Get a list of Windows 2008 Updates in simple text format.

When recording the updates manually that have been installed on a system for my clients, it used to be easy in Windows 2003 since the update history was just a web page.

However, in Windows 2008/Vista/Window 7 it is no longer easy to copy all the updates which have been installed on a certain date with the description and KB numbers and paste them into my report.

I have found a way around this as Windows 2008/Vista/Window 7 has a log of all downloaded updates and if they have been installed successfully at the following location:

C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\ReportingEvents.log

It is a simple process of scrolling to the end of the log to copy the section that looks like the following:

{FD92377F-D788-4D8F-923F-6D07CE81DB3D} 2010-04-28 22:33:42:727-0700 1 184 101 {98140701-9959-0001-0000-812532895600} 102 0 AutomaticUpdates Success Content Install Installation successful and restart required for the following update: Update Rollup 10 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 (KB981407){F45D593D-CA26-484A-AC33-C6724C83C954} 2010-04-28 22:35:49:984-0700 1 183 101 {E4AB408F-0208-4BB8-9782-C1D895DC4F78} 101 0 AutomaticUpdates Success Content Install Installation Successful: Windows successfully installed the following update: Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool x64 - April 2010 (KB890830)

Then you can paste it to a text file and clean it up or you can Paste Special as Unicode Text to a MS Excel spreadsheet to paste the data into nice columns which you can copy the specific data columns you want and then paste to your report.

Enjoy!

Status information for Windows services

When a windows service is running, it sends status notifications to the SCM process. SCM maintains this status information in the service record for each service. SCM tracks this information so that it does not mistakenly send control requests that do not conform to the recipient service's current state.

The service status information includes:

• Service Type - A service can be a file system driver, device driver, or a Windows service, and can run its own process or share a process with other services. System Attendant is an example of a service that runs its own process. The SMTP service, however, is a service that shares a process with other services that are integrated with Internet Information Services (IIS).
• Current state - The service state can be starting, running, paused, stopping, or not running.
• Acceptable control codes - Theses are the control codes that the service is able to accept and process in its handler function, according to the current state.
• Windows exit code - The service uses this code to report an error that occurs when it is starting or stopping. To return an error code specific to the service, the service must set this value to ERROR_SERVICE_SPECIFIC_ERROR to indicate that additional information can be found in the service exit code. The service sets this value to NO_ERROR when it is running or stopping properly.
• Service exit code - The service uses this code to report an error when it is starting or stopping. The value is ignored unless the Windows exit code is set to ERROR_SERVICE_SPECIFIC_ERROR.
• Wait hint - The service uses this code to report the estimated time, in milliseconds, required for a pending start, stop, pause, or continue operation.
• Checkpoint - The service uses this value to periodically report its progress during a lengthy start, stop, pause, or continue operation. For example, the Services tool uses this value to track the progress of the service during start and stop operations.

Displaying Serivce Exit Codes -

To display the current status for all Windows services, you can use the command sc query

Simply run the command sc query service_name and look for the WIN32_EXIT_CODE field in the output of the command.

If this field is zero then the service started properly, and if the service didn't start properly then WIN32_EXIT_CODE will display a non-zero exit code specific to the service.

For example, when I run the command sc query vss to query the status of the Volume Shadow Copy service on a Windows XP machine, the WIN32_EXIT_CODE value returned is 1077 (0x435).

To find out what this exit code means, you can type net helpmsg 1077, and the result of doing this is "No attempts to start the service have been made since the last boot."

This likely indicates that the Startup Type for this service is Manual i.e. the service isn't set to start automatically upon reboot.

I hope this tip proves useful for you.

**Information in this post consolidated from several sources including MS TechNet, WindowsNetworking.com, etc.**

Remote control sessions keep loosing connection

RDP, LogMeIn, VNC etc -

The most common issue is an unstable IP protocol stack. Try running "netsh int ip reset c:\ipreset.log"

The other common issue is trojan redirectors attempting to override the DNS which causes connections to drop.

