Offline files service error: The system cannot find the path

Problem: we need to enable offline files in a windows 2008 r2 workstation. Starting the Offline files service only shows the error "The system cannot find the path".

Solution: the procedure to enable offline files in windows 2008 is documented in the following link http://www.win2008workstation.com/win2008/enable-offline-files-feature. Just in case the URL is broken anytime in the future, I am copying the most important part below:

Prerequisite: You must have the Desktop Experience feature installed.

1. Download and install the appropriate version of Windows Mobile Device Center from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/devicecenter.mspx. This doesn’t have to do with any Windows Mobile device, but it is needed to get the Sync Center option in the Control Panel.

2. In the Start menu click Control Panel.

- If you use the Modern View, click the Network and Internet section and click Enable offline Files.

- If you use the Classic View, doubleclick the Offline Files icon.

In the Offline Files window click Enable Offline Files to start using offline files.

3. Close the Enable Offline Files window by clicking OK and choose Yes when asked if you want to restart your Computer.

4. After the restart go to the networking folder you want to make offline available, right click on it and select Always Available Offline. A local copy will now be made.

Preem Palver´s note: after installing the 64 bit version of the Mobile Device Center, I got a message saying that there was an error installing the driver. However after rebooting the machine it worked fine.

Enabling Easy Print Printer Redirection in Windows 2008

In order to enable Easy Print based printer redirection in Windows 2008 the following requirements are needed:

On the (Terminal) server-side, Windows Server 2008 needs to be installed.  No additional drivers need to be installed; no additional configuration needs to take place.  The Terminal Services Easy Print driver is enabled by default.

On the client-side, to use the Terminal Services Easy Print driver, clients must be running Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) 6.1 and Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 Service Pack 1 (SP1) must be installed. on the RDC configuration, put a check mark on the Printers option under "Local Resources" tab.

If you want to have more control over what type of printers you can redirect, the following registry configuration must be implemented:

Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Terminal Server Client\Default\AddIns\RDPDR (if there is not such key, create the needed structure by yourself). Add a DWORD value FilterQueueType with any of the following decimal values:

FilterQueueType = 1           All ports that begin with LPT
FilterQueueType = 2           All ports that begin with COM
FilterQueueType = 3           All ports that begin with LPT or COM
FilterQueueType = 4           All ports that begin with USB
FilterQueueType = 5           All ports that begin with LPT or USB
FilterQueueType = 6           All ports that begin with COM or USB
FilterQueueType = 7           All ports that begin with LPT, COM, or USB
FilterQueueType = FFFFFFFF    All ports

Close the registry and reboot the client machine.

Error al cargar el formulario en el software Formularios DIMM del SRI

Problema: Al usar el software ¨Formularios DIMM¨del Servicio de Rentas Internas del Ecuador (SRI), se muestra el mensaje el siguiente mensaje de error al cargar la ventana de formularios: ¨Error al cargar el formulario¨.

Solución: El problema se da porque no está instalado en el sistema operativo la fuente Arial Narrow (archivo arialn.ttf). Esa fuente no está instalada por defecto (al menos en Windows XP). Aplicaciones como Microsoft Office la instalan o hay enlaces en el Internet que ofrecen descargarla. No se si hay temas de licenciamiento involucrados pero, al menos para la solución técnica del problema, copiar la fuente de un equipo que si la tenga instalada a otro, resuelve el mensaje de error específico.

Información extra para Windows Vista / 7: Windows Vista y Windows 7 usan el control de cuentas de usuario para evitar cambios dañinos en el sistema. Esto implica que a pesar de ser parte del grupo de administradores locales, no se permiten ciertos cambios en partes críticas del sistema, como el registro. Las aplicaciones modernas deberían solicitar elevación de privilegios para proceder pero la del SRI obviamente no lo hace. Para asegurar que el instalador de la aplicación registre todos sus componentes correctamente en el registro (por ejemplo controles OCX) se debe ejecutar el instalador setup.exe como administrador. Para esto, hacemos clic con el botón derecho sobre setup.exe y luego escogemos "Ejecutar como Administrador" desde las opciones del menú desplegable. Si ya existe la instalación, el escoger reparar de las opciones que muestra el instalador debe ser suficiente para volver a registrar los componentes faltantes.

