I can’t recall of doing any windows updates on the Microsoft Office suite and this just happen just overnight. I’ve check on the pst file to make sure that it does not oversize and do some system maintenance to make sure the system drive space is enough space but it does not make any good.

Manage to get some help from my favorite search engine and you just need to start the outlook with the following command

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\Outlook.exe /resetnavpane

or you can change the shortcut properties to start with the command line every time you launch it.

ForensIT does a great job by providing such a great tool for free that ease IT Administrator job on doing profile migration when doing domain migration especially changing from different domain but remain back user old profile.

I use this tool recently on few domain migration project that would need to use a week or more for migrating user profile but with this Profwiz we takes about 2 days to complete migrate 40 workstations to new domain.

I write a mini how-to on this great tool Profwiz that can help reduce migration times as below:-

1) Identify the user profile location which needs to migrate the profile. To check, right click on the “Start” button and press “Explorer” where it shows you the exact location of the current user profile. Noted that as you need to select which profile that need to be migrated to new domain.

2) Then change your DNS setting to point to the new AD as you needed when you joining to new domain.

3) Un-join workstation from the old domain to workgroup.

4) Login to local pc administrator and join to the new domain.

5) After joining to new domain, do not login using user account but use the domain administrator account to login. After that run the profwiz program to migrate the old profile into the new domain profile.

6) Download and run the profwiz from any location from the workstation and you can see the following screen:-

Click “Next” to start the wizard

Select “Local Computer” as you running the program from local workstation, there is an option to run the program remotely but you need to know the actual profile.

Here you can select the domain that just joined and key in the new user profile on the new domain.

From here you select the profile that you have identified in step 1.

Highlight the profile and click “Next” to start the migration.

It will take about 10 to 20 minutes depend on how data you have on your profile.

Click “Next” to continue

 

That’s end of the migration and click “Finish” to end the wizard, then you can logoff and login to the new domain with the profiles restored.

Source : ForensIT

MSN Messenger celebrate 10th Anniversary, not sure when was the date but this morning when I login to my MSN it popup the highlight stated celebrating 10th Anniversary and suppose is today I think…

I’ve been using MSN for quite sometimes and its still the best and easiest online communication tools where Windows pc comes with it without having to install manually.

Great job that Microsoft have done on MSN.

Source : MSN

Currently what I do is, I VNC to the demo pc to control the keyboard & mouse movement. As you all know that when using VNC the screen resolution will affect the size of the screen where you need to scroll up and down or left to right thus very annoying. Previously I got to know a software call Synergy that works on multi platform but I’m having trouble configuring it end up giving up.

Today I try again to configure this piece of software and manage to get it up as the documentation was a bit confusing for the first time until you try it out then you will know. Here I wrote a simple steps to help out if you need to use this software and the current version that I download is version 1.3.1,

1) Download Synergy software here and install as usual.

2) After install, double click the Synergy shortcut on the desktop and you can see the screenshot below

3) Click “Share this computer keyboard….” if this is the pc that going to be master, then click on “Configure” button.

4) Click on the “+” button to add the computer that is participate on the sharing as from the screenshot above you can see that the “Screens” box having 2 computer name. You need to type in the computer name for the pc that need to be shared else the connection will be failed.

5) On the “Links” box, you need to specify which screen position refer to which screen. As you can see from the screenshot above, that I have specify for both pc right. Yes you need to specify both master and slave screen setting here else you can move your mouse over to the other pc but you can get your mouse back to your original pc. On my first try i didn’t set that and I can’t get my mouse back to my notebook and if you face that problem as well, just quit the application and your back on your pc.

So that is all the configuration that required and its pretty simple. But how about the slave pc? any setting need to be configured? For the slave pc, you just need to install the same program into the pc then launch Synergy application and select “Use other computer shared….” and type in the master pc name then click “start” button.

Forget to mention that this piece of software is OpenSource so its free to use.

Source : Synergy

First I thought will be the MSN issue as it was the first application that crash then follow by others. So this could not be the problem with MSN and after checking is due to DEP that causing it, I try to disable on the My Computer but on Vista does not have that option.

Below is how you can disable DEP on vista :-

1. Click Start
2. Click All Programs
3. Click Accessories
4. Right Click on Command Prompt
5. Left click on Run as Administrator
6. Click the Allow button if it asks you for permission
7. Type or copy and paste this into the command prompt window:

    bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOff

8. Hit enter and you should see the confirmation: Operation Completed Successfully
9. Reboot and DEP should be off.

interruption but the network icon just displaying red cross there is sometimes quite difficult to know if the network is working fine or not.

So I search the Google for any solution to fix it but failed to find any but on the found 1 from Microsoft and it does not provide any solution just ask to ignore the red cross on the network, here is the write-up from Microsoft

To work around this problem, you can safely ignore the red "X" over the connection icon that indicates that the network adapter is disconnected. The connection status is updated correctly even when the connection icon incorrectly displays a red "X."

