TechAgility

Reap the rewards of the open-source community courtesy of Douglas Toombs from Windows IT Pro Magazine

Find your free tools:
"LocatePC"
"OCS Inventory NG" 
"PRTG" 
"SIW" 
"SyncBack" 
"TrueCrypt" 
"WinDirStat" 
"Wink"
"BareTail" 
"Ethereal" 
"FileZilla" 
"NeWT" 
"Ngrep" 
"OpenSSH" 
"WinDump" 
"WinPcap" 
"Winfingerprint"
"CamStudio" 
"CDBurnerXP" 
"Comodo Firewall Pro" 
"DriveImage XML" 
"GParted LiveCD" 
"JkDefrag" 
"PageDefrag" 
"TestDisk"

25 Absolutely Cool, Totally Free Utilities

written by dcaddick

So this turned up in my email this morning courtesy of Login Consultants and I must admit that I am intrigued as to what it’s full capabilities will be, but judging by their previous efforts with tools like Flex Profiles I’m sure it will be a very useful tool indeed.

May 7: 1st Beta Release Free “Login Virtual Session Indexer”

May 7th Login Consultants will release the first beta of Login Virtual Session Indexer (Login VSI), a free and easy to use benchmarking methodology from Login Consultants. The Login VSI is a complete toolset that allows you easily to compare scalability of all virtualization platforms and technologies. Login VSI supports all recent Windows OS’s (including 32 and 64bit), Office 2003 and 2007, all application streaming technologies and most importantly both SBC and VDI.

Because the setup is so simple there is an infinite amount of combinations and technologies you can now compare. For instance, you can also measure the relative impact of a virussanner or performance optimization technologies. Additionally, Login VSI will be a perfect tool to compare scalability of different virtualization platforms. Enter May 7th in your agenda, and watch our website www.loginconsultants.com.

written by dcaddick

DISCLAIMER: If you decide to flash ANY device with something other than the Vendors correct firmware then you are on your own!!!

Moving on from a previous post the other day regarding "Supercharge Your Wireless Router With Open Firmware - Wired How-To Wiki" I was chatting to my brother and it turns out that he has recently been having troubles with his Billion device and as a consequence of it being out of warranty he decided to buy an ASUS WL-500G

And now I can see why, not only is it a Wireless Access Point with ADSL but it also has 2 x USB 2.0 ports as well so that this can effectively act as a mini NAS unit as well by hosting additional storage <see table below>

But the real neat part is that with his help I was also able to discover that there is a complete OpenSource effort at OpenWrt

About OpenWrt

OpenWrt is an extensible Linux distribution that runs on Linksys WRT54G/GS routers, as well as some related hardware. Unlike many other distributions for these routers, OpenWrt is built from the ground up to be a full-featured, easily modifiable operating system for your router. In practice, this means that you can have all the features you need with none of the bloat, powered by a Linux kernel that’s more recent than most other distributions.

This is where I obtained the information in the table above (link - TableofHardware) - at the very least if you are considering purchasing some form of Wireless Access Point then you should really glance through this table and satisfy yourself that have made the right choice on Hardware?

So back to OpenWrt, is it for you? well it is based on Linux so it is somewhat command line driven etc. and it’s more than likely that as much as this might provide a benefit to some, they will be put off by the install method and the possibility of bricking their device?

So if that is the case then simply move on to: X-Wrt, "OpenWrt for end users"

About Us:

X-Wrt was started because there was a need for end user extensions to OpenWrt, such as an enhanced web management console (webif). For a long time now it has been established that OpenWrt is the best firmware in its class. It far exceeds other firmwares in performance, stability, extensibility, robustness, and design. We at X-Wrt decided it was long past time for end users to get access to this superior firmware.

We are a separate project from OpenWrt due to the difference in focus and development ideals. We are considerably more pragmatic than OpenWrt and have the goal of providing solutions today, while OpenWrt has a more idealistic development philosophy and intends to perfect the firmware core, no matter how many rewrites and how much time it takes. This difference in development attitude creates a complimentary atmosphere that benefits everyone.

