Sharepoint configuration wizard hangs at step 5

Scenario: The Sharepoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard hangs at step 5.

Nothing really happens, step 5 just won’t finish. I managed to  get the wizard to at least crash by starting and stopping the Windows Sharepoint Search Service. This way, i also got an link to the log file. The last log entry before the wizard crashed was:

Calling SPServiceInstance.Provision for instance Microsoft.SharePoint.Search.Administration.SPSearchServiceInstance, service Microsoft.SharePoint.Search.Administration.SPSearchService

My solution was to simply delete all registry keys under 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\WSS\Services\

that had the term “search” in the key name, such as:

 Microsoft.SharePoint.Search.Administration.SPSearchService

When i ran the wizard again it ran like a charm.

Sharepoint–reduce number of logons

Tired of having to logon at least twice when opening a document from a Sharepoint document library?

This solution will significally reduce that number:

1. Add the Sharepoint site to the zone Local Intranet (if this is appropriate for your environment): Open Internet explorer, navigate to the sharepoint site, choose Internet Options, tab Security, mark Local Intranet, click on Sites, click on Advanced.
2. Turn off the service WebClient (Open the run prompt, enter services.msc, find Webclient, right-click and choose Stop.
3. Open a document from a sharepoint library (you have to enter you credentials). Keep the document open while you open another document. This time you won’t have to login at all!

How to use WLAN securely

WLAN is in many ways an insecure way to communicate. However, here is a few things to think about when surfing on WLAN to avoid connecting to a rouge hot-spots (main article, see http://www.esecurityplanet.com/features/article.php/3908596/article.htm).

1. Make sure the name of the WLAN is expected.

2. When connecting, make sure that the WLAN is not marked as “Ad Hoc”, this means that the hotspot i actually a computer with a network card in “infrastructure” mode. This is a common man in the middle attack.

3. If you suddenly gets disconnect when having a good signal, be careful when reconnecting – it might be an attack that caused the disconnect, and when you reconnect you connect to a rouge hotspot with the same name.

4. Commersial hotspot suppliers almost always make you pay in some way. If you suddenly can surf without paying, something is probably wrong.

5. If the websites you visit looks unfamiliar in any way, small unexpected changes etc, be careful, it might not be the real website.

6. If websites with certificates that is usually marked as “green” suddenly is marked as “red”, be careful.

7. If you plan to login to a webpage such as Facebook, go to https://www.facebook.com instead of http://www.facebook.com to prevent eavesdropping. When on an public WLAN, avoid using sites that don’t support https.

Make a graphical instruction notice to your sharepoint library or list

Scenario: The ordinary document library description does not offer any graphical customization. As a result, it is often overlooked by most users.

 

Solution: Add some html code with a simple border

Step by step:

1. Open the document library (or list) and pick Site actions –> Edit page
2. Click Add Web Part
3. Add the Content Editor Web Part
4. Click the Open the tool pane
5. Open the Source Editor
6. Paste the following html code:

<TABLE BORDER=1 RULES=NONE FRAME=BOX BORDERCOLOR=RED>
<TR> <TD><b>Instructions</b></TD> </TR>
<TR> <TD>Choose suitable template under the New menu</TD> </TR>   
</TABLE>

1. Customize the html to fit your needs.

MS Access – Import Word table with line break

Scenario: You want to import an Word table to Access without loosing line break within the table.

• Copy the table to Excel (instructions)
• Copy the data from excel to Access (instructions)

MS Access - How to keep line break when importing from Excel

Scenario: You have an Excel sheet with one column containing text that also has line breaks with the cell, for example bullet lists. You want to import this table to Access and keep the line breaks untouched.

Solution

• Copy and paste the data into Access (or use the import wizard)
• Make sure that the current column is of type Text or Memo/PM and also check that the field property Unicode Comporession is set to No and the property Text Format is set to Plain Text.
• Create an update query, where you set the field Update to to Replace([ColumnName];Chr(10);Chr(13) & Chr(10))
• Run the query

Paste Word table to excel with line breaks

Scenario: You have a table in Word that you want to paste to Excel. However the Word table contains line or paragraph breaks, for example bullet lists within the cells. These cause the Word table rows to be slit over several rows in Excel.

Solution

• Paste the Word table into a new Word document
• Open “Search and replace”, search for ^p and replace with ;
• The new lines will now replaced with a ; sign.
• Copy the table and Paste into Excel
• Open “Search and replace” in Excel, search for ; and replace with *Hold down Alt key and press 010” (ASCII for new line).
• Done!

I did have som trouble with the search and replace in Exel. It did not insert a new, it inserted like three new lines for each ; . Changing to a different computer did help, so really don’t know what the problem was.

Installing and using Jolicloud OS on NC10

Scnario: You want to dual boot a Samsung NC10 running Windows 7 with Jolicloud OS.

1. Download the Jolicloud installer (.exe)

2. Run it and follow the instructions. I chose to install om the same Partition that were Systemdisk for Windows 7 (C:\).

3. Everything went fine, but were not able to register with Jolicloud using Facebook (got ‘Server is Down’, reported it several times and waited for weeks without any change)

4. Created a ordnary account (without using facebook), went well.

5. Used the Jolicloud ‘app store’ to install my favorite apps, such as Spotify, Dropbox, Chrome etc.

6. For those applications that I use but weren’t available on the app store (Pwd Safe, Jungledisk, I used Wine to run them on the Linux Ubuntu system. For a simple guide for how to use Wine, see http://frankscorner.org/index.php?p=quickstart

Change folder background in exlorer (Win XP)

Scenario: You want to change the explorer background of a folder on an Windows XP computer.

