Ramblings o' Techie

Remotely enable Remote Desktop

2013-05-22T08:34:00.002-05:00

I've had a few instances where, for whatever reason, remote desktop has been disabled on machines I manage. This can be quite a pain when you don't have someone onsite at that location who can turn the service back on. However, if the proper services are running you can get remote desktop working from your remote location without rebooting the computer. I originally found this article, but added

Repair a corrupt Recycle Bin in Windows

2013-05-07T13:19:00.000-05:00

If you've ever run into a problem where you get an error when emptying your Recycle Bin on a Windows computer, it can be very annoying. I hate seeing anything in that trash can icon and try to keep it empty all the time. If you're having similar problems, try this to reset your Recycle Bin. I originally found this post, then added in the option for XP and Server 2003. For XP and Server 2003 go

Search Active Directory for email accounts that are being forwarded elsewhere

2013-04-17T15:35:00.002-05:00

I was asked by a member of the management team to shut off the email forwarding for all ex-employee accounts that were going to this particular person. Rather than go through all Active Directory user accounts to check whether forwarding was on or not, I did a quick online search and found an easy way to use an LDAP query to list only the accounts I needed to check. The original post is here I'm

Outlook "Cannot copy or move because it contains private items" error

2013-04-12T13:35:00.000-05:00

I ran into the "Cannot copy or move because it contains private items" error today while trying to copy a folder from an ex-employee's mailbox to the mailbox of the person taking over that ex-employee's duties. Being the admin I thought it was kind of an odd message to run into, but taking to Google I had an answer within a minute: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/892447. Apparently the same

One thing that can cause an internal AD account lockout...

2012-11-19T12:24:00.001-06:00

I consolidated a domain recently and moved the domain controller to use our primary domain instead of its own distinct domain (long story why it was setup this way to begin with). However, shortly after my user account started getting locked out periodically. The problem was that something was trying to login using olddomain\myaccount, but the olddomain domain didn't exist anymore. Since I have

An openupload installation better explained

2012-08-30T16:54:00.003-05:00

If you're not familiar with it, openupload is an open-source, web-based, file-sharing system kind of like a rapidshare or mediafire. It's written in PHP and will run fine on a LAMP server. There hasn't been any new versions published since November 2010, but I'm still able to run in on the Ubuntu 12.04.1 without any changes. It appears to be highly recommended on Sourceforge, and so far so good

Adobe Creative Suites 3 (CS3) auto update doesn't work

2012-06-25T12:41:00.000-05:00

If you try updating your Adobe CS3 product and receive a message saying updates cannot be detected at this time, it's because of an expired security certificate. This cert comes with the CS3 install, and I don't believe Adobe issued a new one. However, to get around this problem, simply set your system time back to any date prior to 10/16/2011. Doing this will trick your system into thinking it's

SQL Server SSIS using Excel fails with DTS_E_CANNOTACQUIRECONNECTIONFROMCONNECTIONMANAGER

2012-06-06T16:23:00.000-05:00

If you're running a 64bit SQL Server, you likely are also running the 64bit version of Business Intelligence Development Studio. Unfortunately, the 64bit version of BIDS doesn't work with the Excel Connection Manager. Luckily though, you can still use it to create your SSIS package and getting the package to run is as simple as checking a box. If you're running SQL Server 2008 and using a SQL

Replace LCD Screen or other parts on an HP 2000 notebook

2012-05-17T12:35:00.000-05:00

I was going to take pictures and document the process to replace an LCD screen on an HP 2000-216NR notebook computer, but found HP's service manual online and it does a good job of doing the same thing. You can find it here: http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c02753308.pdf. It's the full service manual, so it has the steps to take apart and replace just about every component you'd want to. If

ApplicationException: Access is denied when using EPPlus or OfficeOpenXml

2012-05-02T13:07:00.001-05:00

I have a basic site setup with reports that can be exported to Excel 2007 .xlsx formatted files. I was running into an issue with one of the larger reports where it would work for a while and then crash with an "ApplicationException: Access is denied" error. Running the same procedure on my test box worked fine though, so I had to scratch my head a little. Luckily Google searching came through

Updating BIOS or firmware on Dell server running VMware

2012-04-04T14:47:00.000-05:00

I tried using the OMSA liveCD from Dell, but it locked me out of the network preferences and wouldn't pull DHCP, so I had to come up with my own workaround. They failed to mention the need to install a package in order for the updates to run too, so I decided I'd put together a quick walkthrough for anyone else with the same problem, and for me to refer back to the next time I need to remember

Allow standard users to update UPS WorldShip

2012-04-02T09:52:00.000-05:00

I have a user who uses UPS WorldShip 2012 daily. I didn't want to give the user local admin rights on the computer, but WorldShip updates automatically and it happens more than once a week. Those updates require admin privileges to run, so I did some digging to come up with a workaround. It turns out it's possible, and is pretty easy to setup. First, run RegAccess.exe in the UPS install folder (