Luego de iniciar por primera vez, el software del SRI, en monitores grandes, dice que el tamaño de la letra es pequeño. Es solo una devertencia y se la puede obviar. Sin embargo, en caso de problemas con tipos de letras se puede éscoger la opción de compatibilidad siguiente en el acceso directo al software del SRI Deshabilitar el ajuste de escala de la pantalla si se usa la configuración elevada de ppp `.



Más información sobre las opciones de compatibilidad en versiones nuevas está en este enlace http://windows.microsoft.com/es-ES/windows-vista/Make-older-programs-run-in-this-version-of-Windows. Se muestra información de Vista pero en Windows 7 es casi lo mismo.

Marzo 31, 2012


Un análisis de qué hace el programa al abrirse usando la herramienta Process Monitor muestra que el programa necesita la versión 4 del analizador de XML de Microsoft puesto que hace llamadas a la librería msxml4.dll. La versión en español puede descargarse acá: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/es-es/details.aspx?familyid=7f6c0cb4-7a5e-4790-a7cf-9e139e6819c0

Interesantemente también se muestra que usa DLLs antiguas de Visual Basic 6 como VB6ES.dll, msvbvm50.dll o similares lo que me hace seguir pensando que en el SRI siguen usando esta venerable herramienta de desarrollo para este programa y por ahí puede estar parte de sus problemas.

Para las personas técnicas o aquellos que les gusta investigar un poco más de lo normal (o como diría un conocido ufólogo "No me crean, investiguen"), pueden descargar Process Monitor desde este enlace y ver por ustedes mismo lo que hace el programa del SRI

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645

Antes de abrir el programa del SRI vayan al menú Filter y escojan Filter ... Luego configuren para que el process Name sea DIMM.exe como se muestra abajo.

Windows desktop shortcuts opened with the same application

Problem: All shortcuts in the Windows Desktop shows the same icon and Windows try to open them with the same application (for example Adobe Reader, a picture manipulation software and so on). This is not a problem for a whole computer but only for a particular user profile

Resolution: In the faulty user profile go to the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.lnk

The folder OpenwithProgids should only have the default  - REG_SZ - (value not set) and lnkfile  - REG_NONE - (zero-length binary value) values listed. If you have other values, delete them, close the registry editor, logoff from the current windows session and logon again.

Errors 2275 and 1632 when you try to install software in Windows 7

When you try to install MSI based software in Windows 7, you receive an error message with codes 2275 and 1632. Both codes are related to the fact the %windir%\Installer folder cannot be created or read even if you are running the installer as an administrator. As a workaround, you can manually create the Installer folder and that solves the problem.

802.11 WLAN credentials are automatically stored by Windows XP

Problem: When configuring Windows XP in order to connect to an 802.11 wireless LAN, credentials are automatically saved to user profile. So, every time the computer restarts, they are used again. This is a problem for Helpdesk Technicians who test the connection using Administrative credentials and then deliver the machine to the end-user.

Solution: Check Microsoft article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/823731 which summary is:

To remove your cached user credentials that are used for PEAP authentication, delete the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\dot3svc\Interfaces\{InterfaceGUID}\UserData\Profiles\ registry key. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, and then click Run.


2. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.