So how easy is this to install? Follow the screen shots from here at Installation

written by dcaddick

So it’s a pity that I can’t do anything to upgrade my Netgear 834G as with the new ADSL2+ service I’m currently only able to get about 5 - 6 Mb out of it - but essentially these hacks are not meant to improve speed or performance - more like gaining added features from products that have now been left behind by the developers as they now work on the latest gear?

Still, I though this useful to share if you were looking for a fix for these products?

Supercharge Your Wireless Router With Open Firmware

From Wired How-To Wiki

A Linksys Wireless-G broadband router (WRT54GL). Image courtesy of Cisco Systems

Consumer-grade wireless routers — your standard Linksyses or Belkins — do their job well enough much of the time. But there are some juicy features offered by high-end commercial routers that just don’t come with the home package. We’re talking features like quality of service (QoS) management, adjustable transmission power, and support for IPv6.

If you need (or just geekily crave) these features, you can shell out cash for a pro-grade router, or you can get them for free by installing new firmware on a cheap home router.

Got extra advice? Log in and add it.

Contents

[hide]

• 1 What You’ll Need
• 2 Customize Your Router
  • 2.1 Find a Compatible Router
  • 2.2 Get the Firmware
  • 2.3 Install the Firmware
  • 2.4 Use the Firmware

more at source…
Supercharge Your Wireless Router With Open Firmware - Wired How-To Wiki

written by dcaddick

Recently I have been looking in to some issues relating to mixed Novell and AD Authentication at customers sites and there does not seem to be too much information that is readily available so I thought it might be useful if I post some of the details and links here as a helper to others?

One of the most interesting points is that it would appear that Novell really hasn’t done much to the Novell Client in quite a while, and even with the advent of Vista it has not so much revisited the classic 4.91 SP4 version but simply created a new one from scratch that has no backwards compatibility or any relationship to the 4.91 version….

Also something to be aware of is that quite some while back it would appear that Novell did try for a Catalogue of sorts that may or may not have been somewhat similar to AD’s implementation but it was dropped from NDS ver. 8.x and above - so if you are trying to get Contextless Login working the only other real alternative is to use a method of creating an Alias for all Users in one specific OU and then referencing all Logins to search that one specific OU at login.

Now if you are like me, this appears to be almost laziness on the part of the developers? Surely they could do better than this? And even if you do get Contextless Login working what it actually amounts to is that the user can use either the short User ID <davidca> or the UPN <david.caddick@novell.com> and when you either use:

• Tab Key
• Mouse to move to the Password box
• Click on OK

you will then find that the Contextless Lookup is evoked and your user name is changed to match the Case of exactly what it is the NDS

Anyway, here is the documents that might prove useful if you are investigating similar issues?

One of the most useful documents would appear to be this one: 

Configure AutoAdminLogon for Novell Clients for Windows NT/2000/XP

AutoAdminLogon can be implemented in any of the 5 combinations listed below. For each version of the client, we will describe which combinations can be implemented and how to implement those combinations.

Auto login to NDS and NT
Auto login to NDS and manual login to NT
Auto login to NT and manual Login to NDS
Auto login to NT and disable login to NDS
Manual login to NDS and NT

There is also this document that is more specific to Terminal Server/Citrix Presentation Server XenApp Server environments:

LDAP Contextless Login in Terminal Services Environments

In all versions of the Novell Client for Windows 2000/XP/2003 prior to and including Novell Client 4.91 SP3, the LDAP Contextless Login support will only perform a contextless lookup if a user interactively changes the contents of the "Username:" field or the "Tree:" field of the Novell Client login dialog.

As such, the LDAP Contextless Login support was not able to benefit scenarios involving Windows Terminal Services environments where TSClientAutoAdminLogon was being used in conjunction with credentials pre-supplied in the terminal connection, and/or with TSClientAutoAdminLogon in Citrix Metaframe environments that were launching published applications.

