Rob Eberhardt

In case anyone needs this, I found that this (quite batchable) command opens the XPSP2 Firewall appropriately so Symantec Management Console can push SAV licenses to workstations:

> netsh firewall set portopening TCP 2967 "Symantec AntiVirus Client Management" enable subnet


Via Dean Edwards' Links, meet HedgerWow's <SELECT>-Free Layer, a CSS-only workaround for Internet Explorer's SELECT bug with z-index.

It's not quite clear from the demo, but I think the magic is an absolutely-positioned + transparent + huge IFRAME inside the layer to show.  C'est trés hacky, but it still seems better (in a way) than the usual dynamic hide/show javascript approach.

Here's hoping that Microsoft will quickly windows-update us all with IE7 (which fixes this bug, hoorah), and free us of these sHACKles.

Something I bumped into today: The first time Internet Explorer loads a URL, it sends an "HTTP_Accept" request header with the list of MIME types it accepts, like so: HTTP_ACCEPT = application/vnd.ms-excel, application/vnd.ms-powerpoint, application/msword, */*

Any subsequent request of the same URL, though, only sends "*/*": HTTP_ACCEPT = */*

Of course I watched this through an ASP page which wrote out Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_Accept").  I wasn't sure if it was IIS or IE's fault tho, so I checked the raw headers with Fiddler, and it's definitely IE.

What's especially strange is that I can find little or no mention of the problem. Anyone else heard of (or conquered) this?

It rather messes up a page I'm working on...

UPDATE: See here for a bug and workaround demo article I just put together.

Got a question today from my friend George about the best way to make rounded corners.  I listed some choices, with pros/cons of each:

• Create static images with Photoshop/Paint Shop Pro (compatible, simple, but painstaking)
• A dynamic server-side solution (easy for the lazy, but creates extra server load)
• "Nifty corners" (no separate server hit, but quite hacky code)
• Base64-encoded images (way hacky, and falls back to dynamic for IE anyway)

I ended up recommending static images as the best combination of performance and compatibility, at the expense of developer time.  Then it occurred to me: surely I'm not the only lazy one -- someone must've already made a web-based wizard to quickly create sets of corner images for download and installation.  Could it be??

Google says Voila!  Jalenack's Complete Rounded Corners Creator

I say Sweet!  I tell ya, kids these days got it easy!

Via Peter Provost, how to change your VirtualPC Default Folder.

Apparently someone ripped out the underlying DOS from Windows 98 and made it work as a standalone OS.  (Unfortunately, the main site is down, but there's a good info & a download mirror here.)

Why, you ask? So you can keep using old hardware, but with better disk support, FAT32, drivers, etc.

Fun stuff.  I've already installed it.  I'm looking forward to silliness like running the Windows 3.1 shell on top of it!

Links:
Main info site (seems to be down): MS-DOS 7.10 Download
Main info site (google cache): MS-DOS 7.10 Download
Download Mirror: PeteWeb.com Forums - Old Operating System Links

Problem:

My SBS 2003 box was getting this error several times a day: "IPBOOTP was unable to receive an incoming message on the local interface with IP address x.x.x.x . The data is the error code."

Process:

Most applicable suggestions I found said to either disable the DHCP Relay Agent service, or install a Win2000 hotfix.  No luck for me, though, since the service wasn't installed, and I'm on SBS 2003.

Solution:

Microsoft.Public Usenet - IPBOOTP ERROR PLEASE HELP.  Hurrah, disabling DHCP Relay on the LAN interface in RRAS manager.

That's a Windows registry key, found under HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server (at least on XP and 2003 Server).

There are Terminal Server registry reference docs out there, but no explanation what that one does.  Hello world, any ideas?

Stefan Koell just released RoyalTS version 1.3.  This takes care of the few obvious issues and makes it a fairly mature tool. 

It's still a great tool for Remote Desktop/Terminal Server administration (better than Microsoft's RDC or Remote Desktops snapin), and getting better.  If you control more than a couple machines, you should add RoyalTS to your toolkit now!

It requires modifying the installation CD (just two bytes), but for the brave: HOWTO Change Windows XP Home to Windows XP Pro - Gizmodo

Lessee, judging by Microsoft's Windows XP Comparison Guide, that should get you:

• System Restore
• NTBackup
• Fast User Switching
• Offline Files
• Remote Desktop
• hardware support (Dynamic Disks, Multiple Processors)
• security (Access Control, EFS)
• IIS, and
• domain support (Group Policy, Assigned Software Installation, Roaming Profiles, RIS).

Of these features, everything but IIS and domain support can be useful to many home users.  In particular, there's no way the first three -- System Restore, NTBackup, and Fast User Switching -- should have ever been left out of XP Home -- ALL users could benefit from them. Whoops, had some bad info before I checked the XP Comparison Guide (and I was caught editing, so I can't just erase it now!  Good catch Ed!) -- It looks like FUS and System Restore are in XP Home. My opinion stands for NTBackup and Remote Desktop, tho.

For those less venturesome (or unwilling to reinstall), it is possible to install NTBackup on XP Home.  See Ed Bott's "The amazing hidden backup program".

"choosing"

Hey, how come people don't bash Macromedia's monopoly/success?

