Microsoft doesn't know it yet

A weird issue came up at work today. I really believe that Microsoft doesn't about it yet, since it exists in IE6 and later. It is a minor issue, but certainly something to fix.

The problem was that when users were typing www.website.com/whatever they would get an Address bar error from IE. It would tell them that Windows cannot find "it" and to check the spelling. If you include the http:// prefix, then it worked fine. This has nothing to do with resolving an address, or any far sought cause.

What I figured out is the following. If you have a Favorite in the root of your Favorites folder with the name/label www.website.com then you will have the above problem. Once you start typing www.website.com in the address bar, IE will recognize the Favorite and assume you are trying to type the name of one. If you keep typing after that, it will still be looking for a favorite that doesn't exist, and it will not see it as a URL anymore. So, going to www.website.com/whatever will throw the error. Check your spelling, because Windows can't find it.

To fix it, just rename the shortcut, delete it, or move it into a subfolder in your Favorites. Again, I tried this with IE6, IE7, and I believe I did it with IE 8 Beta 2 as well.

Obviously, www.website.com is an example and could be any domain name instead.

Chapter 2: Installing XP

First there is preparation. Obvious things like verifying that your equipment meets the requirements and is compatible with XP. Partitioning decisions. File system choice. Type of network you will be on. Whether to use Dynamic Updates or not. And about licensing. It recommends to create a checklist.

If you can, always use NTFS. If you have to dual boot with an OS that can't read NTFS partitions, then you may have to use FAT32.

The standard networking components are mentioned. And then also different ways to install XP. One way being over a network. It discusses winnt.exe and winnt32.exe and the switches that can be used with them.

Stop errors, and other errors you may encounter during setup. The BSOD and a number of log files are named and explained. The setupact.log has everything that happened during the setup, and the setuperr.log has just the errors.

Then WSUS is explained. The Windows Server Update Service is a service running on a server on a domain. It allows client computers to connect to it, instead of to the Windows Update website. This way bandwith use out to the Internet is limited to a minimum because only the update server has to go get them. Also updates can be managed.

Chapter 3 is about deploying Windows XP. Stay tuned for more.

Chapter 1: Intro

This chapter introduces you to the different versions of XP. They are Professional, Home Edition, Media Center Edition, Tablet PC Edition, and the 64-Bit Edition.

A common question people ask is about the differences between Home and Pro. Here are some big ones:

1. Domain membership


2. Support for two CPU's


3. NTFS or print permission


4. Dynamic disks


5. EFS


6. IIS


7. Support for RIS

Tablet Edition is basically Pro with some touchscreen functions and applications.

This chapter also covers the changes that came with Service Pack 2. The Security Center was added, ICF replaced by Windows Firewall, Automatic Updates improved, pop-up blocker built in to IE6, and more. To see if you have SP2 you can look in System Properties, or run "winver.exe".

Then it goes over Workgroups and Domains. The major differences in security and management. For instance when you log on locally the authentication process is done by the local security subsystem, but if you log on to a domain then the domain controller has to do this.

Further about logon there is a service called Secondary Logon. It allows you be logged in as a user with a limited account and start applications with different credentials.

That's all I'm pulling out of chapter one for you.

Complete Change Of Heart

I've done two things related to this Blog since my last post. One is rejecting spam comments, and the other is checking my adsense account. That's far from exciting and doesn't take a lot of time, so basically I've been away.

Linux as a webserver is not happening. HP has some free courses that you can follow that are helpful. I signed up for a few Linux courses, but ended up getting behind and kinda lost my desire to mess with it right now.

Change of heart, or mind. I purchased the book "Installing, Configuring, and Administering Microsoft Windows XP Professional Second Edition", the Training Kit with the Evaluation version of XP Pro and a CD with some self test software. I am going into chapter four now, and am starting to realize that XP still has some secrets for me. I've been working with, and supporting computers with Windows for years, but especially in domain network environments there is much more to know.

Because I thought this book would be boring I was reluctant to buy it. I'm glad I did though. It's one of the core exams for MCSA/MCSE, so if you want to go there eventually, you need it. But I'm enjoying the read, the presentations, and the details I pick up from it. It's not what I thought. The main reason for getting this is to get certified and improve my financial situation, as well as getting away from supporting end users directly. (Read: I'm tired of dealing with ignorance and want more money for what I do)

So, about a minute before I started writing all this I thought I would sort of document my way through the book, chapter by chapter, by writing a short review or some key points.

If you've been through this course or are in the process of or are thinking about it, please write a comment and share your experiences, difficulties, successes, tips, and whatever else may be helpful. That would be nice.

Since I'm going into chapter four I'll have to write 3 posts for chapters 1 through 3. Give me a little time to do that, and I'll get this started.

Thanks for reading!

Linux Distro Fedora As Server

Currently I am learning Fedora and how to set it up as a web server. I want to set it up with the downloadable Wordpress files and restart my blog and host it myself for a little while. If I like it, I will look into paying for hosting. It would be much more flexible. Learning takes time though, and I'm not spending all my time on it. I will try to post my progress on this blog.

