Category Archives: Windows

Windows Home Server backup database

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I’m seriously thinking I should change my backup strategy. I use Windows Home Server for one thing and one thing only, Backups. Sure the file share stuff is nice, but I already have a Linux server with samba with my file shares. WHS lovers will say I should migrate, but all I see that gaining me a day or so of copying files and no real benefit.

I recently got a new laptop and when adding this into the mix I had to add more storage to my WHS. I did, and after doing so I got this:

HomeServer-AllBackupsLost

What good is a backup system if it loses your backups? Not much good IMO.

Windows 7’s backup is very good now and I think I may benefit from just using it rather than WHS. I’ll duke it out with WHS one last time, but I won’t be recommending it to Mom, Dad or Grandma anytime soon.

Restoring a Desktop Image to a VMware Virtual Machine with Windows Home Server

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  1. Copy the restorecd.iso from \\homeserver\Software\Home PC Restore CD to your VMware server.
  2. Configure a new VMware virtual machine with an appropriately sized disk, a network adapter (I prefer bridged) and a CD ROM Drive pointed to said restorecd.iso from step 1. Do not start the VM at the last step.
  3. Find the vmx file created in step 2. Add a line ethernet0.virtualDev= “e1000”.  This the required trick step since Windows Home Server doesn’t have a driver for the LANCE network chip which vmware normally emulates.
  4. Boot the Virtual Machine and follow the prompts.

Internet Explorer 8 in Windows 7 is Not All Bad

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The number one feature that has been in Opera for longer than I can remember, and in Firefox via add-in or by default for nearly as long, is that of restoring a session when the browser or system crashes.

I lean on this feature. I use browser tabs as a todo list. Sometimes I have to-read tabs open in my browser for only minutes, and other times those to-read tabs are around for weeks and into months.

Internet Explorer was a no-go on this feature, until I noticed it today.

My laptop (I blame hardware – or poor Dell drivers) did not go to sleep when I shut the lid this evening. After a 5 mile bike ride and a 12 mile car ride home in a well insulated back pack, the laptop was frozen and pretty warm when I got home and unpacked. I had to reboot.

As soon as I logged in I remembered that I had left an Internet Explorer window open with something I wanted to read. I cursed because I thought I would have to find it and I usually struggle finding things in browser “history”.

I was surprised when I was greeted with a “restore last session” prompt from Internet Explorer.

Good job on a great feature, Internet Explorer team.

Will I be using IE as my default browser? Absolutely Not. RequestPolicy and NoScript are required browser add-ins for my daily browser usage.

nmap can open device eth15, but only if you let it

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This is here as a note to myself to not be stupid.

I’ve remembered at forgotten this at least 4 times and so that makes me stupid for not remembering.

When nmap on win32 tells you that “dnet: Failed to open device eth15”, it is really suggesting that you run it as administrator.

You need to be administrator to access the network device at this level.

Outlook 2007 autodiscover for the rest of us

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Outlook 2007 has a new feature which is provided to it by default only by Exchange 2007.

I recently thought of giving Outlook a try instead of Windows Live Mail. Of course, the geek in me wanted my Outlook 2007 first run experience to be awesome. I wanted autodiscover to work for me.

It turns out if you read a KB article and a technet article you can figure out that for 99% of POP/IMAP/SMTP installations, placing an autodiscover.xml file at a url of http://myemail.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml or at http://autodiscover.myemail.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml is all that is needed. The format of the xml is very simple.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Autodiscover xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/autodiscover/responseschema/2006">
  <Response xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/autodiscover/outlook/responseschema/2006a">
    <Account>
      <AccountType>email</AccountType>
      <Action>settings</Action>
      <Protocol>
        <Type>IMAP</Type>
        <Server>mail.xmtp.net</Server>
        <Port>993</Port>
        <DomainRequired>off</DomainRequired>
        <SPA>off</SPA>
        <SSL>on</SSL>
        <AuthRequired>on</AuthRequired>
      </Protocol>
      <Protocol>
        <Type>SMTP</Type>
        <Server>mail.xmtp.net</Server>
        <Port>25</Port>
        <DomainRequired>off</DomainRequired>
        <SPA>off</SPA>
        <SSL>on</SSL>
        <AuthRequired>on</AuthRequired>
        <UsePOPAuth>on</UsePOPAuth>
        <SMTPLast>on</SMTPLast>
      </Protocol>
      <Protocol>
        <Type>POP3</Type>
        <Server>mail.xmtp.net</Server>
        <Port>995</Port>
        <DomainRequired>off</DomainRequired>
        <SPA>off</SPA>
        <SSL>on</SSL>
        <AuthRequired>on</AuthRequired>
      </Protocol>
    </Account>
  </Response>
</Autodiscover>

