Geoff @ UVM

I’m providing a training session on using Windows Remote Assistance to our helpline staff this afternoon. I’ve found it quite useful in working with clients when there’s behavior on the clients’ systems that I can’t see or reproduce on my one.

A couple of helpful links:

• Using Remote Assistance to Get Help When You Need It
• Administering Remote Assistance
• What is Windows Remote Assistance

Here’s a webcast of Microsoft Technical Fellow and Windows Rockstar Mark Russinovich presenting Process Monitor. I haven’t had a chance to watch the entire thing, yet, but it looks like Mark’s typically thorough and useful treatment.

http://www.microsoft.com/emea/itsshowtime/sessionh.aspx?videoid=346

[The following is taken mostly from a response to a colleagues question]

Vista Business and Enterprise Editions do not include the codec necessary to decrypt and play most commercial DVDs. This does not affect the DVD read (and write, if your drive supports it) capabilities of the device.

The rationale from MS is that DVD playback isn’t a core requirement for business or enterprise customers, and for every license MS sells that includes a bundled DVD codec, they have to pay a royalty to [insert corporate entity here].

But you aren’t out of luck. There are a few options to add DVD playback to these versions of Vista.
Continue reading →

Windows Mobile Device Center is the replacement in Windows Vista for the ActiveSync product used with previous versions of Window. WMDC isn’t included in Vista, but can be downloaded for free. I found that it worked very nicely and I much prefer it to the old Palm hotsync facility. I also get the usual removable storage device pop-up each time I connect the Treo, but that’s not a big deal.

Yesterday, I experienced my first Blue Screen of Death in about four months of steady use, and I know the culprit. I had just reinstalled Vista at the end of last week as part of the helpful troubleshooting tips provided by Cisco for their VPN client. Yesterday, I started seeing the problematic behavior again (“can’t enable VPN adapter”) so I decided to uninstall the VPN. I started the removal via Add/Remove programs, and after approving the administrative action and waiting patiently while the uninstaller did it’s think, I got the bright blue screen.

Sigh.

I rebooted in Safe mode, and the VPN client was no longer listed in the Add/Remove programs list. I rebooted normally and within a few minutes, another blue screen. Needless to say, I have reformatted and reinstalled Vista, but I’ll be holding off on the Cisco VPN client.

I’m working on a project to reconfigure a subnet, and I need to update the network configuration of all the hosts in that subnet. I decided that it’s time to really put PowerShell to work. The Script Center has some good source material, including a PowerShell script to enumerate network configuration and a VB Script to update it. Cross-referencing these with the MSDN details of the Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration WMI class, I think I have all the pieces I need.

Here’s a sample:

$computer = "."
$all_nics = get-wmiobject -class "Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration" -computer $computer -filter "IPEnabled=TRUE"

foreach ( $nic in $all_nics ) {

	write-host "IP Address      : " $nic.IPAddress

	write-host "MAC Address     : " $nic.MACAddress

	write-host "Default Gateway : " $nic.DefaultIPGateway

	write-host "Subnet Mask     : " $nic.IPSubnet

}

I’ll be working with the EnableStatic and SetGateways methods to make the changes.

Just watched a webcast on the new Network Connectivity Status Indicator and the Network Diagnostics Framework. These tools are designed to provide useful network help to non-technical users. I’ve tried the diagnose procedure only a couple of times, but I’m going to give it another look.

The presenter, Tim Rains, has a blog (who doesn’t) where he provides a link to a white paper that covers the same material.

–Geoff

We encouraged use of Outlook Express as an IMAP client for several years. The current recommendation is Mozilla Thunderbird, but there are folks who prefer to use Outlook Express or even Outlook proper (gasp!).

There were threats that Outlook Express was going away, but it has just been re-named Windows Mail. It still provides support for POP, IMAP, NNTP, and LDAP. There are a couple changes of note, though.

Windows Mail uses the Deleted Items to store deleted messages. Outlook Express didn’t offer this behavior. You can configue the specific folder to use in the Account properties under the IMAP tab.

If you prefer the previous behavior, which is consistent with Outlook proper, of marking messages at deleted, and then purging them permanently, you need to go to the Options dialog and the Advanced tab, and uncheck the option “Use the ‘Deleted Items’ folder with IMAP accounts.

If you do this, you may be surprised the next time you delete a message and find that it disappears immediately. That’s because Windows Mail doesn’t display deleted messages by default. You can show them by selecting the “Show deleted messages” option on the Current menu under Current View.

Those are the big functional differences I’ve found in some brief experimentation. However, I’m one of those folks who likes Outlook. So that’s where I spend most of my email time, followed by Pine, Thunderbirdm and Webmail.