About Fedora. It is just one of the many Linux distributions. It is free to download and use. One DVD or 5 CD's. I am totally new to Linux, which feels weird. I have a GUI which makes it like Windows, but you're lost as to where things are. After playing with it all evening I'm getting a good feel and I'm getting used to the abreviations and the filesystem. After installing the OS, I've been able to edit files, get the httpd service started as well as mysqld. So far, I love it. I downloaded the files for Wordpress and now I need to figure that out. I need to create a database for it to work and I forget how to do that. The command line is so cool. I feel so... advanced! LOL. Things look good and it has a lot of nice features. All free. The only thing that keeps me from switching to Linux all together is support for games. If my games would run on it, I would be off Windows in a heartbeat. For now I'll run it on a spare machine.

Anyway, that's how things are and what my focus is on. Keep in touch here and when I get things running I hope you follow me to the new site. Have a great weekend!

16 Bit Subsystem Malicious?

No. But the process ntvdm.exe is for some reason included in the virus definitions of Computer Associates. Yesterday, an old DOS program that we still run on ~20 computers at work stopped working on machines newer than Windows 98. You can imagine we didn't have many working ones left.

We noticed that ntvdm.exe was taking up 50-100% CPU time when trying to run the DOS application. Later we found out that it was because the realtime scanner from Computer Associates (eTrust) had all attention on that file like white on snow. This caused the DOS program to be so slow that it wasn't usable. Once we figured this out we excluded the ntvmd.exe process from being scanned. Everything went back to light speed after that.

While searching we found that many people have had issues with the ntvdm.exe file taking up the CPU time. Yet there was no solution anywhere, at least not for our exact situation. If you're dealing with something similar, make sure your Antivirus software is not bogging it down.

The file ntvdm.exe is basically running the 16 bit subsystem in your 32 bit Windows OS. VDM stands for Virtual DOS Machine. The Windows 98 machines did not have any AV software installed, plus I doubt they have a file called ntvdm.exe. NT suggests that it's only on NT operating systems, such as Windows NT, 2000 Pro, XP. I hope this will help someone and save you a big headache!

Adsense Preview Tool

You're not allowed to click your own ads, since this is against the Adsense agreement. The Competitive Ad Filter for Adsense allows you to exclude certain ads from being displayed on your website. You do this by adding the URL of the ad to the filter. How can you find the URL without clicking the ad? It's not shown in the status bar.

Google has created a preview tool just for that. By showing you the ads with a checkbox next to them, you can select the ads you don't want, and then view the URLs. Next you can add these to your filter.

You might say it's easier to just right click the ad and do Copy Shortcut (IE) and then paste it in the filter. If you do that, you will have to puzzle out the URL from what you copied. It's not hard, since it's at the end of that string, but it's one at a time and requires this extra step.

Many ads also have the URL shown inside the ad image or text. Often this is all you need. But sometimes it isn't.

Today I've been fighting with this taxcut.com ad that kept showing up and barely gives you a cent per click. I tried to get the URL. The image ad shows taxcut.com, so that's what I blocked. There was no other way however to find the URL of that ad. It was a flash ad, so the Copy Shortcut wasn't available, and the preview tool wasn't either. Source code didn't reveal it either. I was either too impatient for that ad to disappear (wait at least 4 hours for the filter to take effect) or it didn't work. I'll find out tomorrow I guess, but Google needs to find a way for flash ads, or require the URL to be shown in the ad. End of rant.

Hafnium Instead Of Silicon

Since the 60's processor manufacturers have used silicon to make the transistors that make up a CPU [central processing unit = processor]. This news article from CNET writes about AMD, IBM, and Intel working on the switch to a metal called hafnium. It will improve performance and allow them to make transistors yet again smaller. Smaller means more will fit in an amount of space. More in turn means increased performance. The method they strive to use to make these new chips is called immersion lithography, in which the lines on the chip are etched while it is immersed in purified water. Read the article (2 pages) for more info.

CrossLoop - Simple Secure Screen Sharing

Remote Desktop, Terminal Services, PC Anywhere, Dameware, and others. All of them allow you to remotely connect to a computer over the network/Internet. CrossLoop is a very easy to use and free screen sharing application. My friend over at CCTech pointed this out a while ago, and I just came across the bookmark. He posted it a while ago, so check out his post. It's free, secure, and easy to use for anyone.

Rubber Ducky Monitoring

Rubber Ducky is a cute little aquarium display that sits neatly above your system tray. The elements of the aquarium monitor the state of your computer--fish for network traffic, plants for hard disk, bubbles for CPU usage, and water level/color for RAM usage. Whenever your system experiences a slow-down, just take a quick glance at Rubber Ducky and you will know what is holding it up at a single glance.

This tool is free of spy/malware, and is really simple. It's a cute way to display your resources. If the ducky is drowning you are running out of RAM, if you're not doing anything online and there's a lot of fish, maybe you need to check for worms, no pun intended! Worth checking out in your spare time.