Posts tagged Question
Can I disable the RESTART option after completing windows update? Is there any way to cancel a Reboot?
Mar 26th
MJ writes to us that her machine runs updates around lunch time and she keeps getting the prompt do you want to restart now?
Not only is it annoying – sometimes she clicks yes by accident and her whole world comes crashing down. (See the fix for this at the bottom of the post – not for the faint of heart or slow typers!!!)
Not only will we show you how to disable the automatic restart option after updates via Group Policy we will show you how to quickly cancel a reboot.
- Go to Start –> Run, type “gpedit.msc”.
- Go to Computer Configuration –> Administrative Templates –> Windows Components –> Windows Update.
- Look for option “No Auto Restart For Scheduled Automatic Update installation” and Enable that option.
- This will make sure that your computer is not rebooted automatically, instead it will just notify you for a reboot. It will be users choice as to when to reboot your computer
- If in case you want it to notify you again and again, after a specific interval of time, then look for option “Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations”. Enable that option and specify the time.
Everything above is all easy, its just editing some policies which you can perform easily. [TechiesDen]
Now to cancel a reboot:
- Start
- Run
- Type Shutdown -a and hit enter
Thats it, that will cancel your impending doom if you hit it fast enough!
I need to open a port on my router or firewall. How do i do that? What is that? Should I Be Scared??
Jan 20th
Almost 3 weeks in to the New Year and the Admin needs some rest – maybe a day off?
Yeah right we have even more emails today and I am studying for my 2008 Microsoft Certs! This has been a big year for the AtA gang – stay tuned for more of our geeky flavored content in 2008.
Our reader Diego has an application on his computer that he needs to get access to while he is away. Diego is trying to get VNC going on his iPhone. This tutorial is for you no matter what router you are on but, it uses the WRT54G as an example. You should be able to use the knowledge to work with most modern routers. To begin there are a few things you need to do. First as a prerequisite you need to know the difference between external and internal ip addresses.
You see that you can’t get to your internal addresses also referred to as your NAT IP from outside without some work. You are in a protected kingdom. (Pardon the corny references but they work well!) The inside of your network is like the inside of your virtual castle.
The only way in is by opening a port sort of like building a virtual draw bridge. To open this draw bridge to your computer over the internet you need your computer to have a static IP address.
Now we need to see if you are using a static IP or a dynamic IP. Do you know how to tell? In Windows this is done by:
- Right click on the my network icon
- Choose properties
- Right click on the icon that represents your Connection
- Choose properties.
- Scroll down to Internet Protocol and click Properties.
- If the check box is checked to obtain an IP address automatically then We want to check the Use The IP address. BUT don’t fill in anything or click OK yet We will get right back to this as soon as we get the address to fill in!
- Now we want to goto DOS and find your current IP address. Goto Start
- Run
- Type in CMD and hit enter
- Now type ipconfig /all
- and write down your IP address, subnet mask, default gateway and DNS servers. We Will now fill this address information into the address box we left blank a moment ago.
- Now you have a static IP address and are half way there! Now go to this link here:
Plug in your static IP we set above and follow the rest of the instructions and you will be remote controlling your PC from your Shiny iPhone in no time! Let us know how it works out for you!
What The Hell Happened To My Task Managers Tabs and Options?
Jan 13th
A reader from Idaho was seriously freaked out after a late night at the computer and sent us a picture of their task manager in a strange state.
They asked for their identity to be with held so here is a screen-shot of a random person’s task manager in a similar mode.
Have you seen this before? Take a look over on your right. You probably have see it and had to idea how you did it.
This is what is called “Tiny Foot Print” mode. Don’t worry its nothing to get all frantic about dude.
It happens by double clicking (usually by accident) on the gray border which we have so kindly dotted and pointed an arrow at for you in the picture on the right.
Here is the Microsoft KB article on it here. They say you can also hit, CTRL+ALT+SHIFT at the same time, and while holding them down press ENTER CTRL+ALT+SHIFT at the same time, and while holding them down press ENTER, to remedy your issue as well.
Hope that helps Idaho! Keep those question coming in!
Why am I getting Winmail.dat files on my mac from Windows users?
