Tag Archives: windows vista

Windows – BCDEdit

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KB ID 0000097 

Problem

If you’re used to editing boot,ini files in earlier versions of windows then you are in for a bit of strife – Vista and newer OS’s now has its own boot loader, but happily there is a tool to let you edit what it does – this tool is called BCDEDIT.EXE and by default it lives in the windows > system32 directory.

Solution

Simply running the command will tell you what the boot settings are at the moment.

This particular machine (My work Laptop) Has windows XP installed on the C: drive and Vista on the F: Drive – The IMPORTANT thing to note is each OS has an identifier. In this case the XP identifier is called {ntldr} and the Vista Identifier is called {current}

NOTE: In a lot of online forums I’ve seen these labeled with GUIDS and not simple names like this this may have been in Longhorn or the Vista Beta’s

Before you do anything I suggest you backup the setting – bcdedit will do this for you – the command you need is….

bcdedit /export “{drive and path}“

Should you need to restore the settings you can do so using the following command

bcdedit /import “{drive and path}“

The most common thing you will want to do is change the names on the Boot menu – Vista by default calls XP something horrible like “Earlier son of Windows” and Calls itself SOmething nice like “Microsoft Windows Vista” to Change the display names you need to run the bcdedit command now get the IDENTIFIER for the OS you want to change (remember mine were ntldr and current (see above)) then use the following syntax

bcdedit -set {identifier} DESCRIPTION “What you want to call it“

For Example this renames my XP Installation to Windows XP

And this renames my Vista Installation to Windows Vista

The next most common requirement is to alter the timeout period (thou countdown while you select an OS to boot)By default is 30 Seconds to alter this the syntax is…

bcdedit /timeout {time in seconds}

To Change the DEFAULT OS that the boot loader will boot again you will need to know the identifier of that operating system, obviously by default it will be vista but if you want to change it to another OS (In my case) my XP OS the syntax is…

bcdedit /default {identifier}

The Last Thing you might want to change is the order the Operating systems are displayed in again you will need to know the identifier and the syntax is as follows…

bcdedit /displayorder {first identifier} {second identifier} etc

 

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

NA

Windows – Black Screen Of Death

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KB ID 0000152

Problem

Post Microsoft KB 915597 and KB 976098 updates.

You PC will boot, and you will see a totally black screen with (but not always) a Windows explorer window.

Solution

Credit to the guys at Prevx who have a fix online already.

1) Restart your PC.

2) Logon and wait for the black screen to appear.

3) Make sure your PC should be able to connect to the internet (black screen does not appear to affect this).

4) Press the CTRL, ALT and DEL keys simultaneously.

5) When prompted, Click Start Task Manager.

6) In Task Manager Click on the Application Tab.

7) Next Click New Task.

8) Now enter the command:

Note the following is all one command copy and paste it in its entirety,

“C:Program FilesInternet Exploreriexplore.exe” “http://info.prevx.com/download.asp?GRAB=BLACKSCREENFIX”

In case that link goes down or ceases to work, try

“C:Program FilesInternet Exploreriexplore.exe” “http://www.petenetlive.comhttp://www.petenetlive.com/KB/Media/0000152/fixshell.exe”

Note this command assumes that you are using internet explorer as your browser, if not substitute your browser path and file details for those of iexplore.exe or use the Browser option of Task manager to locate it.

9) Click OK and your browser should start up and begin the download process

10) When prompted for the download Click run, the black screen fix program will download and run to automatically fix the issue.

11) Now restart your PC and the black screen problem will hopefully be gone.

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

NA

Windows – “Windows Explorer Stops Working” When you open Control Panel

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KB ID 0000457 

Problem

Seen today on four brand new Windows 7 machines. Whenever you attempt to open the control panel, you see the error message, “Windows Explorer has stopped working”

And the event log yields no clues, it does log an Event ID 1000, but that does not seen to help much?

Solution

Essentially this error is caused by a .cpl file that Windows does not like, these are control panel applets (small programs), we use them all the time without realising it..

(from command line run “ncpa.cpl” without the quotes, you should see your network connections).

