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Rebuilding Windows XP boot.ini
Monday, July 27th, 2009 | Tech Help | 2 Comments
A customer was concerned with an error they were seeing when booting their XP Home PC. Windows would continue to load correctly but the error still had them worried. I suggested they bring it in for me to take a look.
Invalid Boot.ini, loading from C:\Windows
The problem was caused due to a corrupted boot.ini file which is usually located in the C drive. Since I had a copy of XP Home I tried to rebuild the boot.ini as per the instructions below.
- Insert the Microsoft Windows XP CD into the computer. Note: If you have a system recovery CD or restore CD (not a Microsoft CD) these steps will likely not work for your computer.
- Reboot the computer with the CD and press any key when prompted to press any key to boot from the CD. If you do not receive this prompt and/or are not able to boot from the CD see document CH000217.
- Once in the Microsoft Setup menu press R to open the recovery console.
- Select the operating system you wish to use; if you only have Windows XP on the computer you will only have one prompt.
- Once prompted for the password enter the Admin password and press enter.
- Once at the command prompt type bootcfg /rebuild to start the rebuild process.
- The rebuild process will step you through a number of steps depending upon how many operating systems you have on the computer and how the computer is setup. Below is a listing of the common steps you are likely going to encounter.
- Prompt for the identified versions of Windows installed. When you receive this prompt press Y if the bootcfg command properly identified each of the Windows operating systems installed on the computer. It is important to realize this command will only detect Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows NT installations.
- Prompt to enter the load identifier. This is the name of the operating system for the boot.ini. For example, Microsoft Windows XP Home users would enter Microsoft Windows XP Home edition.
- Prompt to Enter OS load options. When this prompt is received type /fastdetect to automatically detect the available options.
- Once you have completed all the available options in the rebuild and are back at the prompt type exit to reboot the computer.
See Microsoft KB289022 for more info on boot.ini.
Microsoft Offends Some, Causes Knee Slaps For Everyone Else
Friday, July 3rd, 2009 | Tech News | 3 Comments
A bit of a controversy over a recent Microsoft IE 8 advertisement. While it has caused many a Maude Flanders “think of the children” diatribe, I think it is actually quite funny.
Take a look for yourself.
IMF Updates Keep Prompting for Installation
Monday, June 22nd, 2009 | Tech Help | No Comments
With the recent update to the IMF signatures for Exchange 2003 I got caught in a never ending circle of installation prompts. The new update would install, then last months update would ask to install and so on and so on. After realizing what was going on I went in search of answers. The 1st thing to try was to reset the Windows Update Cache. It can be done by plopping the code below in to a bat file and running it on the offending server.
net stop bits
net stop wuauserv
regsvr32 /u wuaueng.dll /s
del /f /s /q %windir%\SoftwareDistribution\*.*
del /f /s /q %windir%\windowsupdate.log
regsvr32 wuaueng.dll /s
net start bits
net start wuauserv
wuauclt.exe /resetauthorization /detectnow
This did not solve the issue for me. I turned out that my WSUS server did not mark the old IMF update as declined. Once the old update’s status was changed to declined the update cycle was stopped dead in its tracks.
WSUS 3.1 and the SelfUpdate Virtual Directory
Sunday, January 18th, 2009 | Tech Help | 5 Comments
I came back from my extended leave to find that my workstations and servers had not checked into the WSUS server for months. After a bit of detective work the issue came down to the SelfUpdate virtual directory in IIS was missing. The Microsoft help page details how to fix the issue but wasn’t completely helpful. More on that later.
Here is what I did to get my clients checking in again.
Check the folder permissions on the SelfUpdate directory, located at C:\Program Files\Update Service\SelfUpdate. Make sure the permissions like this;
| Group | Permissions |
| Administrators | Full Control |
| System | Full Control |
| Domain/Users or Local/Users | Read&Execute, Read, List Folders |
| IUSR_ComputerName | Read&Execute, Read, List Folders |
In my case the IUSR_ComputerName permission was missing.
After adding the correct permissions I looked for the re-installation msi, Selfupdate.msi. The only problem is that the SelfUpdate re-installation msi was not found on my WSUS server. Turns out in the recent WSUS update to 3.1 this installer can become corrupted and not installed on the server.
To get the Virtual Directory back I would have to install it by hand. Here are the settings you need to create it;
Open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager. Right click on the “Default Web Site” and choose;
- New
- Virtual Directory…
- It started the VD Creation Wizard
- Alias = SelfUpdate
- Path = C:\Program Files\Update Services\SelfUpdate
- Finish the wizard.
- Right click on the newly SelfUpdate and choose Permissions.
- I added “Authenticated Users” and gave them the default rights:
- Read & Execute
- List Folder Contents
- Read
After completing these steps I ran “wuauclt /detectnow” on each of my servers. I left the workstations to check in on their own.
