3-9-09

I have successfully deployed Office 2007 on several machines using the following steps:

Copy the Microsoft Office 2007 Installer files to a network share.

From a machine with admin permissions to the share, run this command:
\\servername\ShareName\setup /admin

This will open the Office Customization Tool.

Choose "Create a new Setup customization file for the following product"
Product: Microsoft Office Standard 2007 (or whatever version of Office you are installing)

Configure the Office Customization Tool with your preferences.

Save your preferences (a .msp file) in the \\servername\ShareName\Updates folder.

Microsoft recommends using a file name that starts with something like 1_ to make sure this file will always be the first file alphabetically (if you add updates to the Updates folder).

If you are installing a customization patch in conjunction with Office updates, you should change the file name of the customization patch to ensure that it is installed first. For example, change Custom.MSP to 1_Custom.MSP.

On a target machine, run this command:
\\Servername\ShareName\setup

Office 2007 will be installed on the target machine (if you left the default uninstall preferences in the OCT, the previous version of Office is uninstalled first).


If you want to go 1 step further & install Office 2007 with its updates & patches, you can also do the following:

After Office 2007 is installed, use Microsoft Updates or WSUS to install all of the current updates & patches to the Office 2007 suite on the target machine.

Go to the Event log on the target machine and look in the Applications log for all Windows Updates messages. Note the KB number of each Office related update and go to www.microsoft.com/downloads and search for each KB number.

Download each update installer and then run each installer with this command:
Path\InstallerName /extract:Path
(Full instructions for this are here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc178995.aspx - look for the section called Updates Folder)

That will create (extract) .msp files for each Office update installer.

Place all the update installers & all of the .msp files in the Updates folder of the network share.

Now when you run the setup program on successive target machines (using \\servername\ShareName\setup) , it will install Office 2007 and all of its updates at the same time.

I'm finding this to take about a half hour per machine.

3-6-09

Due to the added security restrictions of Windows Server 2003, if you want to run an application on a network share or mapped drive, that machine must first be added to the Intranet Zone in IE.

2-23-09

After install Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2) on your computer, you run processes that use performance counters. In this scenario, the following Warning event is logged in the Application log:

Event Source: PerflibEvent Type: WarningEvent ID: 2003Description: The configuration information of the performance library "C:\WINDOWS\system32\perfts.dll" for the "TermService" service does not match the trusted performance library information stored in the registry. The functions in this library will not be treated as trusted.

CAUSE
This problem occurs because the size and the date of the Perfts.dll file in Windows Server 2003 SP2 do not match the size and the date that were stored earlier in the registry for the Perfts.dll file .

RESOLUTION
To resolve this problem, follow these steps after you install Windows Server 2003 SP2:
Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.

At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER.
lodctr /T:TermService

Note:
This command will modify the size and the date that are stored in the registry for the Perfts.dll file.

Type exit, and then press ENTER to close the Command Prompt window.

from:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932813

2-13-09

When doing a MAC Address lookup (search) for the vendor of 00D0CC - the result is technologies lyre inc. or Lyr-Tech, a company out of Quebec, Canada that I can't find much info about on the internet.

For us, those MAC addresses are the network adapters of our Neural Networks Multimerge/Loudness Control boxes.

12-23-08

Using Telnet to Send Email Through an SMTP Gateway

The first thing to do is to open a connection from your computer to your mail server using telnet.

telnet mail.domain.ext 25

You should receive a reply like:
220 SMTP Proxy Server Ready

You will then need to declare where you are sending the email from:

HELO local.domain.name
Don't worry too much about your local domain name although you really should use your exact fully qualified domain name as seen by the outside world. The mail server has no choice but to take your word for it as of RFC822-RFC1123.

This should give you:
250 +OK SMTP server Ready

Now give your email address:
MAIL FROM: mail@domain.ext

Should yield:
250 +OK Sender OK

Now give the recipients address:
RCPT TO: mail@domain.ext

Should yield:
250 +OK Recipient OK

To start composing the message, issue the command:
DATA

If you want a subject for your email, type:
Subject: -type subject here-
then press enter twice (these are needed to conform to RFC 882)

You may now proceed to type the body of your message.

To tell the mail server that you have completed the message enter a single "." on a line of its own.

The mail server should reply with:
250 +OK message queued for delivery.

You can close the connection by issuing the QUIT command.

The mailserver should reply with something like:
221 Service closing transmission channel closing connection
Connection to host lost.

--------------------------------------------

The commands are not case sensitive, but if you make a typing mistake, backspace & correct, you will get this error:
500 Command unrecognized: commandname

If you make a typing mistake on the recipient's name, backspace & correct, the message will not be deliverable.

modified from http://www.yuki-onna.co.uk/email/smtp.html

9-4-08

Dell Optiplex GX270 - Outlook would not launch - froze before giving the user a logon screen. Reinstalling Office 2003 & repairing Office 2003 did not solve the issue.

Trying to delete the user's profile froze the mail control panel.
Trying to add a new profile produced this message:

The time limit for logging on was reached while waiting for system resources. Try again.

Clicking OK on the message produced another error message code 0X8004xxxx (I didn't write it down)

I went to the properties of the Intel Pro/1000 MT network card & clicked on Configure. On the Advanced tab, I set the Speed & Duplex property to 100Mb Full & clicked OK. The network connection status changed from "connected" to "disabled" and the control panel froze.

I restarted the machine & logged on as a different user. I could add profiles & logon to Outlook.
Had the user log back on & everything works fine now.

8-4-08

If a user is logged into the domain, running the login.exe app for Attendant Solutions would generate a message box like this:

Open File - Security Warning

Name: At-Login.exe
Publisher: Unknown Publisher
Type: Application
From: T:\ATT

The publisher could not be verified. Are you sure you want to run this this software?

This file does not have a valid digital software that verifies its publisher. You should only run software from publishers you trust. How can I decide what software to run?

There are 2 choices - "Run" or "Cancel"


If I click on Run, the login screen screen comes up as usual, but after logging in, the program stops with an error:

Attendant Solutions (At-Start)

Error 52 { 52-Bad file name or number } occurred at 160 in ATStart

---------

Logging on to the local machine instead of the domain works fine. The machine is still joined to the domain, but the user is logged on as a local user.

Mapping the drive by name, rather than by IP address (in the active directory logon script) solved this issue. Now the user can logon to the domain and run Attendant Solutions without issue.