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How to get IntelliAdmin 2006 to work with Windows XP SP2
Our remote control software, IntelliAdmin 2006, does not allow access to Windows XP machines that have been updated to SP2. This is because SP2 effectively disables file and printer sharing - a feature that IntelliAdmin uses to automatically install remote control software.
Even if you are not using our program, a modified version of this tutorial is of importance - it will allow you to get file and printer sharing back the way it used to be before you installed SP2 - without compromising security
Here is a step by step guide to get it to work with SP2:
1. Open the control panel. You will find this by clicking on start, then settings, and then control panel. Click on the icon that says "Network and Internet Connections"
2. Once you are in there. Click on the icon that says "Network Connections"
3. Now you will find your network cards listed here. You will need to right click on the card you are using to connect to your LAN. A menu will appear - click on properties.
4. Now a form will appear. Go to the advanced tab, and click on settings
5. Another window will appear. Go to the exceptions tab and make sure the file and printer sharing is checked
6. On this same window click on "Add Port"
7. A new window will open - For the name enter "IntelliAdmin", and the port put in the value "2790"
8. Click OK, and in the "Network Connections" Folder click on the tools menu, and select "Folder Options..."
9. Go to the view tab. Scroll down and make sure "Use simple file sharing" is Un Checked
10. Click OK. Sharing is now on, but if you have not set a password for your username you still will not be able to authenticate - IntelliAdmin will keep asking for username and password. Windows XP SP2 requires this for a good reason. You don't want to leave your computer wide open.
IntelliAdmin should work now. If you have any problems please email us at support@intelliadmin.com - we are always happy to help
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Saturday, January 14, 2006
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Enable file and printer sharing on XP SP2
How to enable file and printer sharing on XP SP2
If you haven't figured out by now, we sell remote control software for windows. The cool part about it is that you do not even need to go to the remote computer and install an agent to control it.
When Microsoft released Service Pack 2, we noticed more and more trial users complaining that they could not connect to their Windows XP machines. We couldn't figure it out. We had tested with XP SP2 and it worked fine for us. The trick was that Microsoft had created different settings for users that were not part of a domain.
Effectively file and printer sharing are disabled when XP SP2 comes out of the box - this broke our automatic install feature since IntelliAdmin could not connect to the $admin share.
After scouring the internet we found how to re-enable file and printer sharing for your stand alone XP SP2 machine - and it is secure.
Here are the step by step instructions for turning it back on:
1. Open the control panel. You will find this by clicking on start, then settings, and then control panel. Click on the icon that says "Network and Internet Connections"
2. Once you are in there. Click on the icon that says "Network Connections"
3. Now you will find your network cards listed here. You will need to right click on the card you want to enable file sharing. Select the properties menu
4. Go to the advanced tab, and click on settings
5. Go to the exceptions menu and make sure file and printer sharing is checked.
6. Click OK, and in the "Network Connections" Folder click on the tools menu, and select "Folder Options..."
7. Go to the view tab. Scroll down and make sure "Use simple file sharing" is unchecked.
8. Click OK. Sharing is now on, but if you have not set a password for your username you still will not be able to share - Once you do this you will now be able to share printers and files again.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Friday, January 13, 2006
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CNAME Sharing disabled in Windows 2003 SP1
For a long time now we have used DNS CNAME for our servers. CNAME stands for canonical name. It is an alias for another host name. In our case we have two servers. Their names have been changed to protect the innocent. Lets say they are called iserver1, and iserver2. We constantly replicate all of our data from iserver1 to iserver2.
We have created a CNAME and call it fileserver. This CNAME points right now to iserver1. All the users on our network share to \\fileserver\sharename. Now if something bad were to happen to iserver1 we could change the CNAME to iserver2 and within minutes we would be back and running again. This is what you would call a poor mans backup system – call it what you want, but it has saved us a tremendous amount of time on two different occasions.
Both of our servers have been humming along fine for a while now – and we decide it is finally time to upgrade 2003 to SP1. After the upgrade we could not share to \\fileserver. Now if we try to connect to the actual server name it works fine.
We suspected right away that SP1 must have some type of security enhancement that has disabled our CNAME trick. After a few hours of searching we finally found the registry key in question:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\lanmanserver\parameters
If we create a DWORD value under this key named:
DisableStrictNameChecking
And set it to ‘1’ – our CNAME works again!
Now we thought we might be making something insecure by doing this, but Microsoft KB article 281308 seems to indicate that this is a bug.
For those of you who do not want to dive into the registry, we have written a simple app that will change this setting for you.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Friday, January 13, 2006
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Two new vulnerabilities found in image preview feature of windows
Looks like it is now common knowledge that there are two more vulnerabilities in the image preview feature of windows. It was posted here way before the major press had started to cover it. Turn off the image preview feature now - until Microsoft finds a good fix for this bug
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Wednesday, January 11, 2006
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Keep XP SP2 from rebooting your machine automatically
It happens to all of us. Your working away on something really important - for me it is a few thousand lines of code. The phone rings you talk. Talk some more. Come back and - Ta Da! All your work is gone and your system is rebooted! Later you discover that it was the trusty Microsoft automatic updates.
