. On the server:

Right click My Computer, select Manage.
Right click the top item (Computer Management),and select Properties.
Go to Network Identification, and type in the Description you would rather have.

You probably need to restart the Server service or even reboot that server to take effect. You can also do that to other servers from the same location, by right clicking the same item and selecting “Connect to another computer”.

You can also update this in the registry, can’t remember exactly where. But I think its a key called “srvcomment” under HKLM\Currentcontrolset\Services\lanmanserver.

You can also run this on the server:
net config server /srvcomment:”My new description”

Now, to fix XP you need to do this:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330193

This used to drive me nuts. Go to Group Policy, set the Last Username display setting to enabled, and you still see the username at logon. What? Most sites you find when searching for this will tell you to adjust the policy (group or local). OR, they will tell you to remove the DefaultUserName in the registry. For some reason, these do not always work, and I haven’t figured out why. (particularly on a domain controller.)

Anyway, here’s the trick. Keep in mind, that this will disable the last logged on user at ALL logon prompts, terminal (RDP) logons and local console logons.

To make sure that the last username does not show at logon screen go here:

HKLM\\Software\\Microsoft\\Windows NT\\CurrentVersion\\Winlogon

In there, make sure there is a value for:

DontDisplayLastUserName

It should be a REG_SZ type: String value. So, if it’s not there, add it, and make the value = 1

That’s it.

BIG NOTE: I have not tested this on a domain controller yet. But I think this will do it. It works great on 2000 Server (non-DC) and on XP Pro.

Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER
Key: Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
Name: NoClose
Type: REG_DWORD
Value: 1

This will disable the Shutdown command on the start menu.

On the shutdown registry hack above/below, put it in HKLM to affect the whole server/dc/workstation.