OS X mobile user is not recognized as an admin

2012-03-27T10:26:00.001-05:00

I've run into the problem more and more as we move our Mac users to laptops. I have an Active Directory security group setup for them, and assign that group admin rights in Directory Utility when binding the Mac to the domain. However, if the Mac cannot access a domain controller and instead uses the mobile credentials, that user does not have admin privileges until the next time they login while

Force Internet Explorer compatibility view to be used for your web site

2011-10-12T12:59:00.000-05:00

With Internet Explorer 8 and 9 you may have noticed some websites not working like they used to. It's been quite a while since the release of IE 8 so most of the major sites have probably caught up to this problem, but the easy fix is to setup the site to force IE8 and IE9 to use the compatibility view function with your site. You can do this through the use of a custom header, which is easy to

Can't uninstall McAfee Agent error 1714 or 1610

2011-10-10T14:04:00.003-05:00

The environment I manage uses McAfee EPO for its antivirus needs, and I ran across multiple events in the application log with ID 11714 and 1002 on one of the machines. The event description was "Product: McAfee Agent -- Error 1714. The older version of McAfee Agent cannot be removed. Contact your technical support group. System Error 1610." I tried to manually uninstall the Agent and it kept

Disable or enable an Active Directory account on a schedule

2011-09-09T13:26:00.000-05:00

I know Active Directory has log on hours and account expiration, but what if you need to disable a user account at a specific time? I found this can be useful when an employee quits or is terminated because as long as I know in advance, I can schedule their account to be disabled and don't have to remember to do it manually. The trick is to use AD command line tools that are available on Windows

OS X Lion not creating a local home folder for network users

2011-08-12T10:27:00.002-05:00

Update: 3/27/12 After a few months of relying on Snow Leopard, I had to get a new Macbook so this topic has come back up. I'm happy to report that the 10.7.3 update Apple released in early February appears to have fixed the mobile account issue this post was about. The only thing that still doesn't work is when disconnected from the network, domain users do not have admin rights on the machine

"Network accounts are unavailable" when logging into OS X Lion

2011-08-12T09:14:00.003-05:00

Update: 3/27/12 I essentially gave up with the Mac Mini waiting on an update that solves the problem, and apparently 10.7.3 completely flew under my radar. I had read 10.7.2 still had issues, but in 10.7.3 one of the primary bugs Apple says they fixed is authentication with directory services. I had to get my first new Mac in a while this past weekend and was going to back rev it to run Snow

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion scrolling is inverted

2011-08-11T11:53:00.001-05:00

After having my first hands-on experience with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, one thing I noticed right away is that Apple thought it was a good idea to try to change the way people use scroll buttons on mice. They've set the default to be inverted, so if you scroll down the screen moves up, and scrolling up the screen moves down. I I'd guess this is because of their new swipe gestures to control your

"Security log on this system is full" error when logging in

2011-07-14T09:44:00.000-05:00

If you're logging in to a Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 machine and you notice this message, it's a really simple fix assuming you have access to an admin account on the machine. If not, you won't be able to login until it gets resolved, so contact an admin. Here's how to fix it: 1. Login using an account with admin privileges on the machine in question 2. Right-click My Computer, then go to

OS X Disk Utility restore failed "Must be imagescanned..." error

2011-06-22T08:27:00.000-05:00

While trying to image some Macbook Pros I ran into a problem restoring the prepared image onto the Macbooks. Disk Utility said the image file needed to be imagescanned in order to continue. I didn't know what this meant, but luckily this turned out to be something very simple. If you get this error select your image file you plan to restore, then go to Images->Scan Image for Restore.. in the top

Turn Fn or function key lock on or off on newer HP laptops

2011-05-11T12:19:00.000-05:00

I purchased a stack of Compaq Presario CQ56-115DX laptops the other day because they were super cheap and fit their purpose almost perfectly. However, it would require using the F1-F12 keys a lot. I found that out of the box, you had to hold down Fn in order to do that. By default the special actions on each key was used instead. I did some searching trying to find a way to lock the function keys

"File does not have program associated with it" when trying to run any application in Windows

2011-04-07T12:36:00.003-05:00

Update 11/21/2011: After receiving a comment regarding this not working in the Run As Administrator mode, I did a quick search and found a Microsoft FixIt post that has a fix it for me option. You can find that link here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950505. If you can get the automatic fixer tool to run then that should clear up your problem, otherwise this article also lists the manual

Add custom field to tickets and email in osTicket 1.6

2011-02-15T13:29:00.000-06:00

I recently installed osTicket 1.6 for our property management group to use and have need to make some customizations. One of those customizations was how to create a custom field and add it to the tickets so more data could be captured. While the instructions to do this are out there, they seem to be located in different spots, so I'm going to try to consolidate a few useful links here for you.

Remove orphaned Windows installer files to free up space

2011-02-09T16:46:00.000-06:00

Using Microsoft's msizap.exe utility, found in the Windows Standard Development Kit (Windows SDK), you can clean up orphaned installer files from your C:\Windows\Installers directory. I recently found 10GB of orphaned installers using this method on an XP Pro machine, and it was nice to free up that space for other uses. Here's how you check to see if you have any orphaned installers taking up