Working on updating a GHOST image, as we’re deploying a new operating system out to 2000+ clients.  DO you think I can find my list from 2001?

Nada, and I’ve looked everywhere.

Here is a list I grabbed from searching the internet:

Directories to clean up:
%TEMP%
C:\WINDOWS\PREFETCH

(more…)

We had a problem with one of our SMS servers today, it was not processing DDR records.

All 19,000+ of them.

After some investigation, a co-worker found it was a corrupted DDR record which caused SMS to get stuck. 

After we fixed it, SMS started processing them records at 1 DDR per seconds.
Let’s do the math, 19,000 records at 1 per second, is 60 DDR per minute; and 3600 per hour.  It would take at 5 hours to process all those.
PLUS SMS was adding more DDR records, all the time.

Oh Bother it

Remembering that SMS Primary Sites run SQL Server, I wondered … … did we exclude the SQL Process from our AV program???

In short, no.  Excluding SQLSERVR.EXE made a tiny difference.  Adding SMSEXEC.EXE & CCMEXEC.EXE to the exclusion list made a HUGH difference.

We went from 1 record per second, to 5 records per second being processed.

We’re deploying the change to the rest of the SMS Server fleet, Tuesday.

It’s been my sad experience over the last 20+ years, that what’s in the IT Policy vs. what gets enforced, is a bit of guess work for most people.  Here is a short guide.

Always enforced.
Looking at illegal porn (kiddies, dogs & gerbils).  If we find out about it, we have to report it; you kiddie fiddling scumbag.
You won’t know that you’ve been reported until PC Plod seizes everything.
If there is a set of stairs nearby, pray that you don’t trip walking down them.
Repeatedly.

Sometimes enforced
Porn surfing.  If someone sees you doing it, hears you doing it, we find it on your hard drives, or we see visits to <insert porn sites here>, it’s going to be reported to management.

But yes, commonsense is used.

If it’s an inadvertent visit, such as mistyping the name of the llewtube.com site, you’ll be fine.  But if we see a whole bunch of porn sites in the web proxy log, then your sad arse is getting reported.

Other things which will get you reported:

• trying to bypass the corporate firewall with a Hamachi client.
• downloading warez, DVD’s or music.  Do your leeching from your home.
• Using BitTorrent.

Never enforced
If you hold a “C” title, “Sometimes enforced” becomes “Never enforced”.  Sure, we’ll report it.  The HR people won’t do anything about it, as they don’t have the bottle to do anything about it.

The user reported

In Lotus Notes, when I create an attachment, I click on "My Documents" shortcut, and it should take me to My Documents folder.
BUT Lotus Notes is adding it as an attachment instead."

Indeed it is.

Fixed in Lotus Notes 6.5.1, with a setting added to the Notes.INI, FIRE PHASERS SHELL_LINKS=1.

SHELL_Links=1 will cause Lotus Notes to treat the shortcut as a link.

Here’s a summary of how Lotus Notes client behave:

About FIRE PHASERS: While I was typing this out, I suddenly remembered the FIRE PHASERS Novell login script command.  I was thinking it would make a good age test for any of your Novell techs.

I don’t know  the answer, and here’s an explanation why.  There are two schools o thought about whether your system should have the latest patches or not.

“The patch everything what moves” thinking.
Is all about doing small, continous, incremental updates.  This is to keep your systems in a healthly supportable range.  A healthy supportable range so when you install a program, you don’t get to see a message like this

It also helps you avoid the problem of some helpdesk chimp saying

Your system isn’t at the latest patch level.  Could you install those patches, and try the install again?

The downside of keeping your systems fully patched: The time it takes to do it.

The “If it ain’t broken, don’t touch it” thinking
Is also known as the minimum effort option.  No effort is required as you don’t patch.  You don’t need to worry about things breaking either.

EXCEPT of course, if someone updates their systems, and this update breaks your system because you’re not on a matching software level.  Such as when Google patches Google Maps, and it no longer works with your (very unpatched) Internet Explorer.

“So stop straddling the fence, what you you really think?”
If it’s my decision alone, then Patch It!  I much prefer supportable systems.

No lady’s wardrobe is quite complete without the little black dress that has been around forever.

A little black dress is an evening or cocktail dress, cut simply and often with a short skirt. Since Chanel introduced the “little black dress” in 1926, it has become the epitome of chic. Her first LBD was a slash-necked, short silk dress with only diagonal pin-tucks as decoration. Chanel believed fashion should be functional as well as chic. Radically simple, her LBD was designed not to show stains and to fit every woman. It was meant as the fashion ideal: a perfectly simple, yet sexy object. The most famous visual of this style is Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffanys.

- SheGlam.com

I wrote about the Palm Pre back in June.  Just heard that Telstra have no plans to introduce it to Australia.

The Pre, and Palm are dead, they just don’t realise it yet.

A co-worker migrated the last user off our old BlackBerry Enterprise Server, Barry.

"Barry to be renamed to Nigel-No-Friends", was the announcement.

(Non Australian readers should look at the Urban Dictionary for the meaning of Nigel No Friends)

Update:
* Nigel No Friends = Billy No Mates, in the UK.
* Added the Nigel No Friends – Twitter edition picture.
*This was the picture I wanted to use, but it’s All Rights Reserved:
 
  (click on the photo for the much larger original)

I was searching for the coffee chart here, and I started typing hot co, and I got these suggestions from DogPile Image search

I suppose the results could have been worse (NSFW).

on a Windows XP PC.  As I wrote in Windows Update: Network policy settings prevent you from using this website …, you’d often see a Windows Update error when your Corporate IT types block access on purpose.

But wait!  I’m my Corporate IT type!  What did I do to break it for myself???

Well somewhere along the line, I configured a system group policy to block access to Windows Update, and I ended up tripping over my own trap.

The solution/work-around was to delete the
HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-18\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\WindowsUpdate - "DisableWindowsUpdate" key.

Once I did that, the Windows Update site worked with no errors.

You can download a .reg file which does that, and the other two registry keys I mentioned in the earlier article, right here.