I booked my next exam! 70-236!

The above is exactly why I have not been posting much here on the good old blog. I’ve been studying quite hard for the last 2 months or so for the MS 70-236, Configuring Exchange 2007.

I haven’t taken an MS exam in over two years, the last one being taken in Phoenix, AZ. I took the 70-270 then, hoping to jump on the MCSA train. Well, the train derailed and I got lazy.

My new job wanted me to get certified quickly in Exchange 07. First is the 236, then onto the 237 (Designing Messaging Solutions) and 238 (Deploying Messaging Solutions). After passing the 236, I will be an MCTS (Microsoft Certified Technical Specialist). Sounds important, huh? After the 237 and 238, I will be an MCITP: Enterprise Messaging Administrator. Even more important!

Let’s just say I’ll be glad when it’s all over. These are tough exams to study for. With the introduction of new server roles, Powershell, etc, Exchange 07 has really evolved from Exchange 2000 and 2003.

Weird Networking Problem in Vista Ultimate

I shouldn’t be using this blog as a tech support forum, but I’m at my wits end and I need someones help with this issue.

I have a fairly new Vista Ultimate install running on an Athlon 64 processor with 2GB memory.

I have lost all ability to view any network adapters. See pictures here: (click to enlarge)

I cannot adjust any NIC settings. Anyone have a clue of what I can do? I went back to my last system restore and it’s still not helping. I can only guess it was an update I installed. This has been an issue for about two months.

I cannot roll back drivers because I don’t have any older drivers.

I have tried to re-register:

regsvr32 netshell.dll
regsvr32 netcfgx.dll
regsvr32 netman.dll
regsvr32 firewallapi.dll

UAC is off, and it’s been off since day 1.

Can anyone help me?

A couple great FREEWARE sites

A tremendous site that I heard about on my favorite podcast, the Mike Tech Show.
URL: www.fantasticfreeware.com

Another great site for LEGIT freeware is Giveaway of the Day. Once a day, a new peice of free licensed software is spotlighted.
URL:  http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/

Windows Logon Screens Through The Years

What a trip down memory lane! I love hearing these old sounds!

YouTube – Windows Sounds and logos- never before seen!

Neat little utility to clean up Bookmarks

I heard my friend Mike (over at Mike Tech Show) mention this on his last podcast. It’s a great little utility called AM-DeadLink. Just what does this do?

(click to enlarge)

AM-DeadLink detects dead links and duplicates in browser bookmarks and text files. If a bookmark has become unavailable you can verify and delete it permanently. Additionally you can download FavIcons for all your Favorites and Bookmarks.

AM-DeadLink is Freeware!

AM-DeadLink can check the following resources:

• Internet Explorer Favorites
• Firefox bookmarks
• Opera bookmarks
• Mozilla and Netscape bookmarks
• URLs from tab delimited text files
• URLs from comma separated text files

AM-DeadLink can download FavIcons for:

• Internet Explorer Favorites
• Firefox bookmarks
• Opera bookmarks

If you’re like, and you have literally thousands of bookmarks, do yourself a favor and do a little cleaning! This application was a snap to install and a breeze to use. I’m a huge fan of this software.

LINK: AM-DeadLink

A great utility that fixed my crashing explorer issues!

For the last few weeks, I’ve been having some serious issues with my Vista installation, that I almost thought I’d scrap it all for either going back to XP or switching over to Ubuntu.

Well, I got sick of it and researched my issue. I thought it was my anti-virus (I was running Avast Free Edition) but it ended up being a shell extension from Acronis that caused the issue.

I used a great tool called ShellExView that exposed all running shell extensions. I disabled the Acronis shell extension (which is still great software by the way), and right-clicking any file or menu does not cause my explorer to bug out any more.

ShellExView lets you view all installed shell extensions. If available, it displays the description, as well as version details, company information, location, file name and more. You can optionally disable/enable any item, which can be very useful to disable an extension, that you don t need or that has been left behind in your right click menu from a previous software install.

Now, I can honestly say I’m a little more happy with Vista now. I’m still having some issues (which I will post about, because I need some help with it) but overall things are much more happy now!

Manual HP LTO Tape Removal

Who hasn’t run across this? A stuck LTO tape in a HP Ultrium drive that just won’t come out. Well, maybe a lot of you, but I know I have and would love to have had this document when I was in that bind. This was passed on to me by one of my fellow engineers.

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&objectID=c00796950&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

How to remove the Vista RDP Prompt

You know what I’m talking about. That pesky authentication check when you RDP to a pre-Vista machine. Sick of that? Well, so am I. And luckily, one of my fellow engineers discovered this. Here’s the fix!

You know, this one:

The registry key is a DWORD value at \\HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Terminal Server Client\AuthenticationLevelOverride

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/895433 

Here are the 3 possible values, at least in Windows Server 2003:

Set the authentication level value to one of the following values:

•    0 This value corresponds to “No authentication.”
•    1 This value corresponds to “Require authentication.”
•    2 This value corresponds to “Attempt authentication.”

I experimented and found that 2 is the default now.  I tested the 3 modes and found that:

0 -> Doesn’t prompt. 
1 -> Gives a similar message but doesn’t allow me to continue.  This is the strictest.
2 -> Gives the message but allows me to accept and continue.

In my case, I don’t even want the prompt so I set AuthenticationLevelOverride to 0 and I’m able to log into my Remote Desktop sessions without that extra prompt.

Warning: this is a decrease in security so should only be changed if you are aware of the what and why of this change.

OR

You could use Visionapp’s vRD or RoyalTS – two amazing RDP managers. Then you don’t have to worry about all that stuff either. Just store your credentials and go!

Been extremely busy…

I’ve been slammed people, I deeply apologize for the lack of updates or entries lately. I’ve been studying for my 290 exam, been traveling, and been overall super busy. I plan on posting on a few interesting things in the next couple days.

Stay tuned… good stuff to come!

I’m so excited for my new toy… Blackberry 8830 World Edition

So on Friday I get called into a meeting with a few other guys from work who didn’t have mobile devices. We were told we were getting an additional paycheck from work for reimbursement but had to get a mobile device ASAP. It didn’t matter what we got, but it had to be a mobile device (be it a Palm Treo, BlackBerry, or Windows Mobile device).

Keep in mind I deal with these things all day. I know the BlackBerry’s the best, but have had some dealings with Windows Mobile and Treo’s. So I knew what I kind of wanted to get… and it wasn’t the Treo this time… I wanted something a bit bigger and better.

So Friday night Elaine and I went to the Verizon store, updated some of our account options, and I purchased this bastard:

The BlackBerry 8830 World Edition. It wasn’t cheap. I wasn’t up for a device renewal, since I had to start a brand new account when I moved to Massachusetts. So I had to shell out a few bucks for this, but I will make out with my reimbursement checks at the end of the year.

It’s quite ironic, I had just mentioned a few weeks ago that I wanted to get a new mobile device. So Friday night it became reality.

So far the device is fantastic. I set up my work email using BlackBerry Internet Service for now (until my company gets the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, which is soon I hear) and also setup my Gmail account. Both are working flawless.

Internet browsing with the BlackBerry browser is seamless. And some of the other options on the device are very cool.

I haven’t messed with the desktop software yet, nor have I installed any additional applications. I’ll be doing that later tonight.

On the way home from Buffalo today, when my wife was driving, I was able to hit up the ESPN site (with a great mobile interface) and watch the MLB and NFL scores in real time. It was sooooo cool.

I’m now a happy Crackberry user.