The first is CPU-Z by CPUID.  This handy little freeware utility gives you the lowdown on the CPU, motherboard, memory and OS information of your systems.    When trying to identify the components of a whitebox computer remotely from hundreds of miles away, this tool is the best.

The other tool is the Crucial System Scanner tool.  This cool tool will run from a network share or flash drive, with no installation needed.  Once it runs, it gives you a nice readout with information on what board/chipset you have, how much memory is currently installed, and what RAM will work with your system.  Crucial will of course be happy to sell you compatible memory, but armed with the information they’ve given you you can search around for the best memory for the price.

A nice bag of tricks that takes all of the guesswork out of memory upgrades.  Thanks CPUID and Crucial!

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN>STSADM.EXE -o addtemplate -filename c:\Templates\JobRequisition.wsp -title JobRequisition -description JobRequisition

Cannot find or parse web template file c:\Templates\JobRequisition.wsp.

I downloaded different copies of the template from all over the web, but I kept getting the same message:

After a couple of days of searching Google, I finally found the answer:

wsp file extensions take addsolution, not addtemplate

And after changing the command just a tiny bit – I finally had sucess:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN>STSA
DM.EXE -o addsolution -filename “c:\Templates\jobs\JobRequisition.wsp”

Operation completed successfully.

If I had read the “readme.txt” file that came with every copy of the file I downloaded, I would have figured this out about a day quicker…..

Finally, don’t forget to deploy the solution before trying to make a site with it.  Full instructions can be found on the TechNet site at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288412%28office.12%29.aspx

Fortunately there is a “trick” that will let you restart a machine.  Press “CTRL-ALT-END” to bring up the “Windows Security” window (just like CRTL-ALT-DEL would locally).  Click on the “Shut Down” button.

and then pick “Restart” from the drop down menu in the “Shut Down Windows” window, and click “OK”.

Your computer or server will be on it’s way to a fresh start.

All of the solutions listed wanted you to uninstall the Terminal Services Licensing Service from your server and re-install it.  This would have required a couple of reboots and taken way longer than I wanted to have the system down.  Fortunately I came across a better solution that was quick and easy:

Start regedit and delete the following keys:

HKey Local Machine\Software\Microsoft\TermServLicensing\Certificates.

HKey Local Machine\System\CurrentControlSet\services\TermservLicensing\Parameters\Certificates.000

H Key Local Machine\System\CurrentControlSet\services\TermservLicensing\Parameters\Certificates.001

Then stop and restart the service and you’re back in business!

1. Click Start > Control Panel > Sounds and Audio Devices
2. Click the Sounds tab
3. Scroll down the list under Program Events. Under the Windows Explorer section, highlight Start Navigation.
4. Under the Sounds box, select (None) > OK, close Control Panel

Here’s how to nuke the sound in Windows Vista:

1. Click Start > Control Panel > Sound
2. Click the Sounds tab
3. Scroll down the list under Program. Under the Windows Explorer section, highlight Start Navigation.
4. Under the Sounds box, select (None) > OK, close Control Panel

Peace and quite is now restored.  I, however think that whoever decided that opening a link, or a folder needed it’s own sound should be beaten with a bag full of “Made for Windows” stickers.

So what’s a guy who wants to use his local network servers in a terminal services session to do?  A little registry tweaking will take care of this for you.  In regedit, create a DWORD value named FilterQueueType in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Terminal Server Client\Default\AddIns\RDPDR and set its value to FFFFFFFF.

Of you cam download a file to make the change for you here.  Unzip it and double click the .reg file to make the needed changes to your registry.

1) Clearing Temporary Internet files in Internet Explorer:

In internet Explorer, go to: Tools>Internet Options>General
Under “Browsing History”, press the “Delete” button.
Uncheck “Preserve Favorites website data” if it exists, and check “Temporary Internet Files”.
Press the “Delete” button, and once it has deleted all temporary files, reboot and try Windows Update again.

2)Check that the Background Intelligent Transfer Service to is set to Automatic and verify the Status is Started.

Click Start, Choose Run, and in the Run box, type services.msc, Click OK
Locate the Background Intelligent Transfer Service service, and right-click to select it.
Select Properties, and in the Startup Type list, select Automatic. Verify the service
Status is Started. Click OK.

3). Check that the Set Event Log service is set to Automatic and verify that the Status is
Started

Click Start, Choose Run, and in the Run box, type services.msc, Click OK.
Locate the Event Log service, and right-click to select it.
Select Properties., and in the Startup type list, select Automatic. Verify the Service
status is Started. Click OK.

4)  Register qmgr.dll and qmgrprxy.dll

Click Start, Choose Run and in the Run box, type regsvr32 qmgr.dll, Click OK.
Click Start, Choose Run and in the Run box, type regsvr32 qmgrprxy.dll, Click OK.

5) It is possible that the contents of the SoftwareDistribution folder have become corrupted,
so try Renaming the SoftwareDistribution folder

Click Start, Choose Run.
In the Run box, type services.msc.
Click OK.
Right-click the Automatic Updates service.
Click Stop.
Stopping the service will take a moment.

Rename the “SoftwareDistribution” folder:
a. Click Start, click Run, type: %systemroot%
Click OK.
b. Right-click the SoftwareDistribution folder, and then click Rename.
c. Type SoftwareDistribution.old, and then press ENTER to rename this folder.

Click Start. Choose Run.
In the Run box, type services.msc.
Click OK.
Right-click the Automatic Updates service.
Click Start.
Starting the service will take a moment.

Please note that your update history is contained in the “datastore” folder and when you
rename the Software Distribution folder, the history is lost but it’s not important. You
can if need be, copy the contents back from the renamed softwareDistribution.old folder.
Losing the history of Windows Updates is not important.

After hours of reading through TechNet articles, forum posts and the like, I found the very simple answer: uninstall .Net 3.5 and 3 first.  After it’s big brothers were gone, .Net 2 gracefully uninstalled.  Now anyone want to make me a bet if ACT! will start running again with a clean install of .Net?

Download the patched version: termsrv_sp3_patch.rar

Installation instructions
1. Go to C:\Windows\system32\dllcache and rename the termsrv.dll to termsrv.dll.bak
2. Go to \Windows\System32 folder and rename termsrv.dll to termsrv.dll.bak
3. Copy the new SP3 patched termsrv.dll to \Windows\System32 folder
4. Run the included registry patch “ts_concurrent_session_patch.reg” (by double clicking it), it will update the relevant registry values which are relevant to the concurrent sessions support.
5. Restart windows.

I found that in addition, I needed to rename and copy the termserv.dll to %windir%\ServicePackFiles\i386, as well as copying it to dllcache.

I also found that if your machine is on a domain, you’ll need to run the registry patch after each logon.  Besides that, it’s working like a charm.  I’ve had 5 concurrent sessions on my box and haven’t even noticed a slowdown from the console.

I was able to disable the updates by setting the EnableJavaUpdate key to 0 in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\JavaSoft\Java Update\Policy\

Just to make sure, I also deleted the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\SunJavaUpdateSched to prevent the update utility from starting.

No more pop up windows = happy users!