World Wide Web Service Wont Start, Because Windows Process Activation Service Wont Start.
KB ID 0000878 Problem This problem started when a client attempted to add a ‘distribution point’ for System Center onto the server. This process failed, then Outlook Web Access stopped working. First line found that the World Wide Web service was not running, when they attempted to start it, this happened; Windows could not start the World Wide Web Publishing Service service on Local Computer. Error 1068: The dependency...
Can’t Delete a File or Folder or Take Ownership
KB ID 0000887 Problem I have a portable drive that I carry in my laptop bag that has all the service packs and iso images that I might need. The problem is when I install service packs and updates on clients servers and PC’s, they have a habit of creating folders on my portable drive that are a pain to delete. While tidying up the drive today, it was telling me I did not have the rights to do so. When I tried to take ownership...
Rename / Change all File Extensions In a Folder and All Subfolders Recursively
KB ID 0000896 Problem I long time ago this site was hosted in my dining room, on a PC under my desk. I was running Windows and IIS. When I moved the site to a hosted Apache Linux server, I discovered that Linux is a little more rigid on its rules for file extensions. For example in Windows .JPG and .jpg is the same thing, but on a Linux box that’s NOT the case. As I’ve used the Windows Snipping Tool a lot in the past my older...
Windows – Export / Recover WEP and WPA Wireless Keys
KB ID 0001015 Problem If you need to connect to your wireless network with a new machine and have forgotten the key, you can view the WEP or WPA key in cleartext using the following procedure on a machine that has connected before. Solution 1. First launch PowerShell, ensure you ‘Run as administrator’. 2. To show all the wireless profiles stored on this machine, issue the following command; netsh wlan show profiles 3....
NDES – Fails to Issue Certificates (Signature Algorithm)
KB ID 0001021 Problem I was trying to enroll some ASA firewalls to NDES to get some certificates. Each time the process failed with the following error. % Error in receiving Certificate Authority certificate: status = FAIL, cert length = 0 That’s a pretty generic error, and does not give me a lot to go on. So I thought I would try from another network device, (a Cisco Catalyst switch). It’s a little easier to...
Why Securing Your VPN Solution With Computer Certificates ‘Only’ Is A BAD Idea
KB ID 0001055 Problem After a large AnyConnect 4 roll-out, I had the following conversation with a client; Client: Can we change the way the clients authenticate? Me: Yes, no problem what do you need? Client: Well instead of user based certificate authentication, we want to use computer certificates only. Me: Really why? Client: So when we roll out a lot of imaged new machines we don’t need to get the users to log onto them and...
Access a Windows Share Through a Firewall
KB ID 0001061 Problem I needed to access a folder on a server in a clients DMZ the other week, and the thought struck me ‘I have no idea what ports I need to open to accomplish this?’ Solution Bear in ming I’m just talking about the ports that need to be open, you will still need to authenticate to the remote machine with a user-name and password (unless you have the share wide open which I would not advise). The...
How to Play .MKV files in Media Center
KB ID 0000564 Problem You have a video encoded in .mkv format, and that video is not listed and cannot be played in Windows Media Center. Solution Playing an MKV file is one problem, getting them to be displayed in Media Center is another. 1. First we need to get Windows to “understand” what a .mkv file is, to do that we need to install a codec. The one I’m using is from the shark007 website. If you’re x32 or...
Force Media Center to Update its Libraries
KB ID 0000627 Problem I use Media Center a lot, and the one thing that bugs me is, every time I add a new film or TV series etc, I have to restart Media Center, restart services, or reboot the entire media PC before I can see them in the list. After some searching it appears that Media Center uses the same repository/database of media that Windows Media Player uses. There is a convoluted method of stopping services, deleting files...
Error sqlservr.exe is using too much memory
KB ID 0000190 Problem Seen on SBS 2008 with WSUS. The Windows internal database (the one used by WSUS) has no memory reservation limit, so it can use as much as it wants, this is a BAD thing! Your server will struggle because the following consumes to much memory. SQL/MSSQL$MICROSOFT##SSEE Solution 1. Click Start > In the search/run box type CMD {enter}. 2. At command line issue the following commands, sqlcmd -S...