The widely used workaround for this limitation was to move or alias eDirectory users into a single container, such that in absence of contextless login support the terminal service environment could successfully default to a single context for all eDirectory user logins.

If you do have issues relating to getting Contextless Login working correctly the most authorative document I could find would appear to be this:

Setting Up LDAP Contextless Login and LDAP Treeless Login

Several large Novell customers have used LDAP Contextless Login to facilitate the merging of several trees in to one global tree. Before LDAP Contextless Login, users were often annoyed by being required to change their context information in the login screen when changes took place in the tree structure. This resulted in IT costs to manage and support the change. LDAP Contextless Login makes it easier for users to work in the new global tree because it makes it unnecessary for the users to manage or know about changes to their organization’s name or its placement in the hierarchy. Because users no longer need to enter their context to authenticate, the context can be changed on the back end as many times as necessary without the users needing to know and without the costs associated with managing and supporting these changes.

The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) is an Internet communications protocol that lets client applications access directory information. It is based on the X.500 Directory Access Protocol (DAP) but is less complex than a traditional client and can be used with any other directory service that follows the X.500 standard. Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) Services for Novell eDirectory is a server application that lets LDAP clients access information stored in eDirectory.

If your network has LDAP Services for Novell eDirectory set up on your eDirectory tree and you are running Novell eDirectory 8.5 or later, users who are logging in to the network from Windows can log in to the network without having to enter their context in the Novell Login screen. To log in, users need to know only their username, password, and the name of the tree that is running LDAP Services. Optionally, you can also have users log in to the network without having to specify the eDirectory tree name.

User objects can be located in the tree by username or e-mail address. You can also enable wildcard searches. If wildcard searches bring up multiple usernames, the user is prompted to select his username.

written by dcaddick

So as I’m going to be attempting this in the next few weeks it is interesting to note that this would appear to still be an issue with the RTM of 2008 as the Hyper-V is still in beta.

Another note mentioned that you don’t actually reinstall:

You don’t really need to reinstall anything. You only have to reset System & Default User regional settings to original (default EN-US) settings and then reboot the server.
Ciao,
Alessandro

Still, worth keeping mind if you are after the Hyper-V service?

Please refer to Ben Armstrong’s post here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2007/12/13/hyper-v-beta-now-available-for-download.aspx

1. You need to install using ‘English (United States)’.  If you install with any other language (or flavor of English) Hyper-V will not work.  However - you can change the local / keyboard preferences for your user after installation without any problems.

Hyper-V on Win2008 RTM - VMM service fails to start?

written by dcaddick

Back when I was focused on Citrix Servers and helping people get the best out of existing Terminal Server and Citrix Server installations it was somewhat surprising how many Applications AND Developers all do their own thing in whatever way they like with no regards to Standards like these.

There was similar material from Microsoft regarding Server 2003 and I always kept the details in template email ready for when asked. Anyway, these links below should start you off in the right place?

Windows Server Software Logo Program Online Forum

• Participate in the Windows Server Software Logo Program Online Forum where you can chat with other developers, post questions, and discuss technical topics, problems, and suggestions.  This forum is monitored by Microsoft staff who can answer both business and technical questions.

Windows Server 2008 Home page

• Home page for the Windows Server 2008 operating system.

Get Windows Server 2008 RC0

• Download an evaluation copy of Windows Server 2008 RC0.

Certification Tool for x86

• The tool to run Windows Server 2008 certification in-house, the same tool the test vendors use.

Certification Tool for x64

• The tool to run Windows Server 2008 certification in-house, the same tool the test vendors use.

Works with Tool

• This highly-automated tool will help you quickly determine baseline compatibility with Windows Server 2008

System State Analyzer Tool

• Create two snapshots of fixed drives, registry settings, drivers, and services at different points in time and compare them to view differences.