Anyway, to fix it:

1. First lets get a list of all our .cpl files, open a command window and issue the following two commands:

[box]cd c:windowssystem32<br /> dir *.cpl >>cplfiles.txt[/box]

2. Now using Windows explorer browse to C:windowssystem32 and locate the text file cplfiles.txt, open it in notepad.

3. This will show you all the cpl files in this folder, anyone of these could be the culprit. I’ve read some posts that say “double click each one and the one that crashes explorer is the culprit”, but for me THAT WAS NOT THE CASE! the offending .cpl file on my machine opened and ran without error. What I suggest you do is MOVE all the .cpl files to another folder, then move them back a few at a time, then open control panel, at the point it starts crashing again, the culprit was in the last batch you moved back.

4. The offender in my case was Firebird2control.cpl (Installed with Firebird database software) deleting this file did not appear to cause any harm to the Firebird product but check with your software vendor.

5. As soon as that file was removed from the System32 folder the problem ceased.

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

NA

Disable ‘Fast user Switching’

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KB ID 0000320 

Problem

Fast user switching was introduced with Windows XP (though XP can’t do this when joined to a domain). Starting with Windows Vista you COULD do this in a domain environment. Some users and sysadmins see this as a bad thing (having users logged on with sessions open that may get forgotten about).

Should you with to disable this feature then do the following,

Solution

Option 1 – Via the registry

1. On the machine in question, Start > run > regedit.

2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesSystem

3. Create (or modify if it exists) a 32 bit DWORD called HideFastUserSwitching and set its value to 1 (disabled).

4. Or simply download and run this registry file.

Option 2 – via Local Policy

1. On the machine in question, Start > run > gpedit.msc (Note not available on Windows 7 Home/Home Premium).

2. Navigate to Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Logon.

3. In the right hand pane locate “Hide entry points for Fast User Switching” and enable.

Option 3 – via Domain Policy

1. On a domain controller, Start > administrative tools > Group Policy Editor > Either edit an existing policy or create a new one (Remember its a computer policy you need to link it to something with computers in it, if you link it to a users OU nothing will happen).

2. Navigate to, Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > System > Logon.

3. In the right hand pane locate ” Hide entry points for Fast User Switching” and enable.

4. Either reboot the computers or run “gpupdate/force” to apply the policy.

 

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

NA

Cisco – Windows x64 Bit VPN Client (IPSEC)

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Note: This page was originally written before the release of the Cisco x64 bit Windows 7 Client

KB ID 0000163

Problem

I was widely accepted for some time that Cisco’s support for the IPSEC VPN client will not be extended to x64 bit Windows platforms, That’s simply because they are gearing up towards their own AnyConnect VPN client.

Update 18/02/10 – Cisco have released an x64 Bit VPN Client for Windows 7 (vpnclient-winx64-msi-5.0.07.0240-k9-BETA).

The cost to swap over to SSL/AnyConnect VPN, in terms of licensing and consultancy is VERY high.

NCP have had a x64 bit compatible client on the market for a while to get round that, but its not free (though considerably less than a bunch of SSL VPN licence’s!) However, as is the way with these things, as soon as people are forced to pay for stuff, someone will produce a free piece of software to do the same.

Step forward Shrew Soft, I test a lot of stuff, and its rare that a piece of free ware is as feature rich as the commercial product – but this is 🙂

Solution

1. Firstly I’m assuming you already have the VPN setup, working, and tested, on your Cisco PIX/ASA device, if not CLICK HERE for instructions, or if your scared of command line try THIS or THIS.

2. You need to know the same three primary pieces of information that you need to configure the Cisco VPN Client, those are,

a. The public IP address of the device you are connecting to. b. The “Tunnel Group Name” of the remote access VPN c. The “Shared Secret” of the remote access tunnel group

To get the last two pieces of information issue a “more system:running-config” command on your firewall.

[box]

Petes-ASA# more system:running-config

{keep pressing the space bar to scroll though the config}

—unimportant-config-removed——-

tunnel-group Remote-VPN type remote-access tunnel-group Remote-VPN general-attributes address-pool IPSEC-VPN-DHCP-POOL authentication-server-group PNL-KERBEROS default-group-policy Remote-VPN tunnel-group Remote-VPN ipsec-attributes pre-shared-key this_is_the_pre_shared_key

---unimportant-config-removed-------

[/box]

So in the example above the Tunnel Group Name is “Remote-VPN” and the shared secret is “this_is_the_pre_shared_key”.

3. Download and install the software from Shrew Soft (in this example I’m using 2.1.5-release)

4. Configure as per the video below.

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

Working with the Cisco VPN Client. (IPSEC)