« Posts tagged Windows 7

Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 Client SMB2 Share Refresh Issue

January 31, 2011 / posted in Hack, Microsoft, Networking, Servers, Software, Troubleshooting, Windows / 6 Comments

That’s one heck of a long post title, but it at least describes the issue. Here’s the setup:

  • 1x Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V/AD/File Server roles, and two shared folders. Server has dual onboard NICs, one with full access to the client network below, the other to a separate network to allow the server to be managed remotely (no gateway configured on this NIC).
  • 18x Windows 7 x86 clients
  • Standard network setup (read: no VLANs, bridging, etc…. Just one network switch).

The previous server used by these clients worked perfectly. However, upon replacing the server with the one above, my users began noticing an odd issue. If they copy one or more files/folders to a share that is visible to all of the computers, the file(s) don’t immediately show up on all of the computers – usually 3/4 of the computers will see the file(s). On the 1/4 that don’t, users either have to wait ~10 minutes before the files will appear, or they can reboot to force a refresh. Simply pressing F5, or right-clicking in the shared folder and choosing ‘Refresh’ doesn’t work – only waiting or rebooting does.

In terms of a solution, I’ve seen a number of suggestions, but none seem to work. The server has dual-onboard Broadcom Gigabit NICs, and a number of forum posts have suggested disabling Checksum Offload and Large Send Offload, but this made no difference. Neither did disabling IPv6 on the client and server side. Disabling firewalls on the client and server side made no difference, nor did this post suggesting a few registry settings to change.

What did fix the issue, though, was disabling SMB2. Once all of the clients were connecting using the old SMB protocol the issue disappeared. I have no idea why SMB2 is an issue as I haven’t take the time to troubleshoot further with SMB2-specific settings, however this at least has things running normally.

TL;DR Version: If you have clients connecting to a Windows Server 2008 R2 box and the contents of file shares aren’t refreshing immediately or until reboot, disable SMB2 on the server.

Windows Cannot Connect to the Printer: 0x0000007e/0×00000006

May 27, 2010 / posted in "It's a Feature", Hardware, howto, Microsoft, Networking, Software, Troubleshooting, Windows / 14 Comments
An HP P4015dn - This morning, the bane of my existence

An HP P4015dn - This morning, the bane of my existence

Note: Make sure to read over the comments on this post – there is some excellent advice there as well.

Windows 7 has been very good to me so far, but this morning I was literally pounding my desk in frustration over a printer issue. I just received two brand-new Dell Optiplex 780′s and was in the process of configuring the printers on them when I happened across this little message:

Windows Cannot Connect to the Printer: 0x0000007e

Now here’s the situation. The computers are running Windows 7 Professional x64. The printer (an HP P4015dn) is connected to a Windows XP x86 machine and shared normally. Of all of our printers, this is the only one directly shared with a computer due to a wiring issue I have yet to correct (although now I’m going to make an effort to fix it). I have several other computers running XP and Vista (x86 and x64) that already print this computer without issue, so I was rather stumped. Then I realized I had attempted to install the Vista x64 Postscript drivers instead of the Windows 7 ones.

Unfortunately, Windows 7 no longer provides a dedicated ‘Printers’ control panel, and the ‘Devices and Printers’ one doesn’t have a Server Properties option to let you manage installed drivers. So, I stopped the print spooler service and manually deleted the drivers from C:\Windows\System32\spool\Drivers. When I tried to re-add the printer, though, I got this message:

Windows Cannot Connect to the Printer: 0×00000006

Hmm. Google wasn’t much help, so I went to an old standby – I mannually added the network printer by choosing to create a local port (silly, I know). Here’s how to get this working:

  1. In the Devices and Printers control panel, choose Add a Printer.
  2. In the new window, click Add a local printer.
  3. On the following screen, select Create a new port, and then choose Local Port from the drop-down list and click Next.
  4. When asked to enter a Port Name, use the full path to the printer. For example, if your printer share is called Dave and is a computer with the name PrintSrv1, you would enter \PrintSrv1Dave as the Port Name. If you receive an error saying The network path was not found, check the computer name and share name, then try again.
  5. You should be asked to install a driver. Manually download the correct driver (in this case, the HP Universal PostScript driver worked for my HP P4015dn) from the manufacturer’s website and extract it to a folder on your computer. Then click the Have Disk… button in the Add Printer wizard and point it to that folder, then click OK and Next.
  6. Wait for it to install the driver.

At this point, the printer should be installed and functional. Print a test page to make sure everything worked alright, and then do a little dance (as long as no one is looking)!

Short: Windows 7 Misreporting CPU Speed? Try This.

February 2, 2010 / posted in Hardware, Troubleshooting / No Comments

I noticed almost immediately after installing the first beta of Windows 7 that it wasn’t reporting the correct speed of my processor. I’m currently running an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (2.4Ghz) overclocked to 3Ghz. Oddly, Windows XP and Vista both reported the clock speed to be 3.00Ghz, but Windows 7 only reported 2.4Ghz. I made sure to verify that the overclock was still active with CPUID which confirmed that yes, the correct clock speed was 3Ghz. Several people suggested just re-running the Windows Experience Assessment, however that didn’t do anything.

I’d mostly forgotten about the issue until I installed Rainmeter, and it started showing the stock clock speed as well. On a hunch, I went in to BIOS and, sure enough, Intel EIST (aka, SpeedStep) was enabled. After I disabled it and rebooted, Windows and Rainmeter immediately started showing the correct clock speed, 3.00Ghz.

Now why didn’t I think of that sooner?