Step 1.

Open a command prompt and run the command attrib +s c:\test

Where C:\test should be replaced with the path to folder of your choice.

Step 2.

Browse to the folder, open the Tools menu, choose Folder options. Pick the tab View. Make sure Show hidden files are checked and Hide protected operating system files are unchecked.

Step 3.

You should now see a file called system.ini (otherwise, just create it using notepad).

Add the following lines to it.

[ExtShellFolderViews]
{BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC} = {BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}

[{BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}]
Attributes=1
IconArea_Image=path_of_the_wallpaper
IconArea_Text=0x00000000

Save and close notepad. Close the folder and open it. The background should now have changed.

Kerberos pre-authentication failed on DC from 127.0.0.1

Scenario: You recieve a large amount of Event ID 675 on a DC where client Adress is 127.0.0.1. It is usally from the administrator account.

This can be a result of a number of issues, first check that no service or process is using the particular account.

In my case it was problem with the DHCP DNS registration that were set to use the Administrator account. So, go look at:

Manage Your Server –> Manage this DHCP server –> In the DHCP dialog; right click the server and choose Properties –> Advanced tab –> Credentials. Make sure the account entered there have necessary rights and that the password is correctly entered (see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816592 for details).

Wake computers to enable remote management

Scenario: You want to remotely administrate client computers but can’t connect because they have went to sleep.

Step 1. Enable WOL.

Open the properties for the network card, choose Power Management, make sure Allow this device to bring the computer out of standby and Only allow management stations to bring the computer out of standby are both checked. In Windows 7 the latter refers to a “magic packet”.

Note that only enabling WOL in windows will not make it possible to wake a turned off computer or computer hibernating, only wake a computer in “sleep mode”. To be able to wake a turned off computer you need BIOS support. Enter BIOS and look for WOL / Wake on LAN, it is usually under “Power options”.

Step 2. Send a magic packet

This can be carried out in a number of ways. Here is an easy to use tool: http://www.gammadyne.com/cmdline.htm#wol

Get MAC adress from computer name

getmac /s [machinename]

Get computer serialnumber from windows

Useful command:

‘wmic bios get serialnumber’

read more at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/558124

‘net send’ vs msg.exe

This article aims to investigate the possibilities, limitations and differences between the old NT command “net send” and the newer msg.exe utility.

net send (usage: net send [computername] [message]

Conditions:

• The machine must be running XP or 2003 Server (net send is not available in Vista, Win7 or Server 2008
• The service “Messenger” must be running (sending and receiving machine) It is disabled by default from XP sp2 and later
• NetBIOS must be enabled (sending and receiving machine)
• The ports 137/UDP and 139/TCP must be open (receiving machine)
• Domain-independent

msg.exe

Conditions

• Available in 2003 Server, XP sp2/sp3, 2008R2, Vista, Win7
• Sending and receiving machine must be members of the same domain
• Not NetBIOS dependent
• Only uses port 445/TCP (SMB)
• Possible to use IP instead of machinename
• Not dependent on the messenger service.

Note: If you have trouble with “Access denied” problems, try this registry hack: Locate the DWORD key “AllowRemotePRC” in HKLM/System/CurrentControlSet/Control/Terminal Server. it should be set to “1”. 

If none of these meet your requirements, the following third party softwares are available:

• Net Send (freeware=
• WinMessenger (freeware)
• LantalkNet (shareware)
• LANegram http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=589156 (open source)

Word templates

How word documents and word templates relates to each other.

When a word document is created, it is created from an template, normally the normal template.

It inherits three things:

• -Styles
• Content (incl headers)
• Page settings

These three parts are now copied to the document and the relation between the template and the document is lost.

How to change the template:

Styles:

Update the document with it’s template’s styles. Tools –> Tempaltes and Add-ins. Tick the Automatically Update Document AStyles. Apply and then untick the box.

Content:

No other way den manually copy and paste

Page Settings

As with content.

Give users from different domain local administrator rights

Scenario: You have a trust between two domain and wants the domain admins of the remote domain to have local administrator privileges on the computers in the local domain.

Use GPO: Computer Settings –> Windows Settings –> Security Settings –> Restricted Groups. Add a group named “Administrators” (referring to each computers local group). Under “Members”; add the following accounts and groups:

• “Administrator” (referring to each computer’s local administrator account).
• [local domain]\Domain Admins (referring the local domain’s domain admins)
• [remote domain]\Domain admins (referring to the remote domain’s domain admins.

Important notice: The member you add are exactly the ones that will be member on each computer; existing local exceptions will be overridden.

IPsec policy– filter processing order

Scenario: Several IPsec policy filters matches a packet, which filter takes precedence?

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb877982.aspx

http://cbfive.com/blog/post/Tackling-IPSEC.aspx

Account lockout problems

Scenario: User accounts are continuosly being locked out as a result of numerous failed password attempts.

 

Microsoft tool “Account Lockout and Management Tools” (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=7AF2E69C-91F3-4E63-8629-B999ADDE0B9E&displaylang=en) kan användas.

Documentation: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc738772(WS.10).aspx

Check functions that be configured to use specific user accounts to run under, for example:

Mapped shares/drives

Services

Scheduled tasks

Software that uses cashed credentials.