If this goes away by the user connecting in Safe Mode with Networking, then you have an issue with a trojan, a firewall application, or an a/v application trying to block the system.

Email Administrator Tips - Volume 1

When you are performing the email administration role, there are some important things to keep in mind and to test on a regular basis.

Here's some basic Email services checklist items:


Test Remote Email Web Access -

Make sure you can successfully connect and log in to Outlook Web Access (OWA) etc.

Check that all Email services are running -

You either need to confirm these yourself on a daily basis or setup availability monitoring via RMon etc. Some of these services can be continuosly monitored from your desktop using Exchange Monitor.

Check Mail queues -

Check in Exchange System Manager (or equivalent) that there are no pending emails in the mail (SMTP) queues.


Check Size of Mailbox stores -
Managing the size of your email databases is critical especially in Small Business environments where disk space is at a premium.

Exchange uses single-instance storage, so if a message is sent to 20 employees, only one copy is kept in the mailstore DB.

This keeps the size of the store down, but the mailbox list counts this message in the total size for each of those 20 users. So, the total of the mailbox sizes from System Manager will almost always be larger than the actual databases sizes.

The quickest way to check total storage size for Exchange 2000 - 2007 is here: http://www.petri.co.il/reporting_storage_size_in_exchange.htm

Check sizes of individual mailboxes -

As with the above advice, you also need to make sure you keep track of your biggest offenders in the mailbox disk space usage wars. In Exchange 2003 this can be checked easily from System Manager's Mailboxes screen. Mailbox sizes should be kept below 2GB and 10K items to maintain performance according to best practices.

Offline Mail Store Defrag -

Consider performing an offline mail store defrag depending on the activity of email, but especially if you haven't performed one in 6 months or if you have recently deleted a lot of old mailboxes.

The mail store size doesn't really shrink after these deletions until on offline defrag is performed. This can take several hours for a small to moderate sized mail store set, so you'll need to bring mail services down during that time, best done in the middle of the night and when you have scheduled downtime with the users.


Clean up BADMAIL directory -

"What is this BadMail? Let us start with NDRs (Non-deliverable requests). These NDR emails cannot be returned to the sender. So what happens is that after the allotted retries, Exchange 2003 routes the email to a bin called the BadMail folder.

To find the BadMail folder: Navigate to \Exchsrvr\Mailroot, now you should see a \vsi 1\BadMail folder. There will be one vsi folder for each virtual server. " (See link below)

This was important with Exchange 2000 and earlier. If you are using Exchange 2003 SP1 and later then you can skip this.

Here is a good summary of BadMail: http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/exchange2003/exchange2003_badmail.htm

Confirm that there are no open relays -

Test for open mail relays using (one or more of the following sites): http://www.mxtoolbox.com/diagnostic.aspx

http://www.checkor.com/

http://www.spamhelp.org/shopenrelay/shopenrelaytest.php

http://www.abuse.net/relay.html


Useful tools to have in your toolkit:


Sam Spade (WIN32) - a multi-function analysis web site that can decode a message's headers and make a fairly good guess about where it came from. Be patient with yourself while learning it, it's a very useful tool for dealing with spam and backtracing it's origin.


Exchange Monitor (WIN32) - from SolarWinds is a desktop dashboard that continuously monitors Microsoft Exchange to deliver real-time insight into Exchange services, mail queue sizes, and host server health.

Microsoft Exchange Server User Monitor (WIN32) aka ExMon - Use the Microsoft Exchange Server User Monitor to gather real-time data to better understand current client usage patterns, and to plan for future work. Administrators can view several items, including IP addresses used by clients, versions and modes of Microsoft Office Outlook, and resources such as CPU usage, server-side processor latency, and total latency for network and processing. Works with Microsoft Exchange Server 2000, 2003, 2007 and 2010. How to use it: http://www.petri.co.il/using_ms_exmon.htm

Configure Services MMC to Open Maximized by Default

One of my pet peeves when working on client servers remotely doing maintenance is that I need to check to make sure all automatically started services are ... started, using Services MMC.

