Windows
Converting Windows XP Home to Professional WITHOUT re-installing
I often get asked if it is possible to convert a machine with XP Home to XP Professional so that things such as Remote Desktop access and joining a domain are able to be accessed.
My previous answer was that you couldn’t and you needed to get a XP Professional license and then reinstall.
However searching for [...]
Remote access solutions I use the most
I recently got asked what types of remote access solutions I like the best. Now I have tried almost all of them - RDP, VNC, TeamViewer, LogmeIn etc.
I used to install VNC (Especially UltraVNC) almost everywhere I go, but hated the fact that I had to open up ports in the firewall all the time. [...]
HAL.DLL is missing error message when trying to boot Windows XP
I received a call from a customer that basically had a rude message saying that the HAL.DLL was missing and refused to boot Windows XP.
At first I thought I could do a basic non destructive repair of Windows XP to restore all the missing or corrupted files. However, on booting up from the Windows XP [...]
Users must accept the End User License Agreement Every Time Office Apps are Launched
I got a call from a customer regarding two new Windows Vista machines that I had recently installed the previous day. I had installed all their usual applications on them including Office 2003 Basic Edition.
They reported that every time they opened Word or Excel (however not Outlook weirdly!?), it would present them with an End [...]
Two Network Cards (NIC’s) in a Windows XP machine connecting to two different subnets
I had a customer recently wanting to setup a new Ricoh multifunction colour printer on their network. The problem is they are connected wirelessly to another tenants network for Internet access and the new printer only has USB and Ethernet connections.
As they had old cabling installed in the wall that terminated back to just a [...]
Windows 7 - It’s actually really good!
If you have read most of the posts on the blog, you will know I love Apple products and especially OSX. Having supported Windows from v3.1 up, I basically got sick and tired of the same old problems and wanted to try something new a few years ago. So I jumped ship to the darkside [...]
Turning off Use Default Gateway on VPN connections
There is nothing more frustrating than setting up a VPN connection on Windows XP or Windows Vista and having not only the traffic you want to go over the VPN (i.e. Outlook, Network connections etc) but also the stuff you don’t want such as accessing websites.
If you have a fast internet connection however the site [...]
Windows 2008 Server Access Problems with Antivirus Installed
I came across a bizarre problem a few months back that I thought I would share with all of you. It involved a multi-processor IBM rack mount server with dual Xeons, 4GB RAM and a ton of raided disk space.
This server was running Windows 2008 Server, and was replacing an aging Dell Windows 2000 Server. [...]
The case of the rogue DHCP server and using DHCPLOC
Recently a customer asked me to troubleshoot a strange problem with their DHCP server service on the main Windows 2003 Server shutting down randomly. At first it wasn’t that much of a problem as most of their leases were 14 days, so quite often it would be down and not noticed for days.
It was only [...]
Problems connecting to a share on Windows XP from OSX 10.5
I came across a problem with trying to connect to a share hosted on a Windows XP Professional machine.
I could browse for it and see the share, however whenever I tried to connect to it, it would connect as Guest. This is fine if you have the security setup so that Everybody has at least [...]