Windows 7 Misreporting Memory on the MSI Wind

August 28, 2009 / posted in "It's a Feature", Microsoft, Software / No Comments

One of the first things I did on my new MSI Wind U123 was install Windows 7. Some of the things I’ve noticed are excellent battery life (~8 hours on the 9 cell battery), quick response, and misreported memory.

Check out the screen shots after the cut and see if you can tell how much RAM I actually have installed.

»Read More

Chrome OS: Insert Cloud Pun Here

July 9, 2009 / posted in Google / No Comments

So there’s been a lot of news lately about Google’s newly announced operating system cleverly called ‘Chrome OS’. What is it? In short, it’s a bare-bones Linux distribution (yes, it uses a Linux kernel for both the ARM and x86 versions) that puts focus on web applications. What does this mean to the consumer? Probably not a whole lot.

Here’s the thing: there’s a cycle that goes on between people/businesses having Desktop Systems and Thin Clients. This has been going on for ages. With a desktop system (which most people are used to), everything is literally at your finger tips. All of the software is installed on your local computer, and that’s where you do most of your work. If you’re in a business, chances are you save your files on to a remote server, but that’s typically in the same building.

With Thin Clients, things are a little different. In days of old, you had a terminal, which consisted of a monitor and keyboard. This was networked to a mainframe-type setup, which housed everything. These days, Thin Clients typically have a very minimal operating system (either something *nix based, or Windows CE) that allows you to use Citrix, Remote Desktop (terminal services), etc… to connect to a server that contains all of your apps. Not a lot of difference.

Chrome OS, from everything that’s been said, definitely appears to be of the Thin Client sort – basically, you boot it up and you’re on the web. Done. Likely you’ll be able to muck about with installation, and it will hopefully still support Offline applications, however the goal appears simple: once you’re connected, you’ll be using Google Apps. Yep, you’ll be in the ‘cloud’, with all of the benefits and problems that go with it.

Depending on your needs, this is all well and good. If you have a broadband connection, you’re laughing. If you have a netbook, the target platform, this is supposed to be Nir-freaking-vana. However, I’m not convinced. Not yet, anyways.

The problem is, if this thing were to launch right now, I can’t imagine it would do horribly well. With cell phones capable of tethering, 3G USB sticks, and WiFi hotspots everywhere, internet access really isn’t a problem. And now that netbooks have matured and are actually usable (my 8GB SSD Acer AspireOne proves that it doesn’t pay to be an early adopter) and Windows 7 nearly out the door, what’s the point of yet-another-OS?

The pre-releases of Windows 7 run amazing well on netbooks (there are even rumors that Microsoft is making an ARM port of it). Fedora 11 is brilliant (even on my slow-as-hell AspireOne), and I’ve heard that Ubuntu rocks the platform. Intel is pushing Moblin (I’ve tried it, and I really don’t care for the UI). Even OS X runs well, according to the Hackint0sh crowd. All that said, why is Google bothering with making an OS of it’s own? Will it be a fork of one of the above distros? Will it retain binary compatibility with it’s upstream brothers? Until it’s out, we won’t know for sure.

All that I can say is that I don’t think it deserves the hype. We need to sit back, wait for Google to bless us with a beta, and then start hailing it as the best think since sliced bread or just another OS.

Howto: Five keystrokes to a Command Prompt from anywhere

April 15, 2009 / posted in "It's a Feature", Beta Testing, Hack, howto, Troubleshooting, Windows 7 Beta / 1 Comment

There are already a number of articles out there about this hack, but what the hell.

<Shift key><Shift key><Shift key><Shift key><Shift key>. What does this bring up on your computer? Chances are, a StickyKeys window. However, if you’re running Windows XP/Vista/7 (and possibly 2000, although I’ve never tested it), you can quickly turn this quick series of keystrokes in to a shortcut to a Command Prompt. Note that in Vista/Win7, it’s possible to get an Elevated Command Prompt (one with full Administrative privileges) from the Welcome (login) screen, or from the Secure Desktop (the faded screen you see when a User Account Control prompt appears) even if UAC is turned on.

Why?

Sure, you can get a Command Prompt in most places with a quick <Windows Key> + <R>, then cmd and <Enter>, but this doesn’t work if Explorer isn’t running, or if you’re at, say, the Welcome Screen. It’s also very handy if you’ve forgotten the password to the Administrator account on your system and need to reset it, but don’t have a copy of the NT Offline Password Editor kicking around.

How?

The process for setting this up is very simple.

From Windows:

  • Open the system32 folder
  • Take ownership of sethc.exe, and then grant yourself Full Control permissions (note: if you don’t understand this step, or don’t know how to do it, you probably shouldn’t be doing this!)
  • Rename sethc.exe to anything else (I usually choose sethc.exe.bak)
  • Copy cmd.exe, and name the copy sethc.exe.

This can also be done from the Windows Recovery Console (boot from a Windows XP install CD) or WinRE (Windows Recovery Environment – boot from either a Vista or Windows 7 DVD). From the Command Prompt in either of these, run the following commands:

  • c:
  • cd windows\system32
  • ren sethc.exe sethc.exe.bak
  • copy cmd.exe sethc.exe

Then reboot in to Windows.

Uses Explained

I typically use this for resetting passwords. When I used to work in a local computer shop, if someone forgot to tell me their Windows user password, and I couldn’t reach them by phone, I’d use this trick. Then, at the Welcome (login) screen, I could simply pull open a Command Prompt by hitting <Shift> five times, type control userpasswords2 which brings up the old-style User Accounts control panel, and then reset the users password to blank without needing the old one.

This is also handy for troubleshooting if Explorer continously crashes, or if the UserInit registry value is shot and you can’t login anymore. Just fire up a Command Prompt and open regedit from there.