CODE 12 in Device Manager after WDS imaging

After imaging 26 computers with Windows 7 it was time to image a few more scattered around the site.  Fourtunatly they were all HP Pro 6000 series Desktops so they were all the same except the origianl image was made from an AMD based version and i was imaging onto an Intel based version.

The Imaging worked fine and booted into the OS, i found that it had add itself to the domain and everything seems functional except the video card.

After a look into the device manager i noticed a nice Yellow explaination mark indicating no driver has been installed.  I looked futher into the device and found:

CODE 12: Could not find enough resoruces.

After a few hours of deleting the reinstalling drivers reimaging the PC and pulling out my hair, i noticed a system driver called:

AMD pci express (3GIO) filter driver

This driver according to the system was working OK, i had noticed this driver earlier and even uninstalled it but it still came back and reloaded itself so i assumed it was actaully part of the system.

Now, i though this driver was odd and really shouldn't be on an intel system, so i uninstalled it but thsi time i noticed a tick box on the unisntall confirmation screen which said "Delete the Files for this Driver" so i ticked that box aswell.......BINGO

After Uninstalling the "AMD pci express (3GIO) filter driver" and Tickign the "Delete Associated Files" option the system then reinstalled all the drivers associated with the system and after another reboot the Display driver and all other drivers worked fine.

One thing to note is that i couldn't use the keyboard or mouse after i deleted the software, so either try a PS2 KB or press the power button to restart the system after you delete this drive.

-Fr33ze

WSUS and the PC's that don't want to report

Ok so below is a direct copy from this website.  It highlights a problem that exisits when imaging multiple PC's from WDS.  Now im not sure if this occurs when the origianl image is made from a PC that is on the domain or not.  I used the VB Script to ease my burden.

5. Imaged clients with a duplicate client ID will only appear once in the WSUS Admin Console. Each AU client must have a unique id which is created for each individual install. When imaging systems it is recommended always to use SysPrep. The WSUS admin console will only display one client for each unique ID. If you have multiple clients created from one image which are sharing the same ID, only one will appear in the WSUS admin console. All clients will check in and download updates, but only one will appear and display status in the WSUS admin console. In cases where clients are not checking in, and they were created from images without running SysPrep, the following steps will reset the existing duplicative client IDs.
a. Run regedit and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate
b. Delete the PingID, SUSClientID and the AccountDomainSID values
c. Stop and start the Wuauserv Service
d. From the command prompt run: wuauclt /resetauthorization /detectnow

or-

From the command line, once you are sure the AU client is properly configured and not disabled, you could run a batch file (which might look something like this sample) and get the same results:

rem Fixes problem with client machines not showing up on the server due to imaging method

reg delete HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate /v AccountDomainSid /f
reg delete HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate /v PingID /f
reg delete HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate /v SusClientId /f
cls
@echo Triggering detection after resetting WSUS client identity
net stop wuauserv
net start wuauserv
wuauclt /resetauthorization /detectnow
Additionally the following VBScript can be deployed via group policy to perform the above function automatically at logon. The script creates a registry key that will allow the script to check if it has been run on that client before. If it has it ends without performing any further changes.

Dim objShell, strKeyPath, strValueName,strComputer
set objShell = wscript.createObject("wscript.shell")
const HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE = &H80000002
strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
Set objRegistry = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\default:StdRegProv")
strKeyPath = "SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate"
strValueName = "SUSClientIdReset"

objRegistry.GetStringValue HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, strKeyPath, strValueName, dwValue
IF (dwValue = "1") THEN
            'do nothing
      ELSE
            'Fixes problem with client machines not showing up on the server due to imaging method
            objRegistry.DeleteValue HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,strKeyPath,"SusClientId"
            objRegistry.DeleteValue HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,strKeyPath,"SusClientIdValidation"
   Set colServiceList = objWMIService.ExecQuery ("Select * from Win32_Service where Name = 'wuauserv'")
   For Each objService in colServiceList
    If objService.State = "Running" Then
    objService.StopService()
    Wscript.Sleep 10000
    objService.StartService()
    End If
   Next
 
            objShell.Run("wuauclt /resetauthorization /detectnow ")
   Wscript.Sleep 10000 
            objShell.Run("wuauclt /r /reportnow")
            'Set reg value for SUSClientIdReset for checking against later.
   dwValue = "1"
            objRegistry.SetStringValue HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, strKeyPath, strValueName, dwValue
End If

Just save the above scipt as a *.vbs.

-Fr33ze

Wonderful world of routers and what they pass

So i have a couple of Fortigate 50Bs located at work.  one for our production system (which i still mess with) and one on our testing side (which i stuff up cause i can).  I have a requirement to get PPTP going through these boxes to whatever network is behind them.

So i set up both Fortigates exactly the same but the only difference between the 2 is that one has a Cisco Linksys ADSL router attached and the other one has a DLINK DSL-526b attached to it.

we generally setup our ADSL routers (Fortigate havent got an ADSL model out yet but the 60cx is comign soon) with all ports forwarding to the fortigates and let the fortigates manage the traffic.

So i setup both ADSL routers to forward all ports (1-65535) to the respective wan IP addresses of the Fortigate units.

Next the test, first i connected to our production system with the Linksys and the 50B, MAGIC it connected and i can get to our production network.

Next i connected to our test system, Verifying Username and Password....................................... Oh Dear.

Nothing!! oh wait let me check the specs on the DSL-526b ...... it says PPTP IPSEC passthrough ...... zzZzzzZZz what the hell is going on.