Windows Server 2008 Application Compatibility Cookbook

• The Cookbook covers the most common application compatibility issues and provides tips how to modify your applications or redesign them to help provide a quality experience with Windows Server 2008 and/or the Windows Vista operating system.

Top 10 Steps for Developing Applications on Windows Server 2008

• This document details the top 10 issues to avoid when developing applications for Windows Server 2008.

Windows Server 2008 Software Logo Specifications

• Technical requirements of a server application and its client components must meet in order to become Certified for Windows Server.

Windows Server 2008 Software Logo Test Framework

• The Framework describes tests that verify an application’s compliance with Works with Windows Server 2008 requirements.

Windows Server 2008 Works with Specifications

• Technical specification outlining requirements that allow server applications to receive the Works with Windows Server 2008 designation.

Windows Server 2008 Works with Test Framework

• Includes detailed information for technical managers and testers preparing software applications for the Works with Windows Server 2008 program detailed information verification tests.

Windows Server 2008 Technical Library

• Microsoft TechNet page with detailed information on Windows Server 2008 technologies.

Developer Curriculum for Windows Server 2008

• Designed for software developers and solution architects, this fast-paced seminar series provides on-demand webcasts and labcasts about the new features and technologies in Windows Server 2008.

Microsoft ISV Zone

• Portal for ISV developer training and events on MSDN.

Microsoft INNOVATE ON Windows Server

written by dcaddick

Quite a few manufacturers and vendors of Laptops these days incorporate some kind of roll back, recovery or backup system that allows you to effectively reset the Laptop back to default - this is all well and good, IF, you have really trashed it to the point that it won’t boot at all - but if you want to get back to the way it was after the Corporate SOE was applied or back to the way it was when you had just finished adding all the Apps and had it running just nicely, well that’s a whole other ball game?

Well is it? It’s nice of IBM to provide a nice blue ThinkVantage button - but unless I’ve misread the details in the docs - this will set my Laptop back to a factory default - hardly conducive to productivity?

So what I have done in the past is cobbled together a few tools to enable me to save an image (Ghost, whatever…) of the laptop to a Local partition so that in an event that leaves me unable to get the beast working correctly, missing System Restore Point, too many installed apps, too many apps being uninstalled, etc. I can simply reboot, pause and choose the E drive and then from there restore using ghost back to a known point.

So how easy is this? Relatively simple.

Grab an Eval of a Partitioning tool and first of all create a D and an E drive. D is where all the Data is going to live so this will typically be the rest of what you have spare, E drive will contain the Ghosted image of C drive so it typically only needs 10Gb or less.
(So on an 80Gb drive you would typically have 15 - 20Gb for C, 10Gb for E drive and D Drive will have 50 - 55Gb)

Now to make it easy we’re not even going to re-install the OS, you don’t need to, but if you do want to make sure you find where all the drivers are before starting because this will save you having to download them from the web later. You will probably find them on the Recovery CD or hidden away in the C drive somewhere?

So essentially the main steps are:

• Partition the disk into 3 drives (C, D and E)
• Format E drive as FAT32 (only needed for DOS version of Ghost32)
• Use a Win98 Bootable CD to SYS E Drive and make it bootable
• Install Ghost (or your choice of Image Utility) in E Drive
• Install a Boot Loader/Switcher Utility (or get funky with Boot.ini?)
• You’re done

I have just followed this method for some time and because it works, it’s simple and it is reasonably fast I haven’t bothered changing my approach for some time - but I’m sure there are a huge number of different ways to do this, and I’m sure there are some who would insist on installing BartPE or similar in the E drive as the bootable system to enable the imaging process - but my point would be that simply using the DOS components of Win98 are far quicker and use less resources - besides, it’s not like we should need the networking - this is essentially a disk-to-disk job?

