Category: Work

Do I have Downgrade Rights for my software that comes in Action Pack?

Chad

Interesting….

Microsoft Small Business Community Blog : Do I have Downgrade Rights for my software that comes in Action Pack?

This is a question that has been floating around a few of the online groups lately, so I thought I would post the answer here for you. This comes from the Microsoft Action Pack Team:

“While MAPS does not include downgrade rights, a partner can continue to use a previous version of a product through the remainder of their subscription year.

The intention of the Action Pack program is to provide the latest software technology to the partners, thus once a product is revised the previous version will no longer available.”

So for all of you that received the Windows XP Professional licenses in your Action Pack, you still have the rights to use them throughout the term of your annual subscription. Remember that Action Pack is a subscription and you will need to renew that subscription annually. When your annual subscription ends, you no longer have the rights to run the software that you received in the expired kit. To continue to receive the software benefits included in Action Pack, you will need to renew your subscription for another year. When you do renew your subscription, you will be renewing for the current software that is included in the Action Pack (which no longer includes the previous Windows Desktop Operating Systems). At that point, you will no longer have licensing rights to Windows XP through your Action Pack subscription.

Thank you and have a wonderful day,

Eric Ligman
Microsoft US Senior Manager
Small Business Community Engagement
This posting is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no rights

edwalt’s: If I cannot remote, there is no hope…. right?

Chad

edwalt’s – Things I Wish I’d known about Small Business Server…… : If I cannot remote, there is no hope…. right?

Here’s the scenario; I am the Network Administrator and for whatever reason the remote desktop option has been disabled on the XP client I am trying to reach. It worked fine a couple of days ago, however I cannot connect to the client now. Is it possible to connect to a client machine remotely – even if the remote desktop option is disabled on the XP client?

The answer to this is yes…. as long as you have the rights to do so.

So how do you do it.

  1. Open Regedit on the server.
  2. Select File – Connect Network registry
  3. Enter the name of the client machine and select “Check Name”
  4. At the bottom of your servers registry tree you will know see 2 hives appear.
    • The Hkey_Local_Machine and the Hkey_Users under the clients computer name.
  5. Goto hklm\system\currentcontrolset\control\terminal server\FdenyTSConnection=1
  6. Change the FdenyTSConnection to 0
  7. Attempt to logon on again

[via: In The Trenches]

Victim of a drive-by soaking

Chad

I was in beautiful miserable, rainy dowtown Chicago today, and the weather was anything but pleasant. It wasn’t raining this morning when I got on the train so I never thought about bringing an umbrella. When I arrived downtown it was a different story. I thought ‘Oh Well, so I get a little wet walking to my client’. It’s really not a far walk, but within a few blocks I was fairly drenched. I walked past a little newstand so I popped in to see if they had umbrellas. I was in luck, not only did they have them but they wern’t nearly as expensive as I thought they would be. I handed the nice cashier some money and started heading for the door. I try to open the umbrella after I get outside and the frigg’n button doesn’t do anything, It’s Broke! With a little persusian I broke the button, but was at least able to open the umbrella manually. I made it to the client with only being mildy drenched, but that’s not really the point of this post.

Later in the day, I had some downtime so I decided to walk somewhere to get some lunch. So here I am walking up Lasalle St with my umbrella, staying dry, when a f’ing cab going by was hugging the the curb and (I’m sure purposely) hit a pothole filled with water. And just like the movies, I got hit in the side by a wave of water. I was soaked on my right side from the armpit on down. I just couldn’t believe that happened. Fortunately it was well after the normal lunch time so I was able to easily get in somewhere and hang out long enough for my clothes to dry out a bit. On my walk back, I made sure to stay as far away from the curb as possible.

XP and only one wireless access point

Chad

I’m looking help from the blogoshpere for a way to have XP only connect to my wireless access point.

I do not want the user to have the ability to see other available wireless networks and more importantly I don’t want them to have the ability to connect to wireless networks other than the one I configured XP with.

Scenerio: The computers are part of the management offices of apartment complexes. We will have 1 wireless router and 3-5 computers per location. Being that these are apartments, there are usually quite a few open access points within reach of the leasing office. And somehow my users are getting associated to these ‘other’ wireless networks. My biggest support issues right now are them calling up saying they cannot print anymore to a printer in the office and I find out they are connected to ‘linksys’ instead of the one they are suppose to be. I simply have them re-connect to the office WIFI and remove the rogue AP from the preferred list to get them back on their network.

For the record, the ‘Automatically connect to non-preferred networks’ is not checked.

What I’ve tried: If I stop the WZC service after the computer boots up, that prevents the ‘view available’ functionality, which is good and allows for continued use on their wireless network, but if I disable the service completely, wireless networking does not work at all upon reboot.

How can I make XP only work with just one access point?

Valid reason to look for a new job??

Chad

My commute is just not long enough. Ever since I got the iPod and have been back into listening to podcasts, I like to listen to them while driving. Unfortunately I really only drive to and from work(in my own car). For some reason the tape player in our work van doesn’t like the cassette adapter I bought, so I can’t listen while driving the work van.

