Thursday, November 12, 2009

Free Public Wifi

So I had this problem with strange wifi's showing up around the building. ad hoc networks at that. free public wifi... Rovernet... linksys... Where on earth are these things coming from. Well so a coworker got his hands on a program that would tell you the strength of wifi networks. So we set off wandering the building to find these things. And we did. Way back in the sales pit, we had signals as big as a house. So the sales people were out at a sales promotion and we started shutting down computers. We found the computers that were creating these things and the mac addresses that were being shown by these things did not match the machines mac address by our network inventory system.

This had me thinking that this was some sort of Trojan that our Trend Micro was not picking up. But a quick google search later and I discovered this site. Which states that it is a bug in Microsoft's Wireless Zero Configuration. Basically they stated that once you connect to an ad hoc network (maybe at an airport or some other public place.) Your computer will try to connect to it the next time you boot up. And if it doesn't find it then it will make your laptop that ad hoc network.

So how do I fix this across a number of computers and not have to log in to each one to disable this ability? Thankfully Microsoft Technet came through for me and told me how to do it in a 2003 AD. So I followed the instructions on the site and created a GPO that disabled the ability to connect to an ad hoc network wirelessly.

Then it was time for lunch. After lunch the coworker and I found that all ad hoc networks were gone. But the users were still using those laptops that we found the networks were coming from before.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Glacial search times in ENPS.

If your ENPS system has long search times resulting in "server unavailable", try this.

First off, I recommend doing this on the buddy server first. This will not affect your primary server when you do so.

Go to Computer management and choose Services and Applications. Then look for the Indexing Service. Highlight the Indexing Service and make sure that there are no Docs to Index. Then go to F:\NOM and find indexdel.exe Double click this and there will be a message confirming you want to delete the index. Say OK and the Index will be deleted. Go back to computer management and look at the Docs to Index. It will begin climbing. The system will re-index everything in ENPS and you will not be able to search for anything during this time.

After it has finished (several hours later) switch to your buddy server and see if your search times have become very quick again. If so, repeat for the process for the primary server. Remember to keep everyone on the buddy so that they can search normally while the primary is being re-indexed.

If this doesn't fix it call ENPS.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Repair Install On windows XP

So I have a buddy that I am being generous and helping out of a pickle with his computer. None of his USB ports are working right, his dvd and cd drives do not recognize discs (but as a side note they do work for booting a live cd and can play music in WMP.), and his printer is not working. I thought that sounds like a driver issue or rather drivers. So I have tried uninstalling devices and reinstalling them. I have copied files over from my computer and it did not help the issues at hand.

I then thought that I would double check for viruses. He has AVG (not the free one) and the scan came back clean. I then tried the free online Kaspersky scan, Trend Micro scan, and BitDefender scan. All of which came back clean. Glad to see that.

I then took a spare hdd that I had lying around and stuck it in his computer and installed windows on that drive. Everything worked flawlessly. So I know this isn't his hardware that is going bad.

So I got him to give me his windows disk and I was going to do a fresh install. I thought, hmm... maybe a repair install would be better. I have never done one, but after all, then he wouldn't lose all his data. Well I went ahead and backed up the important stuff and started to do this repair install. I looked at a couple websites before I started and they had a couple of warnings and I took note of them. Well, as the repair install was in it's process I found this. Microsoft's instructions on a repair install. And there were a couple of things that it said that other sites did not mention.

1. Uninstall any service packs that were added to the system.

2. Uninstall Internet Explorer.

Seems like a couple of important things that I wish I had seen before I started the process but too late now.

So I get to the gui. and of course you have to relaod drivers that part I expected. But then it gets to some dll's that are not installing (Licwmi.dl_ was the first one). I have tried getting them off the windows disk I tried copying the file on the hard drive to another location. I tried other windows disks. none helped. a quick google search and i ran across this at microsoft's website. It is talking about exactly the files that I am having problems with copying over. I know it is for server 2k3 but hey at this point the drive isn't working anyway. But how do I get this to work, I can't boot to windows? Simple, I take that other hdd that has a fresh install of windows on it and I copy that secedit.sdb file that theis page talks about rebuilding. Bingo! worked like a charm... I was able to finish the install.

Of course then, windows goes into a rebooting loop. It would get up to the login screen and reboot. A couple of times, I got to click on the user and just as it started to load the profile... reboot. So I tried Safe Mode and that worked without a hitch. Okay so this is where I actually tried the advice about rebuilding that secedit.sdb file. but at this point it didn't help my rebooting problem. I used safe mode with networking to download and re-installed SP3. This got it to stop the rebooting loop. But Internet Explorer was not right now. So I used the other browser that he had on his pc (Safari) to download IE8 and re-install it. Note that I am re-installing these, he had already loaded these onto his computer through windows updates.

Now I was finally able to do a normal windows update.

And upon the reboot I started testing all the drives and usb ports and all seems to be working just fine. Data is intact and programs are working just fine. FINALLY.

Friday, March 13, 2009

New SSL Certificate on Exchange 2003

So I have decided to change companies for my ssl. Sure not a problem, after all, it is just a certificate.

Well, with IIS 5 like Server 2003 comes with there is no way to actually go in and create a new CSR for a website. So I searched online to find a way to do this and found a site that had a mention of what to do. I read it and thankfully remembered enough to get it done because I could not remember where I found it. I went through my history and just couldn't find it again. But this is what I did.

I first opened Internet Information Services Manager. Then I expanded the local computer and found the folder called websites. I right clicked on the folder and created a dummy site. I didn't go though setting any settings in it except the name.

I then right clicked on the site and went to properties. Under the tab Directory Security, I clicked on Server Certificate. I created a new CSR, using the wizard, and submitted it to the company to validate my ssl certificate.

Once that was done and they issued me my ssl I went back to where I created the CSR and finished installing the certificate using the wizard. And rebooted.

I then, had to install the root certificate and intermediate certifcates. To do that, I had to go to Start > Run and type in mmc and press Enter. Then I went to File > Add/Remove Snap-In... On the window that opened up I clicked on Add... And on the window that opened up I chose Certificates and clicked Add. Then on a wizard that opened up, I had to choose Computer Account, click next, and Local Computer, click finish. Then I closed that window and I clicked OK. I expanded the certificates and found the Trusted Root Certification Authorites. I right clicked on that and chose All Tasks > Import... The wizard that popped up asked me to browse to the certificate. I then clicked next and left the default Place all certificates in the following store, Trusted Root Certification Authorites. Next. and Finish.

I then repeated the process for the 2 intermediate certificates except I did that under Intermediate Certification Authorities.

I then went back to IIS Manager and found the website that I actually use (for me it is the default website). I then went back into the properties and the Directory Security Tab. I went to Server Certificate... and on the wizard that popped up I chose Replace the current certificate, Next, and found the certificate that I had just purchased. Then I went through the rest of that wizard accepting defaults and once I was done with the wizard I clicked on View Certificate.

Hey look at that there it is!

I then went to the dummy site and deleted it. If you are unsure of yourself after doing that you can go back and look at the certificate just to help yourself sleep better.

After all that I checked my Outlook Web Access and it is working with the new SSL... And my phone still gets email too, so I must be good to go.