Within 12 hours the number of missing clients had gone from nearly 200 to less than 50. Once everyone logs in on Monday morning this number should dwindle to nothing.
Better Late Than Never
Saturday, January 10th, 2009 | Tech News | Comments Off
The Windows 7 Beta launch yesterday had its share of problems and the Windows 7 team took notice. They have extended the beta download time and increased the number of keys beyond the 2.5 million initially slated for download.
I tried for most of Friday to get my keys but was unable to get past the green circle of death. Today the process was painless and carefree.
I haven’t had the time to install it yet, but look forward to doing so and seeing if the hype meets expectations.
Printers = Hate
Monday, January 5th, 2009 | Tech Help | Comments Off
A user reported an issue with her printer this afternoon. Whenever she tried to print it locked up her PC. I tried all my usual tricks to hack out the offending job, but nothing I tried was working. The print spooler would crash seconds after starting. This error kept taunting me:
“Spoolsv.exe – Application Error”
“The instruction at “0×77fcc2c0″ referenced memory at “0×00000000″.
“The memory could not be written.”
I popped out my trusty Troubleshooting Swiss Army Knife (read: Google) and quickly had another tool to fight the tenacious spooler.
It turns out the most common cause of the error is an abundance of .SHD and .SPL files in the spool directory. These files are created by the spooler to save the spooled data of a print job. The .SPL file comprises drawing commands and the .SHD file comprises job settings information of the print job.
To fix spoolsv.exe application error, you will have to remove these files from the system. To do this, perform the following steps on your Windows XP computer:
- Open Control Panel, select Performance and Maintenance, select Administrative Tools and then select the Services option.
- In the Services management console, locate the Spooler services, right-click on it and select Stop.
- Next, open the C:\Windows\System32\Spool\Printers folder. (Here, we are assuming that your Windows is installed in the default C:\Windows folder)
- Delete all the .SHD and SPL files from this folder.
- Next, open the TMP folder and delete all old and unused files from this folder.
- Finally, restart the Spooler service from the Services management console.
Just like that the users printer problems disappeared.
Post to Wordpress from Word 2007…
Monday, January 28th, 2008 | Tech Help | Comments Off
While poking around Word 2007 today I realized that I could be posting from Word instead of the WYSIWYG/html Wordpress editor. What you see here is the 1st post from Word to Wordpress on my site.
Setting up the connection info is a snap. You just have to enter in the URL of your site, the info of the user you want to post as and you are on your way.
I’m not sure if I will continue using Word 2007 to post as some of the advanced options for images and post layout are a bit finicky, but it is a great way for average users to use an application they are comfortable with to post to their blogs.
Vista: 9 Months Later…
Tuesday, August 21st, 2007 | Tech News | Comments Off
It has been 9 months since Vista has been released into the wild. Nearly a year ago, and before general release, I posted a comment on Vista. I had used it for about 2 weeks at work to test the various applications I run. At the time I thought it was the prettiest bloated cow I'd ever seen. I made the decision not to migrate our XP/2000 fleet any time soon. I didn't install XP at work until after SP2 was released. I think I will be waiting at least until SP2 for Vista as well. In fact, if M$ decides to support XP long term I may never migrate.
In related news, Jim Louderback is leaving PCMag for Revision3 and has some parting shots at Vista. Jim was a proud supporter of Vista since the launch, but after using it extensively he has changed his tune.
Thank you Mr. Bush & Mr. Gates
Monday, March 12th, 2007 | Tech Help | Comments Off
Thank you both for giving me a few more gray hair this morning. Ive spent the past 3 weeks preparing for the DST change in North America , reading endless knowledgbase articles, patching all my systems and thinking that everything was going to be alright. Wrong. I came in this morning to an email from an external partner saying the MS approved TZEdit program does not work. So all my Windows 2000 servers and workstations will need to be updated, again.
To get Windows 2000 to recognize the changes you make in TZEdit you have to change the timezone you are in to a different one, i.e. from Central to Eastern, apply the change and then change it back again. After doing this you will see the correct time on the clock.
For those of you running XP or Windows 2003 you can apply a registry edit that will fix the problem for you. I've created the file for you here. Save the file to your desktop, then run it accepting all prompts.
Windows User Profiles
Thursday, November 30th, 2006 | Tech Help | Comments Off
A couple of users on my network have recently reported issues with Windows generating new user profiles for them at log on. As expected they are not happy "losing" their data & settings. Luckily Microsoft has a tool to fix this problem and it is very easy to use. It is called the User Profile Hive Cleanup Service (UPHClean).
Microsoft Knowledge base article 837115 gives you the description of the errors it fixes and a link to the download.
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