So yesterday morning, as is typical in my daily routine, I get in the car, plug in the iPod and start a podcast, then start on my way to work. Yesterday I started listening to Technorama. I didn’t get to hear much at all. When I got to work and looked at the play timer, it only took me 3 minutes and 54 seconds to get to work. It almost doesn’t feel worth trying to listen to anything in that short amount of time.

So, yes, I need a new job with a longer commute. Maybe downtown Chicago so my daily commute would total about 4 hours.

[tags]commute, podcasts, new job[/tags]

2005 Goals, How’d I do??

Chad

On January 6th of this year I made a list of goals to accomplish throughout the year. Here’s a short review to see how I did.

– Healthier lifestyle. Workout more, eat fast food less
Well, so-so on this one. Not really where I want to be. I do eat fast-food much less, but still don’t really work-out. I did start playing hockey this year, but that only accounts for an hour to hour and a half of good activity per week. I’ll continue this one in to 2006

– More one on one time with kids
This one is tough, because each kid is so demanding. It was a good year with Brandon because he’s getting older and doesn’t require the same amount of baby sitting as his sisters. I really think 2006 will be better overall for all the kids. Believe me, when they’re less annoying, they’re much easier to spend time with!

– Blog more. I want a better picture of my events of a year
Yikes, I failed pretty miserably at this one. There are 2 main reasons for it. My broken laptop and a little game called Tibia. I still don’t have a new laptop, but I do play Tibia a lot less and because of it, I have started blogging again.

– Bye bye Microsoft. Convert server and workstation to Linux. Bring in a Mac for Digital photography. I can’t convert laptop because it’s my companies. Building a kids computer sometime this year.Linux or Windows? I’m thinking Linux!. Wife’s laptop, can she run Linux or is she a slave to Windows. She will have to decide that one on her own.
Here’s one that actually saw a good deal of action. I have in the house now, one Linux server running Debian(it’s hosting this site), I’ve also gotten a computer in the living room for the kids(and me) that is running exclusivity Ubuntu right now. I do still have a Windows SBS2003 server and a XP workstation and the wife still runs XP and I really don’t see that changing anytime soon. I was looking at Mac Mini at the end of the year, but ended up getting an iPod video instead. I don’t regret that decision one bit. Because of it, I’ve been able to start listening to podcasts again. 2006 will be the year a Mac gets in this house though. Just not sure when.

– Better task management. Getting organized. Internal web site, wiki, calendar
Ummm, I don’t even want to talk about this one! :)

– Get Kdawg blogging and/or podcasting
Well, he still doesn’t blog or podcast, so I guess this one marks yet another failure.

Some other low points:
– My job | I have the ‘It’s time to start looking’ bug
– I watched hardly any Nascar this year. All that’s on our frick’n TV is cartoons
– I was sick a lot the first 4 – 5 months of the year
– TechTV got annihilated by G4TV(Comcast)

It’s not all doom and gloom though. Some high points:
– Overall everyone in my family is healthy and doing well
– Even though work kind of sucks, it’s been the best year our company has ever seen
– I started a photography club in my town that’s actually starting to take off. 2006 should really be a fun year with it.

I’m sure there were more low/high points, but ultimately I’m glad the year is over. I look forward to a new year and new opportunities that may lay ahead. And will take all the bumps in the road in stride, just like always! Peace!

Happy New Year——

Laptopless

Chad

Last week my laptop decided to start acting up by not always wanting to power up. I contacted Toshiba, but they informed me that my warranty recently expired and couldn’t do much. They said I would need to take it to a service center. Last Thursday I dropped it off and had the diagnosis later in the day. They said it needed a new system board and power board. The same parts that Toshiba has replaced the half dozen times it’s been sent to them over the last 3 years. The tech at the repair center mentioned that this model was notorious for these problems.

However now that the warranty isn’t going to cover fixing it, it would cost my company $620 to replace the parts. Yikes! The boss has already said no to fixing it, which makes sense. Now we just need to figure out what we’re going to do. Until then I have to work on an old workstation in our back room.

Almost a good day on the road

Chad

I was on the road all day today visiting clients. It’s been awhile since I’ve been on the road for the whole day. I had a nice drive out to my destination, which is mostly country road driving. Then a nice lunch at Jimmy Johns, they even remembered the avocado spread on my #12 this time. Then stopped next door for a white chocolate mocha. Everything was looking good for me getting out of Mchenry County before rush hour, but then I got a page from the boss as I finished up lunch. He needed me to head to another client in the area to update their AV software and licensing. They’re located so far in the boonies that their Internet access is only dial up:(. I took me an hour and a half to make the updates I needed. This put me at driving home through the heart of Mchenry at just after 4pm. All I will say from here is that the entire ride home sucked! I’d especially like to send thanks to the classy lady who flipped me the bird for trying to pass me and the semi in front of me, but then realizing she didn’t have time to also pass the semi, thus slamming on the brakes and squeezing in between me and the semi forcing me to brake heavily. I’m still unsure how any of that escapade should of resulted in me getting the bird, unless she saw me shaking me head in disgust and that offended her.

So like I said, it was almost a good day.