Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Miscellaneous

Blue Screen (BSOD) on VirtualBox VM

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I’ve got to handle it to Oracle; their virtualization software VirtualBox is amazing…and free! It’s features surpass Windows Virtual PC by leaps and are on par with VMWare Workstation. Lately I have been using it for all my host-based virtualization needs.

I am in the process of setting up a new computer and part of that means moving all my VMs. I use the export and then import feature in VirtualBox to do this. After I moved a Windows XP machine it would not boot on the new PC, and kept bluescreening continuously. This was the error:

VirtualBox Bluescreen

DRIVER_UNLOADED_WITHOUT_CANCELLING_PENDING_OPERATIONS caused by intelppm.sys.

After a brief Google search I turned up this post by Ben Armstrong (Virtual PC Guy) from the Microsoft virtualization team:http://blogs.msdn.com/b/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2005/10/25/problems-with-intelppm-sys-and-processr-sys-under-virtual-pc-virtual-server.aspx

According to Ben this driver; intelppm.sys, processr.sys and perhaps also p3.sys can cause problems when they try to do something that is not supported by the hypervisor. Apparently the problem affects Microsoft products such as Virtual PC and Virtual Server as well. There is also a ticket logged for VirtualBox regarding this issue: http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/420

The solution is to boot into Safe Mode (F8 during start up) and entering one or more of these commands, depending on which driver is causing the issue:

  • sc config p3 start= disabled
  • sc config intelppm start= disabled
  • sc config processr= disabled

You could also follow the instructions in Ben’s post and do these changes manually in the Registry.

Miscellaneous

Consumption of data vs. creation of data

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According to the latest buzz we are in the middle of the tablet/slate revolution. This is based on the popularity of the IPad, the launch of the Samsung Galaxy Tab and countless other upcoming devices of the same type, as well as the popularity of IPhone and the recent launch of Windows Phone 7. In my mind all these devices are signs of the coming cloud based Internet where we no longer store our own data on huge hard drives in our home computers or NAS boxes on our networks, but rather just use sleek touch based devices with virtually no local data storage capabilities, to consume the data we want. But in that consumption there is a challenge; all these devices are excellent at consuming data, but not great at creating it. Who would use their IPad to write a report or work with a spreadsheet? Or write code? For those tasks a laptop or desktop is still the best choice. But when it comes to reading the latest edition of Wired or watching streaming video, the slates beat the laptop/desktop hands down. Dropping down on the couch with the laptop is OK at best. I am sure that this division of labor will change over time, but right now I think it is food for thought. And as always; feel free to disagree!

Morgan

Miscellaneous

Overriding Apple QuickTime 7 installation language

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I prefer when software I want to run either comes in a specific language, or lets me choose the language during installation. In an effort to be more user friendly a lot of software is configured to detect the region your computer is set to. I prefer to run my OS in English, but have my region set to Norway. This results in a lot of software ending up with a Norwegian UI. Here is how you fix this for QuickTime 7:

  1. Download the QuickTimeInstaller.exe from Apple.
  2. Extract it using e.g. 7-Zip
  3. Download and install the Orca MSI Editor.
  4. Open QuickTime.msi in Orca
  5. Go to ViewSummary Information…
  6. Find the Languages box and delete all language ID except the language you want. In my case I want English which is 1033.
  7. Save the MSI over itself.
  8. Repeat the process for AppleSoftwareUpdate.msi
  9. Install QuickTime by double clicking QuickTime.msi
  10. Open Explorer and find the Apple Software Update installation directory. Either C:Program Files (x86)Apple Software Update or C:Program FilesApple Software Update, depending on your system architecture.
  11. Open the SoftwareUpdate.Resources folder and find the language you want (still English for me), e.g. en.lproj.
  12. Copy the SoftwareUpdateLocalized.dll from the folder of the language you want, into the folder Apple Software Update is using. Again for me; copy SoftwareUpdateLocalized.dll from the en.lproj folder into the nb.lproj folder, overwriting the existing file.
  13. Repeat for the SoftwareUpdateFiles.Resources folder.

Now both QuickTime and the Apple Software Update should both display the language you want.