You'd think this would not be an issue, but believe me, automatically started services do not always start automatically. True Story.

Now when you open up Services (services.msc) it starts in extended windowed mode. I like to maximize it to see the most services at a glance as possible.

You can edit the shortcut for the MMC all day long and it will never start Maximized ... Damn you Microsoft!

Well here's how you fix this in the non-obvious way:

You will open Services MMC in author mode to create a new Services console or modify existing Services console. (This works for all MMCs btw)

1. Click Start, Run and type %systemroot%\system32
2. Right click the file Services.msc and copy/paste it back into the same directory, which will create a backup copy called "Copy of Services.msc"
3. Right-click the original Services.msc, and choose Author

The Services MMC Snap-In opens in Author mode, in which you can customize the window size, pane width, view mode (Standard or Extended) etc.

4. Customize the MMC to your hearts content.
5. From the File menu, click Save As to save your settings, save over Services.msc.
6. Exit the Services MMC.

Now open Services MMC (services.msc) normally, it should have retained your customizations.

Rock it like a hurricane, baby!

Get System Uptime quickly via the Command-line

Here is a real quick way to find the a System's Up Time value (Time since it was last booted) using the Command Prompt.

This becomes important during due-diligence on a server crash etc. where you need to determine when the system came back online etc.

The following command-line coding uses the piping technique and the Find filter tool to easily isolate the System Up Time value:

Open a Command Prompt window.

Type the following command, exactly as you see it here, caps and quotes included:

Systeminfo Find "Up Time"

This will print the info to the Command Prompt window, if you would like to send it to a text file for instance, type is in as follows:

Systeminfo Find "Up Time" > c:\uptime.txt

For Windows 2008 and Vista/Windows 7 use the following command:

Systeminfo Find "System Boot Time"

** Note between Systeminfo and Find there is a pipe (shift+\) which blogger.com is removing, so make sure to put it in.

If you'd like to just type in uptime to get the System Up Time value then you can also download the following command-line app from Microsoft and install on your PC/server:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/appcenter2000/uptime/1.0/NT5/EN-US/AC-UpTimeTool.exe

WTH? Terminal Services is started but won't allow RDP access, can I fix that without rebooting the server again? Yes ...

Prerequisites:
You will need to have console or iLO/DRAC access to the server with the stalled terminal services instance.

This can be accomplished by either having physical access to the server console(KVM), by using a Lights-Out remote access card to remotely access the physical console or by using a non-TS based remote console access service such as LogMeIn, VNC, etc.

Microsoft (damn you, Ballmer!) decided to disable the ability to restart terminal services by default in Windows Server. Because, you know, ... the service never fails ... LAME!

Lucky you, you are about to find out a way around that little bit of design madness.

Abrakadabra! and poof ... SysInternals - Process Explorer.

** FYI - On Windows Server 2008 you will need to start procexp.exe with Administrator rights in order to kill processes**

• Access the server console via one of the means mentioned above under pre-reqs
• Open IE and go to http://live.sysinternals.com (allows you to run sysinternals apps from the net!)
• Locate the link to procexp.exe click it and open (not save) it.
• Once Process Explorer has launched, click View in the command bar and from it's drop down menu, click on Select Columns and check Command Line, click OK.
• Next sort by Process so that you get an alphabetical listing by process name and look for: svchost.exe.
• Now expand the Command Line column, look for a svchost line that looks something like this: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\svchost.exe -k termsvcs
• Stop that svchost.exe process by right clicking it and clicking Kill Process.
• Press Windows Key+R to launch the run command, type services.msc in the Run field and press Enter
• Once the Services management console launches, locate Terminal Services and right click it, then choose Start.

Yay! Terminal Services is working now.

Huzzah! And there was much rejoicing amongst all the remote workers and administrators and no local user's open files were harmed in the process by a nasty server reboot.

Who's their Daddy? Why, you are, of course. ;-)

Sometimes the fastest way to access a program on your Windows system is via the command line.