Sure we all want to be patched to the hilt - but come on! Blow my work away to get it on there as fast as possible!
This 'feature' (Not sure I would call it that!) is easy to disable. You can create a new registry key here:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU
Create a new DWORD value under this key called: NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers and set it to the number one. Reboot and you are ready to go.
Oh yea. For the lazy types (Thats me) we wrote a little proggy that will do it for you:
Download Here
A final note - if you are on a corporate network and a group policy is in place this will have no effect - ha - you weren't supposed to do this anyway ;()
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Tuesday, January 10, 2006
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Apple Unveils new intel line
Just as I predicted, Apple has unveiled their new Intel line of computers. Just one more step in the direction of their master plan. A new Intel iMac, and a new Intel based laptop that starts at just $1,999. A few more software additions and updates. A blow by blow accounting of the whole thing can be found here
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Tuesday, January 10, 2006
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Utility to reboot a computer remotely on your lan
I found this free utility on the net a year or two ago. It was one of those free programs someone threw up on a bog somewhere. It allows you to pick a computer that is in your windows domain, and reboot, shutdown or logoff the user remotely.
Click here to download it
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Tuesday, January 10, 2006
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How to WMF Hack proof your machines
It looks like moments after the fix for the WMF vulnerability was released some researches have found two more flaws that were previously unknown. They were discovered by a hacker that goes by the name cocoruder. All of these vulnerabilities surround the dll that allows users to preview images.
With this news in mind we have decided to completely disable image previews on our systems until Microsoft has this whole mess sorted out. The way to do it is very simple:
Click on start, then run, and type the following:
regsvr32 /u shimgvw.dll
Click OK, and image previews will be disabled.
When Microsoft finally gets their act together on this issue and releases more patches you can turn it back on by doing the same, but changing the command line to:
regsvr32 shimgvw.dll
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Monday, January 09, 2006
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How to refresh group policy on Windows 2000
I could not for the life of me remember how to refresh group policy on a windows 2000 workstation. I finally found the command line to do it. I know this will help someone out there:
Using Microsoft Windows 2000, how do I force a group policy to be applied?
When you make a change to a Group Policy Object (GPO), the change takes place on a Windows 2000 domain controller. The change then replicates to all other domain controllers in the Active Directory. All Windows 2000 computers in Active Directory check for modifications to GPOs at regular intervals. If there are changes, then they are applied during the next interval.
If you need to apply the change immediately, you can use one of the following commands to trigger the process:
* To refresh the group policy for the local computer, enter: secedit /refreshpolicy machine_policy
* To refresh the group policy for the user currently logged in, enter: secedit /refreshpolicy user_policy
These commands compare the currently applied GPO to the GPO located on the domain controllers. If nothing has changed since the last time the GPO was applied, then the GPO is skipped.
To force a GPO to be reapplied, whether or not changes have been made to the GPO, use the /enforce switch: secedit /refreshpolicy machine_policy /enforce Once Windows 2000 accepts the request, it will display the following message:
"Group policy propagation from the domain has been initiated for this computer. It may take a few minutes for the propagation to complete and the new policy to take effect. Please check Application Log for errors, if any."
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Monday, January 09, 2006
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Silent install of Office XP SP2
We have had this really nasty bug with Office XP. Every time a user tries to print to specific printers the whole thing locks up. We originally thought it might be the printer driver. We tried all kinds of things to get these machines to work. Only to find out it was a bug in word - one that SP2 fixes. It fixes the problem - great - but we have over 100 machines to patch!
First, we downloaded the full version of the patch from here
Next we updated the login script that all of the users have to install the patch when they login. Yes we know we could push it via Group Policy - We opted not to.
We copied to one of our servers, and put it on a public share that these users could access.
Then we updated the login scripts to call the patch:
\\server1\office2003\sp2\2003SP2.exe /q > \\server1\office2003\sp1\%computername%.log
Then we just checked the \\server1\office2003\sp1 directory for the log files created by each computer - That way we knew if it was installed without error.
That is all there is too it!
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Monday, January 09, 2006
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What will Apple reveal on Tuesday?
It is just a few more days before Mr Jobs takes the stage and reveals to the world their new products. Here are a few predictions of what they will reveal:
- New intel based laptops
- New intel based desktops
- A TiVo like device that you can purchase movies using iTunes
My other prediction is that their will be no G4 based machines revealed at this keynote - contrary to what most of the industry pundits are saying.
Posted By: Steve Wiseman on Sunday, January 08, 2006
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