PS: You can’t just delete the language folder you don’t want from the SoftwareUpdate.Resources  and SoftwareUpdateFiles.Resources folders. If you do Windows Installer will repair the application the next time you try to launch it.

Exchange, Miscellaneous

Entourage 2008 EWS and Public Folders

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Microsoft Entourage 2008 for Mac, Web Services Edition is a required upgrade if you are using Exchange Server 2010. Entourage 2008 (without EWS) uses WebDAV to communicate with Exchange Server and WebDAV has been removed from Exchange Server 2010. Entourage EWS now uses Exchange Web Services (EWS) as the primary protocol for communicating with Exchange Server. This means that Entourage now can potentially access all the information available through EWS.

So what about Public Folders? According to the Entourage EWS documentation Entourage can now access Public Folders, but there is no mention of whether Entourage needs Public Folders. Entourage without EWS did absolutely need Public Folders. During Exchange Server 2007 installation you got a question; Do you have any client computers running Outlook 2003 and earlier or Entourage in your organization? If you answered yes; a public folder database would be created. If you answered now; no public folders in your organization. Since Entourage EWS now can access free/busy data through EWS there should be no reason to continue having Public Folders in your Exchange organization. But I have been unable to clearly determine if that is the case. Right now I think it is unnecessary, but I will do some further testing.

Miscellaneous

Exchange 2010 not receiving mail

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My Inbox had been awfully quiet for a few days. Time to investigate:

Putty with manual SMTP session:

220 <servername> Microsoft ESMTP MAIL Service ready at Wed, 2 Dec 2009 12:53:01 +0100
ehlo server1.nowhere.com
500 5.3.3 Unrecognized command
ehlo server1.nowhere.com
250-<servername> Hello [<client IP>]
250-SIZE
250-PIPELINING
250-DSN
250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
250-STARTTLS
250-X-ANONYMOUSTLS
250-AUTH NTLM
250-X-EXPS GSSAPI NTLM
250-8BITMIME
250-BINARYMIME
250-CHUNKING
250-XEXCH50
250-XRDST
250 XSHADOW
mail from:test@nowhere.com
452 4.3.1 Insufficient system resources
rcpt to:morgan@simonsen.bz

That’s not good. What does the event log say:

Event Log:

Index              : 5950
EntryType          : Error
InstanceId         : 3221502622
Message            : Microsoft Exchange Transport is rejecting message submissions because the available disk space has
dropped below the configured threshold.

                     The following resources are under pressure:
Queue database logging disk space (“C:Program FilesMicrosoftExchange ServerV14TransportRoles
dataQueue”) = 88% [Medium] [Normal=86% Medium=88% High=90%]
Physical memory load = 95% [limit is 94% to start dehydrating messages.]

                     The following components are disabled due to back pressure:
Inbound mail submission from the Internet
Mail submission from Pickup directory
Mail submission from Replay directory
Content aggregation

                     The following resources are in normal state:
Queue database and disk space (“C:Program FilesMicrosoftExchange ServerV14TransportRolesdata
Queuemail.que”) = 88% [Normal] [Normal=92% Medium=94% High=96%]
Version buckets = 0 [Normal] [Normal=80 Medium=120 High=200]
Private bytes = 8% [Normal] [Normal=71% Medium=73% High=75%]
Batch Point = 0 [Normal] [Normal=1000 Medium=2000 High=4000]

Category           : ResourceManager
CategoryNumber     : 15

Source             : MSExchangeTransport
TimeGenerated      : 29.11.2009 21:45:58
TimeWritten        : 29.11.2009 21:45:58
UserName           :

That’s worse. The server had about 1.6 GB free disk space, and had hit the threshold set for the Queue database. I extended the disk to 32 GB and all was well. Hopefully not too many messages have been lost. SMTP has a default retry period of 48 hrs so I should have a lot of new messages as the various sending servers retry to deliver their messages.

Miscellaneous

Go Consolas!

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It’s probably not good for your geek factor when you get excited about a new font in Windows, but a friend from work tipped me of about a new font in Windows 7 today; the Consolas TTF font, and now I am very excited.

