Automatically configure printers using Print Management in Windows Server 2003

Automatically configure printers using Print Management in Windows Server 2003

This video from TechRepublic looks like something useful I'll try to implement in the near future.

Adding new printers to your network isn’t rocket science, but it can take time out of your already busy schedule. Luckily, there is a feature in Windows Server 2003 R2 that automatically detects and sets up printers on the same subnet. In this IT Dojo video, I show you how the Print Management Console can shave a little time off a common network administration task.

TrueCrypt 6.0 Improves Data Security Performance

TrueCrypt 6.0 Improves Data Security Performance

The latest version of the free drive-encryption tool can shield sensitive data from prying eyes at home and abroad, now faster than ever.

This looks like a interesting free solution, I'd like to try this out on mobile thumb drives first and then see how easily this could be setup for XP laptop users.

Reset Windows passwords with the Offline NT Password and Registry Editor

Employees leave, IT workers quit, IT consultants fail to properly document deployments. Regardless of the cause, you’re left with a locked account and perhaps a locked system.

The Offline NT Password and Registry Editor is a Linux-based utility that can reset passwords on Windows-NT based systems that use NTFS, including Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista. The tool creates a boot environment through which you can reset passwords via a series of text menus. The Offline NT Password and Registry Editor isn’t the most polished utility, but it is effective.

You can watch a video from techRepublic on this tool here.

The related download for a bootable iso is located here

Take control of any Windows PC on the Internet with CrossLoop

Take control of any Windows PC on the Internet with CrossLoop, this seems like a great support tool and another alternative to Logmein.com's solution. See the video in this link from TechRepublic.

AMT subsystem Failure in Adobe CS3

I'm getting AMT subsystem Failure in Adobe CS3, turns out the issue was FlexNet was disabled. The solution could be very simple: Go to Services (Administrative Tools -> Services) and check service "FLEXnet Licensing Service" — it should not be disabled! Put it to manual mode at least. This fixed the issue on my XP box.

So I had a machine suffer from hardware failure during the MS XP SP3 installation process.

So I had a machine suffer from hardware failure during the MS XP SP3 installation process. So the machine basically did a hard shutdown while installing. This happened twice and surprisingly the system still restarted into SP2. Now I'm not a complete idiot and just kept restarting the machine, I was actually using the same drive in different hardware. But apparently both boxes had similar hardware issues. Is was not until one reboot that was actually trying to back out of the SP3 install and in the process, suffered another hardware failure and shutdown. Upon reboot, I got the message:

"\System32\Hal.dll missing or corrupt:
Please re-install a copy of the above file."

I used the fix below to remedy the issue and it worked like a charm!

Use the Bootcfg utility in the Recovery Console to correct the Boot.ini file:

1.	Use the Windows XP CD-ROM to start your computer.
2.	When you receive the message to press R to repair Windows by using the Recovery Console, press the R key.
3.	Select the Windows installation that you want, and then type the administrator password when prompted.
4.	Type bootcfg /rebuild, and then press ENTER.
5.	When the Windows installation is located, the following instructions are displayed: Add installation to boot list? (Yes/No/All) [Type Y in response to this message.] Enter Load Identifier: [This is the name of the operating system. Type Windows XP Professional or Windows XP Home Edition.] Enter OS Load options: [Leave this field blank, and then press ENTER]. After you perform the preceding steps, restart the computer, and then select the first item on the boot menu. This should allow Windows XP to start normally. After Windows XP has successfully loaded, the Boot.ini can be modified to remove the incorrect entry.

For more information about how to edit the Boot.ini file, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

This fix was one of 4 possible methods to repair the issue, the others are described at the following link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314477

How to change Outlook to be able to select multiple signatures from within a composed message

To change Outlook to be able to handle multiple signatures, you need to do the following.

Go to Tools-->Options and go to the Mail Format tab and UNCHECK the "Use Microsoft Office Word 2003 to edit e-mail messages"


To have the option to switch between email formats in Outlook, you will NOT be able to use MS Word as the email editor anymore.


After you change the default email editor, your email messages will have the option to select signatures within the message by going to Insert-->Signature-->Your desired Signature. From here you can select the signatures you've already setup.