BartPE and GetDataBack for NTFS

I was running into an issue while building a BartPE image with "GetDataBack For NTFS" where the Bart CD would work fine until I attempted to launch GetDataBack then nothing would happen. I have tried different versions of the Windows build source (2k3, xp, different service packs) and different versions of the GetDataBack plugin to no avail, it just will not launch. Oddly enough this appears to be caused by the build machine which in my case is running Windows 7. It appears that if you build your ISO on a Windows 7 machine even though you are using XP build source the plugin will not work. I copied my PeBuilder directory to an XP machine that had BartPE installed and it works fine.

Cisco IPSec 64bit VPN

Cisco finally released a version of the Cisco VPN Client that works on 64bit machines and is IPSec capable.

From their site:
"The new release VPN Client 5.0.07 supports the Windows Vista on both x86 (32-bit) and x64. Refer to the 5.0.07.0240 Release Notes for more information."

I just installed it on my Windows 7 x64 laptop and it works just fine.

Bad ESX Network Driver on BL490c G6

Ok, so here is the scenario: HP Blade (BL490c G6) has a bad stick of RAM, pull blade from cabinet, swap RAM, re-insert blade, power on blade and receive the following ESX error:

"networking-drivers ...
No compatible network adapter found. Please consult the product's Hardware Compatibility Guide (HCG) for a list of supported adapters."

At first we were sure that the issue was firmware related however it appears that it just might be a bad VMware driver. Here's why: I went ahead and did two test cases to isolate the issue to the VMware driver on our BL490c G6 blades.

Blade 1: Updated to newest Firmware from HP Smart Update Firmware. This updated the NIC Bootcode from 5.0.11 to 5.2.7 but left the iSCSI at 3.1.5. After this the machine will boot most of the time after the blade is removed from the chassis, however after several reboots there are seemingly random times when ESX will not load the NIC and you get the "No compatible network adapter found" error when attempting to boot ESX. After installing the new drivers found at "http://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere4/doc/drivercd/esx40-net-bnx2x_400.1.48.107-1.0.4.html" using the esxupdate command it works fine. I have rebooted many times and removed the blade and am no longer able to get the error.

Blade 2: I left the firmware alone and just updated the VMware driver to the latest from the above URL. After several reboots and physically removing the blade from the cabinet twice I am unable to get the error.

Conclusion: Looks like a VMware driver issue; however updating the HP Firmware on the NIC from 5.0.11 to 5.2.7 does seem to help the issue taking it from happening every time to approximatly %50 of the time.

W32/Wecorl.a McAfee False Positive Workaround

If you are running McAfee Antivirus on Windows XP SP3 and have an issue with your computer rebooting with a message of "Windows must now restart because the DCOM Service Process Launcher service terminated unexpectedly" and W32/Wecorl.a is reported on your machine in the Application Event Log then it is caused by a known issue with DAT 5958. To abort the automated shutdown open a command prompt and type in "shutdown -a" and then get yesterday's (5957) superDAT from McAfee at http://www.mcafee.com/apps/downloads/security_updates/superdat.asp?region=us&segment=enterprise and run the file from the command prompt with a /F switch to force the downgrade and reboot when prompted. That will work until McAfee fixes the issue.

*QUICK UPDATE*
After doing the above steps you may not be able to connect to the network and also will notice that many of your services that are set to automatic will not start. This is because your svchost.exe file was eaten by McAfee. Copying SVCHOST.exe from another good XP SP3 machine to your broken one's c:\windows\system32\ directory fixes that issue.

Outlook 2007 - Cannot open the Outlook Window

I ran into an interesting issue this morning. User is running Windows 7 with Outlook 2007 and when he attempts to launch Outlook he gets an error that says "Cannot Start Microsoft Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook Window." I have attempted to repair Office which failed with the bootstrapper crashing but was able to uninstall Office 2007 and re-install it. The issue still remained even after a full removal and re-install. I deleted the mail profile and OST which also did nothing. The final fix is this: Open a command prompt and navigate to the Office12 directory and run this command "outlook.exe /resetnavpane" Odd that a re-install does not reset it enough...

Robocopy and Server 2008 Script Error

If you are going to use Robocopy with Windows Server 2008 as a script you are going to run into a few errors. The first is that you have to allow the account you are using to execute the script to be allowed to log on as a batch job.

Local Security Policy > Local Policies > User Rights Assignment > Log On As A Batch Job > Add User or Group

Next add the user account to the Backup Administrator's group in Computer Management > Local Users and Groups

You will also need to tweak the job in Task Scheduler to have the following things: Select "Run whether user is logged on or not" and check "Run with Highest Privileges". If you do not select the "Run with Highest Privileges" check box then you will get the following error:
-------------------
ERROR : You do not have the Backup and Restore Files user rights.
***** You need these to perform Backup copies (/B or /ZB).

ERROR : Robocopy ran out of memory, exiting.
ERROR : Invalid Parameter #%d : "%s"

ERROR : Invalid Job File, Line #%d :"%s"
--------------------
That box is the equivalent of right click, "Run As Administrator" on the command prompt window.

Weird Event Log Event

This box has a dying systemboard and one of the error messages I saw in the Event Log I have never seen before...

Error Source: i8042prt
Type: Information
EventID: 12

Description: The ring buffer that stores incoming mouse data has overflowed (buffer size is configurable via the PS/2 mouse properties in device manager).