I was trying to use Cisco’s Adaptive Security Device Manager (ASDM) to connect to our ASA in the office.  I was getting an authentication error but I knew my credentials were correct and it was working for another engineer.  The Java console contained the error “java.io.IOException: Authentication failure”.  I found several references to proxy issues related to this error, so I went to the Network Settings section of the Java app in the control panel and manually specified our proxy server (including the local bypass addresses) and it started working.  The proxy setting was set to “use browser settings” but obviously this wasn’t working.

Conditions:

1. Machines that used to run ISA Firewall client
2. Uninstallation of ISA Firewall client
3. New PROXY settings configured
4. SEP 11.5 installed.

Many machines began getting errors in the application logs from Event Source: crypt32, Event ID: 8.  The description of the error says “Failed auto update retrieval of third-party root list sequence number from: Read More...

I created a new tool to add to my arsenal of PGP recovery items. This came up when I really needed to do some file level work on a PC that wouldn’t boot and I couldn’t conduct a repair or get to the files because of the PGP whole disk encryption. I was able to take the Automated Installation Kit for Windows 7 and create a WinPE recovery ISO. From there, I found a PGP document (https://support.pgp.com/?faq=1526) that gave the steps as to how to inject the PGPWDE drivers in order to get authenticated.

Essentially, you can boot to this disk, run the command "pgpwde --disk 0 --auth -p <passphrase>" and from there, you can determine the encryption status, decrypt/encrypt disks, perform file level actions, add/remove passphrase users. One potential use for this, that I did not test, would be to boot to this disk, become authenticated, eject the disk and insert a Windows 7 installation disk, and perform a repair on the OS. The only potential problem I could see with this is if the Win 7 installation wrote over PGP’s MBR, but I’m sure that’s not too difficult to fix. In either case, it could potentially save a few hours of rebuilding time.

I have been having an annoying problem with right mouse clicks and Windows-E keystrokes for some time on my laptop. Finally, I got disgusted enough to spend the time to research and fix. It turns out that these problems are typically related to context handlers that are instantiated when you do the right mouse click on a file/windows background etc. There is a program from NirSoft called ShellExView which will list these programs that are available to the context menus. It allows you to disable a particular shell extension and test to see if that particular shell extension is causing your problem. One of our network engineers also reported that this happened to him when he had a program he removed (the removal process must be defective) and the context menu item was still available but missing.

Public folder permissions can be challenge with Exchange 2007, primarily because Microsoft removed the options from the GUI and replaced them with Powershell commands.  It’s particularly difficult to make mass changes because there’s not a single command to propagate permissions to all subfolders.  However Microsoft does provide Powershell scripts to help with this.  By default they are saved at C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\Scripts.  Read More...

I was working remotely on a customer’s network using a PPTP VPN connection. When my work was completed, I clicked on the network icon in my system tray expecting to find a “disconnect from” option for the connection.  It was not there.  I opened up Network and Sharing Center, but could not find a way to disconnect the session.  Finally, I disabled my network interface card (NIC) and re-enabled it.  That disconnected the session.

I knew I didn’t want to have to disable my NIC every time I used a PPTP VPN connection, so I looked for a solution.  I found an online forum that mentioned that this was a known issue. The workaround for this problem is: Read More...

I was trying to connect a VPN from Terminal Server that was recently upgraded to Windows 2008 and when I would connect, I would lose my terminal server connection completely.  I would then have to log my session from a different server using Terminal Services Manager.  I tested the same VPN connection on a local Windows 7 machine and experienced similar issues where all of my network connections were dropped upon connection. 

Upon examining the properties of the VPN connection entry, there was a checked setting to use the default gateway on the remote network.  Unchecking this box through the IPv4 properties stopped the disconnects from happening.  I also recommend unchecking the use of IPv6; it also has the same options to use the remote network’s gateway.  Read More...

Here's a helpful hint that will save you some time trying to figure out why your additional paper tray won't work after moving your HP printer.  I recently encountered this problem after moving an HP printer to a different spot in the same office.  After I plugged it back in the add on paper tray wouldn't work.  Turns out, the paper tray had to have power before the printer was turned on, or the printer would not recognize it.  Power applied simultaneously did not work.

We are continuing to work through issues with a new VMware View v4 deployment and we had another weird problem come up the other day. I had created a new linked clone desktop pool and View Manager had completed the automatic deployment of several desktops. However, when we would try to connect to the newly created desktops with the View client via PCoIP, we would get a very small (400x600) resolution window as the display instead of the full screen that we had requested. When we requested that PCoIP use multi-monitor display, this small display window would show up in the middle spanned across both monitors in the same small window. Right off I remembered one of a coworker's former gotchas about adjusting the resolution via the .vmx file and that seemed to fix it…however, it kept happening every time a new VM was created by the linked clone pool. I finally found after a VM is created, it must be restarted via the View Manager using the VM reset feature in order for the display settings in the VM to display correctly in PCoIP. Here is another article regarding this issue -> http://www.thatsmyview.net/2009/12/18/how-to-get-pcoip-with-view-4-to-work-every-time/

We had an issue where one of our customers could not synchronize any of his files on his laptop (the last time he tried was over three months ago). He continued to get an error saying “Access Denied” for each of the offline files he was trying to synchronize. After some troubleshooting I found that the error went away if the offline file encryption was turned off. Why was this causing the errors? Well after doing some more research I checked the group policy setting located under “Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Public Key Policies\Encrypting File System” and sure enough, the certificate there had expired around 3 months ago. Read More...

The RSA iPhone app displays a PIN to use for logging into a protected server.  The displayed PIN consists of two 4-digit codes separated by a space.   When you enter the code, do not enter the space.   The RSA software wants the numbers in one continuous block.