Jan 12th
Jodi writes in:
I wasn’t sure who I should contact about this, so i am sending this to you. As of late, word attachments coming from my friend on a Windows XP Machine appear as “winmail.dat” files.
When I try to open these, the text runs about 150pp long, (it’s a 4page doc) and the text looks like this:
?<‡META †[1]0 ?Xt=”‡$.
It shows garbage like that over and over again. Admin Can you help me open them? If I forward the message on to a windows user it is fine! What gives?
Jodi have been dealing with this one for a while and there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to when they appear and when they don’t appear. We investigated the possibility of drag and drop causing it – but that wasn’t it consistently. But we found a utility called TNEF’s Enough for our Mac friends here:
http://www.joshjacob.com/macdev/tnef/
You can simply drag winmail.dat into this application and BAM! There is your data ma’am, can we do anything else for you today?
UPDATE: Fix this on your exchange 2007 server by doing this:
On the exchange server, go to global settings, Internet Message Formats, Default Properties, Advanced tab, for “Exchange Rich-Text Format” select “Never Use”.
This will prevent your Exchangeserver from using Rich-Text Format and creating winmail.dat files.
From TNEF’s website:
TNEF’s Enough allows Macs to read and extract files from Microsoft TNEF stream files. The files are usually received by SMTP based e-mail programs from Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Outlook users. The SMTP based e-mail program will usually receive either a MIME attachment named “winmail.dat” or a MIME attachment with the type “application/ms-tnef.”
The file is a rich text (or MAPI) message that is sent from Outlook to Exchange. When Exchange sends the message to an outside server it writes the MAPI message as a MIME attachment. The unfortunate side effect of this plan is if the Outlook user has someone in their address book as a person who can receive “Rich Text” then the user will receive the TNEF file whether the user uses Outlook or not.
TNEF’s Enough is a freeware application
Why is Outlook 2007 showing red Xs instead of my pictures?
Nov 25th
We got this message from Fred early in the AM. I guess its great for him that we don’t sleep past 7AM anymore!
I am using Outlook 2007. When I get email the pictures show as Red boxes with “X”’s in them. I used to be able to right click on the boxes and download the pictures. Now for some reason, I right click but the pictures don’t download. I don’t get the option to download a second time so the system must think the pictures are showing. Please help.
We went back and forth trying to enable and disable security options inside Outlook and Internet Explorer but we weren’t having any luck. I didn’t want our faithful reader to start bashing his head against the monitor. So I said screw it and went a’ looking for the registry value. Here is what I wrote back to Fred:
Found the solution, it is a registry entry called BlockHTTPImages found at this location.
\HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common\BlockHTTPImages
change the value 1 to 0 (zero) and reboot. All your images should have returned.
I was sure that was going to resolve our early morning Outlook hi-jinks and it sure did! Here was Fred’s final response:
YOU DID IT!!!! I don’t know how to thank you. This has been driving me nuts! I found that a lot of people are having the same problem (from reading other forums) and nobody had a solution. Thanks again. Fred
Can Vista hit me on the hip when an event occurs through the OS? Is this true and how can I configure it?
Oct 24th
Good Morning,
I just saw the link to ask you a question and here is mine. Admin do you know of a way I can configure Vista to let me know if a specific error or event happens while I am AFK?
I hear Vista can hit me on my Blackberry when an event occurs and it’s suppose to be native through the OS. Is this true and how can I configure it?I know they said its in but I be damned if I can’t find it. Hook a fellow admin up!
Your Loyal Reader JayDee
You sure can JayDee! And not only is it pretty simple – you can use any email client not only a Crackberry – check it out.
- Now you can attach a task to ANY event. Navigate through System Tools / Event Viewer / Windows Logs / Application.
- Now select an event – then look to the pane on the right and click “Attach Task to This Event.”
- Name it whatever you want and put in a description to help you remember what it is for, click through to the next step, in the Action step you will see the “Send an e-mail” option.
Attaching tasks to events can also be used as a great troubleshooting feature or to save your ass in the case something goes horribly wrong while you are away.
To make use of this, Windows Vista’s Event Viewer has something called the Task Scheduler Wizard and provides you with a bunch of choices for actions to attach to each event.
Anyone out there using this already? Hit us up in the comments?