I have to admit to being a little command line biased. I spent most of my early IT career managing Novell Netware environments and an assortment of FreeBSD and Linux systems from the command line, in addition to the ubiquitous Windows menagerie . Sometimes it is just quicker to click a quick key stroke (Windows Key+R), bring up Run and type the command for the application you want and bang it's open.

In this post I am going to focus on launching those Control Panel applets we all use but don't like having to click through all the menus to find or having to add shortcuts to our desktops for.

The majority of Control Panel applets are files with a .CPL file extension which are located in the %SYSTEMROOT%\SYSTEM32 folder (i.e.: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 for most people).

To open the "Network Connections" applet, just hold down the Windows Key while also pressing the R key. This launches the "Run" commmand, now type "control ncpa.cpl" in the Open field and press Enter

Viola! Application launched.

Here is a list of the Control Panel applets which you can use in the same way as my example above:

Accessibility Options - access.cpl

Add/Remove Programs - appwiz.cpl

Add Hardware Wizard - hdwwiz.cpl

Administrative Tools - admintools

Automatic Updates - wuaucpl.cpl

Bluetooth Properties - bthprops.cpl

Display Properties - desk.cpl

Fastfind Properties - findfast.cpl

Firewall Properties - firewall.cpl

Game Controllers - joy.cpl

Internet Options - inetcpl.cpl

iSCSI Initiator - iscsicpl.cpl

Java Control Panel - jpicpl32.cpl

Keyboard Properties - main.cpl keyboard

Licensing Model - iccpa.cpl

Mouse Properties - main.cpl

Network Connections - ncpa.cpl

Network Setup Wizard - netsetup.cpl

ODBC Properties - odbccp32.cpl

Power Options - powercfg.cpl

Regional and Language Options - intl.cpl

Scanners and Camera Properties - sticpl.cpl

Sound and Audio Devices - mmsys.cpl

Stored Passwords - keymgr.cpl

System Properties - sysdm.cpl

Telephone and Modem Properties - telephon.cpl

Time and Date Settings - timedate.cpl

User Accounts - nusrmgr.cpl

Windows Security Center - wscui.cpl

Wireless Link - irprops.cpl

** NOTE: If you don't have a wireless card for instance, the Wireless Link - irprops.cpl applet will not work for you, this holds true for any applet for which you don't have the necessary equipment etc.

Here is also a list of other commands for opening the Control Panel folders/applets without the .CPL extension as well:

Control Panel - panel

Desktop Properties - desktop

Desktop Appearances Properties - color

Fonts Folder - fonts

Infrared Properties - infrared

Printers Folder - printers

Schedule Tasks - schedtasks

User Accounts Advances - userpasswords2

User Passwords - userpasswords

Check out these links for some further command line fun:

http://commandwindows.com/runline.htm
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/itdojo/?p=947

Changing the Product Key in Windows XP

You may run into a situation where you need to replace or fix the product key for a copy of Microsoft's Windows XP. There are a couple of ways to do this (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/328874) but the simplest and most fool-proof one for single instances is the following registry edit and windows re-activation process outlined below:

Editing the registry

Begin by opening the Registry Editor and navigating to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\Current Version\WPAEvents

In the right pane, right-click the ODBETimer binary value and select Modify.

Change at least one character of this value to either a number from 0 to 9 or to a letter from A to F, then click OK and close the Registry Editor.

This renders the current product key invalid and deactivates Windows.

Now, it’s time to reactivate Windows using your new product key.

Click Start > Run and enter the command:

%systemroot%\system32\oobe\msoobe /a

where %systemroot% is your Windows directory.

In many cases, this command will look like:

C:\windows\system32\oobe\msoobe.exe /a

At this point, Windows will launch the Product Activation Wizard.

Figure 1

Select the option to telephone a Microsoft customer service representative to activate Windows, as shown in Figure 1, and click Next.

Now, select the Change Product Key option and enter your new product key as shown in Figure 2.

