Tag Archive for 'windows'

Turn a laptop into a three-monitor system

Published by Bret Fisher on Jun 24, 2010 in Tech. 0 Comments Tags: display, laptop, monitor, windows.

Thanks to Ryan for this tip. The Matrox DualHead2Go can be had for around $200 and turns your VGA or DisplayPort on your laptop into 2 additional screens vs. the standard 2nd screen add on. After nearly a week on Windows 7 x64 with two 20” monitors it’s working great. Make sure you get the newest firmware and drivers/software from the link above, that way it has settings to help you manage windows across three screens.

One tip that held me up at first. The device gets power from USB, but must need more power then a powered USB hub can provide, as it didn’t work properly until I plugged it directly into the laptop USB.

DCPROMO demote error on Domain Controller

Published by Bret Fisher on Sep 28, 2009 in Microsoft, Solution Writeups and Tech. 2 Comments Tags: active directory, dcpromo, domain controlers, error, fix, Microsoft, windows.

On trying to remove a old server from the directory (2003 server in a 2003 forest) I received this error

Failed to configure the service NETLOGON as requested “the wait operation timed out.”

The root problem was that this domain controller had a DNS entry to another domain controller that no longer existed. It was trying to contact it but couldn’t. Removing that entry and running dcpromo.exe again solved it.

DPM with Firestreamer Virtual Tape Library for Tape-less Offsite/remote long term backups

Published by Bret Fisher on Apr 19, 2009 in Microsoft and Tech. 2 Comments Tags: backups, dpm, error, firestreamer, Microsoft, tape, vtl, windows.

So far DPM 2007 with SP1 works well with Firestreamer Media Changer 3.95.8. It acts like a fake/virtual tape library with 5 drives and 200 tape slots. Those “tapes” can be anything that accepts native windows storage… USB, local drives, CIFS network locations, etc. We’re using a small NAS as the endpoint, and the Filestreamer interface lets you create tape files of any size, which will look/act like tapes in one of the 200 tape slots inside the DPM interface. This allows you “operational” backups on DPM disk and long term “Disaster Recovery” backups that are pushed over the LAN to somewhere else. Perfect.

So far I’ve had one error.

The number of free tapes in the Tape Library Firestreamer Media Changer is less than or equals the threshold value of 40. You must add tape to the library and mark it as free in order to prevent future backups from failing. (ID 3305)

If you get an error about free tape threshold, be aware that DPM seems to have a fixed “free tape” threshold of 20%. On the Firestreamer Media Changer, since it has 200 tape slots, that number is 40. The error in DPM itself isn’t an issue assuming you have planned out how many tape file you need (and what size to make them), but if you want to keep your alerts screen clean, be sure to add enough virtual tapes to Firestreamer so that it never dips below 40 free.

Ping Windows 2008 with Firewall On

Published by Bret Fisher on Mar 12, 2009 in Microsoft, Networking and Security and Tech. 3 Comments Tags: firewall, icmp, ping, security, server 2008, windows.

You should be trying hard to keep the firewall on when deploying Windows Server 2008. If you need to ping the server and haven’t enabled File and Printer Sharing, then open Windows Firewall with Advanced Security and under Inbound rules, enable “File and Printer Sharing (Echo Request – ICMPv4-In)”. Might as well enable ICMPv6 while your at it.

Windows 7 beta build 7000 to 7022 upgrade bug

Published by Bret Fisher on Feb 22, 2009 in Microsoft. Closed Tags: bitlocker, google, internet explorer, Microsoft, windows, windows 7.

If you are using bitlocker and get an upgrade failure, it seems it’s not sufficient enough to suspend it as the documentation may lead you to believe. You must disable and decrypt the drive first.

I was getting an error about not finding source file about 1/2 way through the upgrade (after first reboot) that doesn’t indicate anything about bitlocker. After verifying my media and install sources were good I took a guess and decrypted the system drive.

Also I think IE 8 beta and RC1 have an issue with Google Toolbar 5 on both of these Windows 7 builds. I get a lot of tab crashes while it’s installed.