Others might also want to use Acronis or some other tool, but again, I’m familiar with ghost and at least for me “it does what it says on the tin!”
If you really want to get carried away it’s always possible that you could make this a whole lot simpler if you have an imaging tool like Symantec’s Live State Recovery because then you do away with the whole need to reboot to image - but some while back this product was around the 500 pound mark so it’s a bit serious when all you want to do is image a Laptop?

So - get the partitions sorted, make E Drive bootable, then install the Imaging tool on E drive.

Now continue to “tweak” your laptop for the next few weeks as you install all those tools that you’ve remembered that are absolutely must haves, then when you are happy with it - reboot and redirect the boot to E Drive, image C Drive and store the image on E Drive remembering to set compression on high to save on space.

MAKE SURE YOU NOW STORE ALL YOUR DATA ON D DRIVE!!!!! - this is the whole point of this. Make sure that every time you install an application that the data or output is stored in D Drive - THIS IS ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT FOR OUTLOOK ETC. MAKE SURE THE *.PST FILES ARE IN D DRIVE!!

You’re done

I have in the past even had a laptop play up on a return from a customer and reflashed the laptop while on the train - I was done and back up and working inside 10 minutes

Please feel free to drop me a note if you have any other ideas or alternatives?

Links to tools:

Tighten up Windows XP (or Vista) and remove all that resource hungry bloat ware? Then build it in to your custom Bootable ISO. XP SP2 can be made as small as 250Mb installed - seriously!!
http://www.nliteos.com/nlite.html and http://www.vlite.net/

As it says, find all those tools that deserve a home on your Hard Drive? You can find a few Partitioning Tools here.
http://www.pricelesswarehome.org/

Multiboot tool
http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-mini/Multiboot-with-GRUB.html

Boot Loader and Imaging software
http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/diskdirectorsuite/multibooting.html

My personal choice of bootloader
http://www.osloader.com/

written by dcaddick

So for those of you who have seen or been feeling the issues recently relating to MS’s **hidden/silent** update to the Windows Update client components Scott has now come back with not only an alternative, but a solution that further adds value by being able to check other applications and components.

In all fairness though I would strongly suggest that you ALWAYS make a point of checking that you have created a **valid** System Restore Point before updating things so that you can very easily roll back to a known point? I have been caught by this in the past and it’s not nice to have to spend an evening to try and get things working again - only to have to resort to a previous ghosted image and then try to remember all the extras that you need to reinstall…..  <sigh>

Get free patching without Windows Update

By Scott Dunn
My Sept. 20 and Sept. 27 articles about silent and flawed upgrades involving Windows Update have made many people wonder whether they should really trust Microsoft’s installer.
Fortunately, there are alternatives to Windows Update that will keep your system fully patched without costing you a dime.

It’s easy to replace Windows Update’s functions

In my previous columns, I reported that Windows Update has been periodically installing at least a few small executable files without notice to users, even when those users have selected a do-not-install option in the Automatic Updates control panel. This stealthy behavior upsets many people, but they don’t want to completely do without a method of installing new security patches from Microsoft.
Windows Update (WU) does three things when it scans a PC: it determines which upgrades are needed, downloads the relevant files, and ultimately installs them. Fortunately, you can replace each of these tasks without spending any money.
In doing so, you give up some of the ease of automation offered by WU and Microsoft Update, WU’s big brother, which also upgrades Microsoft Office applications. But the good news is that using alternatives makes it easier to update software from all major vendors, not just Microsoft.
In two previous articles, I explained how to determine which security upgrades a system needs. The best free scanner to diagnose your patching needs is currently Secunia.com’s Online Software Inspector. My Sept. 9 article explains how to use the service with Internet Explorer. A Sept. 13 article explains the steps using Firefox.
I’ll show you today how to add to your monthly Software Inspector routine an alternative to Windows Update.
Not many completely free alternatives exist, but there are a few that are worth examining:
• The Software Patch
• Windows Updates Downloader
• Microsoft Download Center
• AutoPatcher
• WindizUpdate

The Software Patch is my number-one pick

The best updating tool I’ve found is a service called The Software Patch (SP). This Web site provides not only Microsoft security updates but also a great deal more. The site includes necessary hardware drivers and updates, Microsoft Office and WordPerfect service packs, patches for Adobe and Corel products, updates for games, and more.