Finally, click Update and close the window. If Windows returns you to the previous screen, just select the Remind Me Later option. When the wizard is finished, reboot the system.

Figure 2

When Windows reboots, your next step will depend on which Windows XP version you are using.

If you have XP Home or Professional, you’ll be prompted to reactivate your copy of Windows through the normal activation process.


If you have XP Corporate, no activation is required and your machine should have a valid product ID. You can verify this by running the %systemroot%\system32\oobe\msoobe.exe /a command again.


When the wizard loads this time, you should see a message indicating that your copy of Windows has already been activated.

Changes to remote administration in Windows Server 2008

Recently I ran into an issue were I was using RDP (Remote Desktop) to remotely administer a Windows 2008 SBS server trying to use the /console switch to get connected to an admin user session that had already been started from the local KVM (Keyboard-Video-Mouse) of the server (also referred to as session 0) before I had left to come home.

I received the following error message "An unknown parameter was specified in computer name field" after a little research I found that Microsoft had changed RDP on Windows 2008 and deprecated the /console switch.

For detailed info on this please review http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947723

The synopsis is you can use the /admin switch to do something similar but that according to Microsoft it has improved application compatibility enough so that legacy apps that used to need to run as console no longer need to. I'm not totally convinced but time will tell.

Here are some additional links for further reading:

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/datacenter/?p=434

http://blogs.technet.com/askperf/archive/2008/01/04/mstsc-exe-no-more-console-switch-in-rdc-6-1.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/nickmac/archive/2007/11/28/mstsc-console-switch-in-windows-server-2008-and-windows-vista-sp1.aspx

http://blogs.technet.com/askperf/archive/2007/04/27/application-compatibility-session-0-isolation.aspx

Network Connectivity Troubleshooting Article Links

TCP/IP Troubleshooting: A Structured Approach - Part 1: An Introduction

TCP/IP Troubleshooting: A Structured Approach - Part 2: Troubleshooting Routing Tables

TCP/IP Troubleshooting: A Structured Approach - Part 3: Repairing Network Connections

TCP/IP Troubleshooting: A Structured Approach - Part 4: Using Netdiag.exe

Windows Group Policy Article Links

Useful articles for designing GPOs and dealing with common GPO issues:

Best Practices for Designing Group Policy

Optimizing Group Policy Performance

Using Logon Scripts in Pure and Mixed Active Directory Environments

How to Implement Group Policy Security Filtering

Troubleshooting Group Policy Processing

Terminal Services Group Policy

MSI Packaging Tools

Managing Printers Using Group Policy (Part 1)

Managing Printers Using Group Policy (Part 2)

Deploying Printers With Group Policy in Windows Server 2003 R2

ISP - MX Record Cutover links

Useful links for when you need to perform an ISP cutover from an old provider to a new one for a business client:

ISP Cutover Does MX record need to be changed?

Network Issue - new ISP cutover - internet traffic is flowing but not mail or web that is port-redirected to server

Tech Tip: Seamlessly transition your server's IP address

DNS And Name Server Cutover

Dell Server Support - Commonly Used Tools

When troubleshooting Dell Servers, the following links to utilities and drivers can be very useful:

The Dell™ Server Updates Utility

DVD - Stay on top of updates here

Gather system logs using DSET

Monitor your server with Server Administrator , or use bootable utilities in OMSA Live 5.5

Diagnose the issue with PowerEdge Diagnostics or 32 bit Diagnostics

Good Luck!

What the *&^@! happened to IE7's “Open these tabs the next time I use Internet Explorer” in IE8?!?!

or "How to Restore and Reopen Last Browsing Session Opened Tabs in IE8?"

Unlike Internet Explorer 7 which allows you to select option to re-open and restore opened tabs the next time you use Internet Explorer upon exiting IE with multiple tabs detected, Internet Explorer 8 has removed this ability. What the hell? Seriously, if you are gonna copy Firefox, at least do it right and keep it that way.