This is the description of the Consolas font family from Microsoft.com:
Optimized for Microsoft ClearType
The Microsoft Consolas Font Family is a set of highly legible fonts designed for ClearType. It is intended for use in programming environments and other circumstances where a monospaced font is specified. All characters have the same width, like old typewriters, making it a good choice for personal and business correspondence. Optimizing the font specifically for ClearType allowed a design with proportions closer to normal text than traditional monospaced fonts like Courier. This allows for more comfortable reading of extended text on-screen.

Wikipedia also has an article on the Consolas font.

So far Consolas looks good on my displays. I do a lot of scripting in PowerShell so a good monospaced font is essential. Up until now I have always used Courier New, but that font is not optimized for ClearType. I will not say that I will be using Consolas from now on, but it looks good. And it also has a slash through the zero character!

Below are screenshots of cmd.exe using Courier New and Consolas:

You can read more about ClearType and Microsoft typography here.

The Consolas Font Pack can be downloaded here:

Miscellaneous

Morgan’s list of great (free) applications and utilities

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So I thought I would put together a list of the stuff I use. Mostly as sort of a memo to myself, but if anyone finds this useful, so much the better.

Name Description
Audacity Sound file editing
Paint.NET Image editing
HashCheck Checksum verification/creation
MyDefrag Defragmentation
VirtualDub Video edition
Foxit Reader PDF Reader/PDF Ifilter
7-Zip File archiver
Putty Telnet/SSH client
FileZilla FTP client
Simp Instant messaging encryption
VLC Media player
Wireshark Network protocol analyzer
Notepad++ Text editor
Bullzip PDF Printer
CDBurnerXP CD/DVD Burning Application
Folder2ISO ISO file creation
Exact Audio Copy (EAC) CD Ripping
Nmap Network mapping
MailSend SMTP command line sender
VHD Resizer Resizes VHD files
VMDK to VHD Converter Convert VMware VMDK disk files to VHD
Angry IP Scanner IP address scanner
WinSCP SFTP, FTP and SCP client
Fiddler HTTP Debugging proxy
Stellarium Planetarium
TFTPD32 TFTP client and DHCP, TFTP, DNS, SNTP and Syslog server
RawWrite Disk image writer
WinTail Tail application for Windows
Cygwin Linux environment for Windows
Free Download Manager Like the name says…
uTorrent Tiny BitTorrent client
MediaCoder Transcode files for portable devices
Frhed Free Hex Editor
OpenSSL Open Source toolkit for SSL/TLS and cryptography
MediaInfo Supplies technical and tag information about a video or audio file
Cuttermaran Cut program for MPEG1 or MPEG2 video streams
iCopy Turn you scanner and printer into a free photocopier
Synergy Keyboard, mouse and clipboard sharing across computers on a LAN
Unetbootin Cross-platform for creating bootable flash drives with various Linux distributions on them.
VirtualBox Cross-platform hosted-hypervisor virtualization software from Oracle.
Xbox Media Center (XBMC) The world’s best Media Center for HTPCs.
Pandora Recovery Recover deleted files
HWiNFO Hardware inventory
Miscellaneous, Windows

Not something you generally want to see…

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PingGeneralfaulure_thumb_0C11E1CC

“General failure”, that’s helpful. My on-board Atheros L1 Gigabit NIC sucks. There is really no other way to put it. Every Atheros chip, be it wireless or cable, I have had the misfortune to come across has been worthless. You should think that Ethernet and Wi-Fi should be pretty well understood concepts by now. Not so for the driver developers of Atheros. In this case the driver has “lost” (for wont of a better word) the NICs MAC address. So ipconfig.exe displays the hardware address 00-00-00-00-00-00. Needless to say, using that address on the Ethernet is not going to work. The first time this happened I had to open up the computer case and read the MAC address from the motherboard. After that I could use the driver properties to enter it manually. After that connections was restored.

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However, Atheros still had some surprises! Whenever I chanced an upgrade of the driver, I would loose network connectivity again! Even if the MAC address was correctly entered into the device properties. To fix this I had to remove it, close the device properties dialogue, open it again and re-enter it. User-friendly, don’t you think?

So stay away from anything using one of Atheros chips.