Pros of using SP. The Software Patch has many positive attributes:

• The site is well organized, grouping its downloads hierarchically by product type (hardware or software), then by subcomponent, and finally by whether an update is "essential" or "optional."
• The service links to the vendors’ own sites (Microsoft, Adobe, etc.) to download updates, so you don’t have to worry that the patches were somehow altered by a third party. Since SP doesn’t store patches on its own server, the service is unlikely to run into legal tangles with Microsoft.
• I was able to download and install a handful of Windows patches from Software Patch on a test machine. Windows Update had failed to install these same patches due to the bug I reported in the Sept. 27 issue.

Cons of using SP. No site is perfect, of course. Among the downsides to using the Software Patch are the following:

• The site is supported by advertising, including pop-up ads, some of which manage to evade pop-up blockers.
• The site has no downloads for Windows 2000 or earlier versions of the OS.
• Navigating to Microsoft.com via SP doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily avoid being checked by Redmond’s servers for Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) compliance. For example, if you download Microsoft’s Windows Defender, a WGA check is built into the program’s installer. (But also note that Microsoft.com doesn’t currently require WGA compliance to obtain most of its security patches rated "critical.")
• Software Patch lacks some useful tools found at Microsoft’s Download Center — for example, MBSA (Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer). In cases like this, you can usually find an alternative source for the program. For example, FileHippo.com offers a download of MBSA, both the current version 2.0.1 and the beta version 2.1.

  Figure 1. The Software Patch site provides ways to upgrade a wide variety of products.

More at source… Get free patching without Windows Update

written by dcaddick

Looks like MS have not had a good month on this subject? Still, looks like there is light at the end of the tunnel?

Stealth Windows update prevents XP repair

By Scott Dunn
A silent update that Microsoft deployed widely in July and August is preventing the "repair" feature of Windows XP from completing successfully.
Ever since the Redmond company’s recent download of new support files for Windows Update, users of XP’s repair function have been unable to install the latest 80 patches from Microsoft.