They have exchanged the useful feature from IE7 for the "Reopen Last Browsing Session" in the final version of IE8. Reopen Last Browsing Session works in a similar fashion with Show my windows and tabs from last time startup option of Firefox, except that there is no option to automatically reopen last browsing session upon start up or launch of IE8 browser. Lame.

In order to restore the last browsing session and re-open all last opened tabs in IE8, user have to run Internet Explorer first, and then use one of the following methods to open the last browsing session in IE 8 in Windows 7, Vista, XP, Server 2003, Server 2008 and Server 2008 R2.

How to Reopen Last Browsing Session in Internet Explorer 8

Method 1: In the Internet Explorer window, click on the Tools pull down menu (either from Command Bar or Menu Bar, which can also be activated via Alt+T keyboard shortcut), and select Reopen Last Browsing Session.

Method 2: Open a new tab, and then click on Reopen Last Browsing Session link. If you can’t see it, expand Reopen close tabs section.

Tip: FYI, If you set IE’s home page to about:Tabs, then it’s possible to access Reopen Last Browsing Session instantly on running IE browser.

For user who don’t use the feature, it’s possible to disable and turn off Reopen Last Browsing Session feature. If you want to reopen closed tabs, IE8 supports it too.

Configuring mailbox storage quota in Exchange 2007

From the Exchange Management Console

To set the default for the mailbox database for the company:

Server Configuraton > Mailbox > Storage Group > Mailbox Database > Right-click choose Properties > Limits Tab

To set it up for each individual mailbox (this overides the default for the mailbox database):
Recipient Configuration > Mailbox > Right-click on an individuals mailbox > Properties > Mailbox Settings Tab > Double-click Storage Quotas

Outlook 2003 - Add another person's mailbox to your account

Useful exerpt from Microsoft on adding another person's mailbox to your Outlook 2003

"If you are a delegate and routinely respond to e-mail for someone else, you may want to add their mailbox to your account for quick access. You must have been granted at least reviewer permission to open their mailbox and see it in your Folder List.

1. On the Tools menu, click E-Mail Accounts.
   
2. Click View or change existing e-mail accounts, and then click Next.
   
3. In the list, click the Exchange account type, and then click Change.
   
4. Click More Settings, and then click the Advanced tab.
   
5. Click Add, and then type the mailbox name of the person whose mailbox you want to add to your user profile. If you do not know the mailbox name of the person, contact your administrator."

Enjoy!

Set new windows in IE7 to open in Tabs

Before internet explorer 7 came out, I used to use a product called "Collector" by Hiroshi Takahashi that came bundled with TeraTerm Professional Enhanced version http://ttssh2.sourceforge.jp/

It was meant to capture VT console windows into a single tabbed interface to make tracking them easier when remotely administering servers via telnet and ssh. I also used it to collect IE6 windows into a single tabbed interface.

Thanksfully, I no longer need to kludge together my own IE-based tabbed browser.

By default in IE7 tabs are enabled but pop-up links or requests for new browser sessions (ctrl-click) open a new window not a tab in the current active IE window.

To have new windows and pop-ups open new tabs by default:

1. Open IE7
2. Click Tools
3. Click Internet Options
4. Click Settings
5. Check the "Always open pop-ups in new tab" box
6. Click OK until you are back in your browser

You should now be able to click on links to pop-up windows or CTRL-click on a link and they will all open in tabs by default.

Enjoy!

RDP Admin fun with your Hackintosh

I do IT consulting for a living now-a-days and I use a MacBook Pro laptop as my weapon of choice for my mobile computing platform for a few reasons.

1. I have all the major Operating System flavors legally on one machine and at my finger tips, ie: Windows (in Bootcamp or VM Fusion), Mac and Unix (FreeBSD/Darwin), which is great when you're a road warrior.
2. It's the only version of Unix-like OSes that has Micro$oft Office coded for it natively, can you say "PowerPoint" boys and girls?
3. Let's be honest, they look damn cool and the Aqua GUI trumps windows, yes, even Vista, for sleekness and functionality.
4. Plus the chicks dig it ... lol

That being said there are a few little snurks that disturb the otherwise stillness of the pond of my Mac meditation. Two of those are the lack of a few keyboard keys and a right-click touchpad button that I use frequently while connected via RDP to a remote Windows server.