What a good answer from Microsoft and i think they not going to fix it as Windows 7 is coming…think so. Here is the full article of the write-up.

There is a short fix for this, you can modify the services path without having to re-install back your apps. To fix, run “Regedit” in “Start Menu” -> “Run” and navigate to the following path

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\[Name of Service]

edit the “ImagePath” key to your new apps locations. You can just fire up the services without having to reboot the server or workstation.

I was testing out this software by 2X that enable you to publish individual application seamlessly without user having to be at office. User are able to access to application via web access and connect back to your office system running your accounting software or your favourite apps. It also able to load balance your terminal server farm based on the connection, memory and cpu usage.

It works like citrix but its cheaper then cixtrix, now it comes with 5 license free and you can try it out for your self. The installation is pretty straight forward and you barely need the manual to get this software run.

Here is the list of the features:-

Application Publishing
With 2X ApplicationServer, instead of giving your users a full desktop on your terminal servers, you can give them only the applications they need. These applications can be pushed directly to the user’s desktop.

Seamless Windows capabilities
With Seamless Windows, applications running from your terminal servers will look like local applications for your users. This facilitates the introduction of server based solutions like terminal services as the remote applications coexist with local ones and users cannot even tell the difference between them.

Greater Compatibility
2X ApplicationServer & LoadBalancer Console is compatible with Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2003 Server and Windows 2008 Server. This means you do not need to upgrade your entire infrastructure to the latest Windows Server platform if all you need is application publishing with Seamless Windows capabilities.

Cross Platform Support
2X ApplicationServer is an RDP based Application Publishing solution that supports both Linux and Mac OS X clients, all with Seamless Windows capabilities. Now it is easy to bring Windows applications to all your Linux and Mac desktops!

2X Client Gateway Service
2X Client Gateway tunnels all traffic needed by 2X applications on a single port. Now you need to open only one port on your firewall and the clients will be able to launch the published applications through the 2X Client Gateway Service.

Increased Terminal Services performance
During the login sequence, the user (using default settings) connection request is forwarded to the terminal server reporting the best performance index. This ensures that the users will never be connected to a terminal server that is using all its resources (CPU, memory, etc), optimizing user experience across the terminal server farm.

Enhanced Security
When used in SSL Gateway mode, the 2X LoadBalancer provides end-to-end SSL encryption to your terminal servers. This not only greatly enhances security but also gives you a firewall/proxy friendly solution with true SSL/HTTPS capabilities.

Reconnection capabilities
When a session gets disconnected from one of the terminal servers and the user attempts to reconnect, the 2X LoadBalancer queries all terminal servers for a disconnected session from that particular user or IP address and
reconnects the user to the appropriate terminal server (asome conditions apply).

Universal Printing
Printing has been one of the difficulties for administrators of server-based computing systems. 2X Universal Printer solves this issue and printing from application via RDP sessions is not different than printing form any other application. Universal Printing installs a universal driver on the Terminal Server that works with any printer.

Multiple Farms
2X Clients have the facility to connect with Multiple Farms and publish seamless applications or published desktops from multiple farms simultaneously.

Single Sign On
Single Sign-On is a module that automates the log-in process when connecting with the 2X Client Gateway and the Terminal Servers. Single Sign-On eliminates the burden on users of having to remember, and periodically change many individual passwords, in order to access applications and data.

Web Portal
2X ApplicationServer Web Portal allows users to launch published applications and desktops from multiple farms which are accessed through a web portal according to their filter settings

Source : 2X

I found 1 script that able to do a little bit help on that and can get from here, you can run this script from any pc that is a domain member with domain administrator rights. Then run the following command:-

updatelogonscript.bat <logon script>

It will add the logon script to all the users you have on your domain.

Xiao.vbs as known as VBS/Autorun-DR by Sophos, VBS_AUTORUN.AYZ by Trend Micro. To remove this virus you need to use the following tools:-

1) Hijackthis
2) Unlocker
3) System Repair Engineer

First run the hijackthis and look for any lines that have the word “xiao.vbs”. Select the box and click “Fix” to remove the entry on the registry, then run “regedit” and search for “xiao.vbs”. Delete all the “xiao.vbs” found on the registry make sure to search through entirely.

After finish cleaning the registry, now you need to locate the “xiao.vbs” and “autorun.inf” file on the entire hard disk by using search tools and delete all the files. After you have delete the virus file, you will have another problem that the virus will disable all the antivirus protection. To remove the hidden processes in the memory, you need to use the System Repair Engineer to remove those hidden processes.

Click on the “Boot item” to scan the memory, it will displayed those infected file in Red color then you select those entry and click delete to remove the running process. You might need to run few times to clearly remove all the processes. After you have successfully removed the process you need to reboot the pc and the existing antivirus will be able to enabled back.

Thanks to Lun as he is the one who manage to find out the solutions for months.