Maybe its a config problem on the Fortigate!!! did a backup of the config and restored it to the test system FG50B and changed IP addresses to suit, still no connection. 

Also tried swapping routers...nope the problem followed our DLINK router, oh dear have DLINK shit on me again?!??!?!?!.

Well no they didnt, yet they didnt seem to make it obvious either that (and heres the solution to the problem):

If you want VPN Pass Through to work on a DLINK DSL-526b you MUST add PPTP as a forwarded port and not rely on just forwarding all ports.

That is a bit shit since Linksys for only a few dollars more will forward PPTP with no problem.

So let this be a lesson to you all, if you are going to setup an ADSL router in front of a firewall then pass the specific ports especially if its a $78 DLINK ADSL router, tehehe.

-Fr33ze

3TB Seagate Go Flex Drive and StorageCraft Shadow Protect

WOOOOOOOO, i got a 3TB go flex the other day, MOAR STORAGE MOAR LEECHING.

Anyways i also got some 2tb internal disks to replace my 1.5tb drives that were 3 years old,  i backed up the 1.5 TB drive using ShadowProtect, i then installed the new disks in RAID 1 and proceeded to restore my backup....WTF i had a bazillion 4.9gb files on my drive.  Now you're probably thinking "What a DICK it is formatted as FAT32"....WRONG!!! its formatted as NTFS which confused me to being with.  After a quick search on google.com i came across this forum post which explains why i have heaps of 4.9gb files and not 1 500Gb file.

Long story short LBD formatted as NTFS with a block size of 4096 means that StorageCraft will need an extra tick box or else it will create multiple 4.9gb files.

-Fr33ze

Renewing an Expired SBS 2003 SSL Certificate

Most of you have probably already renewed your certificates as they started to expire in 2008.

Its a simple procedure it involves running the "Connect to the Internet" wizard in server configuration.

To renew an sbs2003 Certificate:

1. Click Start, and then click Server Management. In the console tree, click Internet and E-mail. In the details pane, click Connect to the Internet.
2. On the Connection Type page, select Do not change connection type, and then click Next.
3. On the Firewall page, select Do not change firewall configuration, and then click Next.
4. On the Services Configuration page, ensure that the appropriate network services are selected, and then click Next.
5. On the Web Services Configuration page, ensure that the appropriate Web services are selected, and then click Next.
6. On the Web Server Certificate page, select Create a new Web server certificate, type the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of your server (for example: server.contoso.com), and then click Next.
7. On the Internet E-mail page, select Do not change Internet e-mail configuration, and then click Next.
8. On the Completing the Configure E-mail and Internet Connection Wizard page, click Finish.

Now this is all good if it succeeds.

If you get an Error on the FIREWALL configuration stage click OK to continue, now you will need to restart the server to be able to restart the HTTP SSL Service which when you try to start it an error occurs stating Error 2: the File cannot be found.

After restarting our server this error disappeard and we had a new SSL certificate for another 5 years.

-Fr33ze

Exchange and IIS - Why these two should be sent in either direction.

So i had an issue with Mail not senging out after i removed an ISA server from the network.  Oh, i thought to myself i havent removed the SMARTHOST from the SMTP Connector.  Sure enough they it was...so removed it and selected DNS to send email.

Waited.....and waited.....and waited....and...... well the email was still not sending...GRRRRRRR

Checked all avenues the email wasnt even trying to send through the new firewall it didnt even know it existed yet there was alot of traffic hitting the firewall but none of it SMTP.   hmmmmm

I increase the Diganostic logging level on the MSExchangeTransport and found that my email server was still trying to send to the SMARTHOST, but WTF the smarthost is nowhere to be found in the system....or IS IT!!!!.

Ladies and gentlemen we have a problem with Exchange updating the IIS Metabase.

Using the Matabase Explorer found in the IIS 6.0 Resrouce Kit i was able to find the the SMTPSVC/1/DOMAIN had a few references in it that included the Default SMTP * also domains that were hosted by the Exchange server AND the bloody SMARTHOST was still listed in here.



Checking the data of the SMARTHOST entry i noticed that the routeaction value of the * domain was 2 and the routeaction of the SMARTHOST was 0, changing the SMARTHOST to 2 amd changing the * to 0 and deleting the content to the routeactionstring from the * domain freed the email to be sent over the internet rather than to a smarthost.

Although this is just a workaround the REAL problem lies with Exchange not able to update the metabase, stay turned i hope to have an answer for this soon.  If not Uninstall IIS reinstall IIS and the reinstall exchange.....OHDEAR!

-Fr33ze

NETBIOS NT 4.0 requires that you are still around.

So had another issue with a system that had a few NT 4.0 workstations and some Photocopiers that used SMB to scan files to the server.  One day it was working the next it wasn't.  So to my amazment (not) i discovered that someone HAD to have been playign around because this resolution to this wasnt as far out as you might expect.

NT 4.0 workstaions couldnt get onto the domain abut they could PING the domain controllers but they couldnt browse the file contents.  But for some strange reason they could browse files on other servers just not the DC.  The photocopiers used SMB to copy files to the server and that wasn't working.

I thought well since these 2 things (NT4 andSMB) where old technology there must be something OLD missing from the DC.

They NEVER had WINS installed on the DC so it cant be that.......OH LOOK HERE in the advanced section of the TCP/IP properties of the network card, under the WINS tab NETBIOS had been turned off once i turned it on again shit started to work.

Now if you have older systems like these i would suggest turning on WINS or if you have older systems that are on a WAN or seperated by a router turn WINS on.

Antoher crisis averted.

-Fr33ze