Repaired installations of XP can’t be updated

Accounts of conflicts with XP’s repair option came to our attention after Microsoft’s "silent install" of Windows Update (WU) executable files, known as version 7.0.600.381, was reported in the Sept. 13 and 20 issues of the Windows Secrets Newsletter.
The trouble occurs when users reinstall XP’s system files using the repair capability found on genuine XP CD-ROMs. (The feature is not present on "Restore CDs.") The repair option, which is typically employed when XP for some reason becomes unbootable, rolls many aspects of XP back to a pristine state. It wipes out many updates and patches and sets Internet Explorer back to the version that originally shipped with the operating system.
Normally, users who repair XP can easily download and install the latest patches, using the Automatic Updates control panel or navigating directly to Microsoft’s Windows Update site.
However, after using the repair option from an XP CD-ROM, Windows Update now downloads and installs the new 7.0.600.381 executable files. Some WU executables aren’t registered with the operating system, preventing Windows Update from working as intended. This, in turn, prevents Microsoft’s 80 latest patches from installing — even if the patches successfully downloaded to the PC.
I was able to reproduce and confirm the problem on a test machine. When WU tries to download the most recent patches to a "repaired" XP machine, Microsoft’s Web site simply states: "A problem on your computer is preventing the updates from being downloaded or installed." (See Figure 1.)
Figure 1. After a repair install of XP, which resets the operating system to its original state, Windows Update can’t install the 80 most-recent patches from Microsoft.
__________
Most ordinary Windows users might never attempt a repair install, but the problem will affect many administrators who must repair Windows frequently. Anyone who runs XP’s repair function will find that isolating the cause of the failed updates is not a simple matter.
Beginning in July, it is not possible for Windows users to install updates without first receiving the 7.0.6000.381 version of nine Windows Update support files. (See my Sept. 13 story for details.) If Automatic Updates is turned on, the .381 update will be installed automatically. If AU is not turned on, you’ll be prompted to let Windows Update upgrade itself before you can installing any other updates. Consequently, users are forced to get the silent update before they can attempt to install Microsoft’s latest security patches.
The problem apparently arises because seven of the DLLs (dynamic link library files) used by WU fail to be registered with Windows. If files of the same name had previously been registered — as happened when Windows Update upgraded itself in the past — the new DLL files are registered, too, and no problem occurs. On a "repaired" copy of XP, however, no such registration has occurred, and failing to register the new DLLs costs Windows Update the ability to install any patches.
Registering DLL files is normally the role of an installer program. Unlike previous upgrades to WU, however, Microsoft has published no link to an installer or a downloadable version of 7.0.6000.381. Strangely, there’s no Knowledge Base article at all explaining the new version. The lack of a KB article (and the links that usually appear therein) makes it impossible for admins to run an installer to see if it would correct the registration problem.
One possible fix is to install an older version of the Windows Update files (downloadable from Step 2 of Microsoft Knowledge Base article 927891) over the newer version. This involves launching the installer from a command line using a switch known as /wuforce.
That corrects the registration problem, although even in this case you must still accept the .381 stealth update (again) before you can get any updates. The fact that the /wuforce procedure solves the problem suggests that the installer for .381 is the source of the bug.

Manually registering files solves the problem

If you find that Windows Update refuses to install most patches, you can register its missing DLLs yourself. This can be accomplished by manually entering seven commands (shown in Step 2, below) at a command prompt. If you need to run the fix on multiple machines, it’s easiest to use a batch file, as Steps 1 through 5 explain:
Step 1. Open Notepad (or any text editor).
Step 2. Copy and paste the following command lines into the Notepad window (the /s switch runs the commands silently, freeing you from having to press Enter after each line):
regsvr32 /s wuapi.dll
regsvr32 /s wuaueng1.dll
regsvr32 /s wuaueng.dll
regsvr32 /s wucltui.dll
regsvr32 /s wups2.dll
regsvr32 /s wups.dll
regsvr32 /s wuweb.dll
Step 3. Save the file to your desktop, using a .bat or .cmd extension.
Step 4. Double-click the icon of the .bat or .cmd file.
Step 5. A command window will open, run the commands, and then close.
The next time you visit the Windows Update site, you should not have any problem installing the latest patches.
In my articles in the last two weeks on the silent installation of the Windows Update support files, I stated that the stealthy upgrade seemed harmless. Now that we know that version .381 prevents a repaired instance of XP from getting critical patches, "harmless" no longer describes the situation. The crippling of Windows Update illustrates why many computer professionals demand to review updates for software conflicts before widely installing upgrades.
"I understand the need to update the infrastructure for Windows Update," says Gordon Pegue, systems administrator for Chavez Grieves Engineers, a structural engineering firm in Albuquerque, N.M. "But I think Microsoft dropped the ball a little bit communicating how the system works. Administrators should know these sorts of things, in case problems arise."
A Microsoft spokeswoman offered to provide an official response about the situation, but I received no reply by press time.
If you ever need to run the repair option on XP, first see the detailed description provided by the Michael Stevens Tech Web site.
I’d like to thank Windows Secrets contributing editor Susan Bradley for her help in bringing reports of this problem to light.
Have a tip about Windows? Readers receive a gift certificate for a book, CD, or DVD of their choice for sending tips we print. Send us your comments via the Windows Secrets contact page.
Scott Dunn is associate editor of the Windows Secrets Newsletter. He has been a contributing editor of PC World since 1992 and currently writes for the magazine’s Here’s How section.

written by dcaddick