Microsoft currently has two official RDP clients:  Remote Desktop Client (built-in to Windows XP Pro, and downloadable for nearly anything else), and the Remote Desktops MMC snapin (from the Windows 2003 Administration Tools Pack).

They have all the right features between them, but neither has all of them in one place.  The Remote Desktop Client has the most options, but can't connect to console session (aka "session 0") and is meant for one remote connection at a time.  The Remote Desktops Snap-in can do these two things, but is missing tons of other options, plus one especially dumb limitation:  It can't connect to a port other than standard 3389.  (It gives an error “The server name cannot contain the following characters: spaces, tabs , ;  :  " < > * + = \ | ? ,”  -- Another over-zealous coder under-thinking his validation logic!)

Update:

Microsoft says the Remote Desktop Client can connect to the console session, via a command-line switch.  Not sure why it's not a checkbox on the options dialog , but it doesn't work for me anyway.  It removes the %sessionname% environment variable, but Terminal Services Manager still shows the session is a "RDP-TCP#" name.  Oh well. (turns out the console session has to already be logged in). 

Something else I found: you can't connect to the console remotely with a non-admin account -- it gives you an error that "To log on to this remote console session, you must have administrative permissions on this computer."

The standalone Client is best when you're working in-depth on one remote machine.  The Snap-in is better for when you're working lightly on several machines, and don't need the extra options.  In daily use, I usually find myself switching between the Snap-in and the Client.  It's a small but constant pain.

This is all to say that I just found Royal TS from code4ward, which is a free, open-source (C#) app, which attempts to combine the best of both programs.  (It's like the Snap-in interface, but on steroids.) 

I've been using it for a few days, and it's very good.  I only wish it could do a better full-screen, or use less screen real-estate with the embedded view.  I may try my hand at C# just to hack it up.

Hm, the author's site is down now.  Hopefully it's temporary.  Meanwhile, here is is on Snapfiles: http://www.snapfiles.com/get/royalts.html

 

It's possible after all.  XP Pro's Remote Desktop can be hacked to give concurrent sessions.

To explain:  Windows XP's Remote Desktop rocks, as does its ability to give me my console session later (with my work uninterrupted) from another machine.  Glaring in its absence, though, is the ability to remotely-rock while someone is locally-rocking the machine.  This can stink in a big way. 

For example, too often I've remotely logged in for something quick, only to see this nuisance:

Rather inconvenient.  Even worse, though, I've often been logged in and working remotely, when someone locally logs in.  No warnings or explanations, just *bam* disconnected!  (At least the first situation confirms the handover with both people.)

For history:  Remote Desktop's daddy was Windows 2000 Server's Terminal Services in Remote Administration Mode, which did allow (limited) concurrent sessions.  Microsoft added the console-session flexibility to XP's Remote Desktop, but dropped the concurrent sessions.  Then 2003 Server's (renamed) Remote Administration wrapped in XP's console flexibility.  Later, XP's SP1 promised concurrent access, then SP2 did.  Two strikes.  It did make an SP2 beta though, before being yanked later...

The silver lining:  Thanks to the termsrv.dll from that SP2 beta, it's possible to hack XP for concurrent Remote Desktop sessions in a few minutes.  Just change a registry setting, reboot to Safe Mode, replace the DLL, and boot back into homebrewed XP Remote Administration goodness.

For the do-it-yourselfers:  Don't wait for Longhorn (or whenever-they-may-get-to-it): here's the how-to article, and here's the needed termsrv.dll file.

Update:
I just stumbled on sala source's Terminal Server Patch, which wraps up the whole process in a single convenient patch.  Very cool.

 

Mapping/Connecting a Drive Letter to a WebDAV or Front Page website

Update:

Apparently Windows XP makes this possible through an integrated WebDAV client and updated Net Use command.  For icing: if you have a Passport, you can map your online Documents folder to a drive letter with this command:
net use * "http://www.msnusers.com/My Web Documents/Documents" /persistent:yes /user:UserName@passport.com

Tons of cool possibilities with this...  (Now if we could just do the same with FTP!)

I just setup a webDAV-enabled website in IIS, enabled HTTPS, setup a couple virtual directories with pass-through authentication to my file server, and voila! thanks to the above trick, I can have secure, full-control remote access to it from anywhere.

Actually, there was a lot of toil to the process, since there are a lot of bugs and tricky bits with DAV, HTTPS, and UNC Virtual Directories.  Here's useful info I found when wrestling my share of them...

WebDAV:

• You experience a delay when you use your Windows XP computer to log on to a domain or to connect to a network resource
• WebDAV Mini-Redirector (MRXDAV.SYS) Versions and Issues List
• greenbytes WebDAV resources
• Windows XP and Apache WebDAV, Password problems with webfolders

HTTPS/SSL:

• HTTPS/SSL - Error Message: The Page Cannot Be Displayed . . . Cannot Find Server or DNS Error

Passthrough Authentication:

• problem with IIS6 pass-through authentication,
• ...and the solution for me: Deploying and Configuring Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 with Remotely Stored Content on UNC Servers and NAS Devices

Web Folders:

• KB892211 - Jan 25 2005 Software Update for Web Folders