If you have ever used Remote Desktop (RDP) to connect to a Windows server from your house in your undies, when you get a call at 2:00 AM from a frantic client about a critical service being down instead of having to hop into your clothes and drive 30 miles to their office, you'll understand it's incalculable value to you. I use it almost hourly, every day. (Man, I need to get a life.)

If you happen to want to lock the screen on that Windows server without having to log off or disconnect from the RDP session, then you are out of luck on a Mac laptop because you have no END key to perform the RDP version (CTRL+ALT+END) of the 3 finger salute (CTRL+ALT+DEL) to access the Windows Security dialog box so that you can lock the screen.

There is a way around this by creating a shortcut on the desktop of the Windows server you remotely connect to:

• Right click on any empty spot on the remote machine's desktop. Click on New and then Shortcut.
• In the dialog box that appears, type:

rundll32 user32.dll,LockWorkStation

• Click Next to continue.
• Enter a name for the new shortcut, i.e. "RDP Screenlock" or whatever makes sense to you.
• Click Finish to complete the task.
• If you are feeling particularly Mac-ish you can go to properties and assign a pretty icon with a key or lock or something. ;)

The lack of a right-click touchpad button can be resolved by either CTRL+CLICK-ing whatever you want to right-click on or by purchasing a Mac-compatible 2-button USB mouse (I prefer the wireless ones, myself.)

NOTE: The best Remote Desktops Manager software for Mac is a program called CoRD. I highly recommend it for creating your quick-list of RDP connection links and storing the credentials for each connection. Awesome app.

Enjoy!

Rounding up the usual suspects - Network Troubleshooting Part 1

When you are troubleshooting a network issue, it can be a little overwhelming if you don't begin the process by narrowing the cause of the problem. You do this by "rounding up the usual suspects", the common causes of network issues.

The Usual Suspects

Taking a queue from the Scientific Method and Occam's Razor , apply the following rule of thumb when localizing and narrowing down the problem: "All things being equal, the simplest explanation is probably the correct one."

Here are a few of the usual suspects:

• Logon Credentials
• The Obvious
• User error (aka PEBKAC)

Logon Credentials

Access to the network depends on a user providing correct logon credentials, normally a username and it's associated password/passtoken. These 2 items must match exactly to what is "on file" with the server that controls network-access, especially passwords, which are case-sensitive. Now technically this usual suspect actually fits into the User error category but user's mistype their passwords so often it is it's own category.

Typical causes of this error are :

1. CAPS Lock is On.
2. User simply mis-typed 1 or both items.
3. User forgot the correct password after having to recently change it due to company password policy enforcement.

The Obvious

Don't neglect the obvious stuff of OSI layer 1 (physical environment) Loose or damaged cables are common causes of physical layer networking issues. Check:

1. Network cables
2. Connectors (cable-end terminators, retaining clips break off of these constantly)
3. Switches installed by users in their workspaces with/without approval
4. Wall jacks (Ethernet)
5. Power plugs

User Error

Among IT professionals you'll hear terms like PEBKAC, ID Ten T , and Layer 8 when describing this usual suspect. One of my favorites is EEOC "Equipment Exceeds Operator Capability" ;)

Simply put, human error accounts for most problems, networking ones included. This issue is partly a problem of user education, as a networking professional it's part of your job to properly educate your end-users on the proper use and expectations of your network. So maybe a better acronym would be PEBAAU "Problem Exists Between Admin And Users" ;)

When you suspect that user error is the cause of a reported network issue, have the user reproduce the issue while you observe him/her. If it turns out to be that the user is following an incorrect procedure or other type of user error, the solution will be fairly obvious. If not, back to the drawing-board.

Good Luck in your networking adventures!