 

Do that, and the next time an Outlook2007 client tries to configure itself, it will.

Windows 7 Libraries and Search in Explorer

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With Windows 7 at release candidate now, I wanted to review some of my favorite features which were announced 8+ months ago at PDC08.

http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/PC16/

After a little Google searching I found this Search Connector Pack:

http://www.redmondpie.com/search-connectors-for-windows-7-federated-search/

IMO its very cool to have the Wikipedia Search Connector where I can view all of the hits in what is normally the files view in Explorer, and view the wikipedia page in the Preview pane (alt-p if you can’t see it).

Wikipeida_RSS_Win7SearchConnector_2009-05-24_14-03-47

Windows 7 DhcpNodeType Is Still a Bummer: How I returned from teched09 to have a broken network

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https://connect.microsoft.com/windows7/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=452703

I use file sharing on my home network quite a bit. I don’t have a large hard drive in my laptop. I use network shares at home to watch video downloads (all Mix08, PDC08, Mix09 content!) and store some personal files.

I don’t use Active Directory. I don’t use Windows Servers. Why would I do that at home? I’m a home user after all.

Enter Windows Behavior Fail. I connected to exactly 3 wifi networks while I was away at TechEd09: TechEd, Comfort Inn, and t-mobile @ LAX. One of them used DHCP to force my node into Netbios Name Resolution point to point mode, rather than its normal hybrid mode. This means that instead of broadcasting for a netbios name, my client host would talk only to the specified WINS browser on the network.

Except I don’t have a WINS server on the network, which effectively disables Netbios Name Resolution. I came back home, plugged into (or Wifi connected, either way is the same) my home network, and I had no access to my file shares.

I’ll bet a Mac would never do this.

So, if you ever use Windows (not just if you call yourself a Windows user, mind you). Please click the link at the beginning of this post and beg Microsoft to change their behavior. I can understand disabling WINS while I am on a public WIFI. Heck, I might ever recommend it to some customers who have public WIFI, but for the setting to not revert after I am back on a different network which does not set this DHCP setting is simply unacceptable.

Of course, the network administrators work around is to forcefully set this DHCP setting to hybrid. That is fine for savvy network administrators, but it is NOT fine for the rest of us with Linksys routers doing the job of DHCP.

Incidentally, if you happen to run ISC DHCP (which I highly recommend), you can send this setting to your DHCP clients with this setting in your subnet block:

option netbios-node-type 8;

I hate to rant like this immediately after TechEd09 (which was an awesome event), but it was the most pressing issue on my return home.

RegexReplace in SQL Server

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My last post was about SQL Server. Even 10+ years later, I’m continually amazed by features which are daily use features in MySQL and Postgresql which are missing from MS SQL Server.

Regular expression matching and replacing is a severely lacking feature.

Sql Server 2005 introduced a means to write user defined functions in .NET code, so this method is uploaded to a sql server and exposed as a function.

[Microsoft.SqlServer.Server.SqlFunction]
public static SqlString RegexReplace(SqlString input, SqlString pattern, SqlString replacement)
{
    var result = System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(input.Value, pattern.Value, replacement.Value);
    return new SqlString(result);
}

 

Now you can use it in select statements.

SELECT        Name, dbo.RegexReplace(Name, N’(?:\d+-)?\d+PPM’, N”) AS e
FROM            Table2

 

Or use it to update tables

update table2 set name=dbo.RegexReplace(Name, N’(?:\d+-)?\d+PPM’, N”)

 

I have absolutely no idea how any database developer could live without this kind of functionality.