3. Locate, and then click the following registry key:
   
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\dot3svc\Interfaces\{InterfaceGUID}\UserData\Profiles\


4. On the Edit menu, click Delete.


5. Click Yes when you are prompted to confirm the deletion.


6. Exit Registry Editor.


7. Reboot the machine (this step is mine)

Internet Explorer Enhanced security runs despite being turned off

Problem:
In a Windows 2008 Terminal server non-administrative users get IE ESC prompts despite it is turned off for such users

Resolution:

Put these lines in a batch

---------------------------------------------------------------

Rundll32 iesetup.dll, IEHardenLMSettings
Rundll32 iesetup.dll, IEHardenUser
Rundll32 iesetup.dll, IEHardenAdmin

rem Optional to remove warning on first IE Run and set home page to blank or anything else.
REG DELETE "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main" /v "First Home Page" /f
REG ADD "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main" /v "Default_Page_URL" /t REG_SZ /d "about:blank" /f
REG ADD "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main" /v "Start Page" /t REG_SZ /d "about:blank" /f

---------------------------------------------------------

Use the following article to run the batch in the terminal server: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/195461

For more information about the reason for this problem, check this: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsserver2008r2general/thread/c5572fc7-6e92-46f8-824d-baca246e3106

Cannot see more than 4GB of RAM in task manager

Problem: You have a system with Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 2008 with more than 4 GB of RAM. You can see in the System Properties that there is more than 4GB but when you see the Memory value in task manager you see only 4 GB of RAM

Solution: open an elevated command line window (run as administrator) and type the command

BCDEdit /set PAE forceenable.

Reboot the machine

Name a file based on computer date and time

Problem: we need a Windows batch command file to backup some information into a file and that file must be named based on the date and time of the computer.

Solution:  a script like this should do the required task

rem perform de backup tasks and save the resulting file on a directory, for example e:\backups

rem with a any file name, for example backup.bkf

rem change the current directory to the same where the backup file was created

cd e:\backups

rem proceed to rename using the for function

for /f "tokens=1-6 delims=/: " %%d in ("%date%:%time%") do rename "e:\backups\backup.bkf" ANYTEXT%%d_%%e_%%f_%%g-%%hh%%i.bkf

The command line above can be read as follows:

for the text on %date:%time% split it on tokens taking the characters / or : as delimiters. Use only the tokens 1 to 6 and assign them to letters beginning from d. Finally, rename the file “e:\backups\backup.bkf” with the name formed by the tokens %d,%e,%f%,%g,%h and %i.

The resultant file name can have additional characters. In my example, I am appending the ANYTEXT string to the file name, using the ‘-‘ character to separate date and time on the file name, and including an ‘h’ to separate hour and minutes.

Some examples on the Internet shows the same command but using the tokens 1 to 5. It is important to see how the date and time are actually displayed on the server you are going to run de script in order to choose the right number of tokens. To do that, in a command line you can type date or time and then press ENTER. If the date is not showing the first three letters of the day (for example, Mon for Monday),  you can use the tokens 1 to 5. In my case, my server was showing those three characters before the date and I needed tokens 1 to 6.

Finally, you can run the for command directly on the Windows command line in order to test the rename procedure and being sure that the file is named as you want. However, please take into account that on the command line you don´t need to use the double %% before the token letters. For the command above to be run on the Windows Command line directly, the syntax should be:

for /f "tokens=1-6 delims=/: " %d in ("%date%:%time%") do rename "e:\backups\backup.bkf" ANYTEXT%d_%e_%f_%g-%hh%i.bkf

 

Slow saving from Office Applications with Windows 7

Our problem: after upgrade some laptops from Windows Vista to Windows 7 we found that Office 2007 applications took a lot of time (more than 30 seconds) to save any document in a either a network share or a local SharePoint site. This behavior was not occurring in other operating systems like Windows Vista, XP or Windows 2003/2008 Terminal Server working with the same documents.  Even installing a fresh copy of windows 7 over the same laptops did not resolve the problem

Solution: There are some forums in the Internet that mention SMB as the reason for this problem. In our particular scenario, the solution was to disable the Indexing of Offline files in Win7 clients. The procedure is:

1)      Type Indexing Options in the search box over the start button

2)      Press the Modify Button

3)      uncheck the "offline files" option

4)      Restart the equipment.