Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Windows 7 Install media command prompt hotkey

Boot to Windows 7 installation media.
At the "Install Windows" screen (the first screen), hit Shift+F10.  A command prompt will appear.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Zenoss / Windows Server 2008 WMI

I was getting the error "Could not read the Windows event log (NT_STATUS_ACCESS_DENIED). Check your username/password settings and verify network connectivity. " repeatedly on a few Windows Server 2008 machines.

I tested from a remote machine with wbemtest and received the message "Number: 0x80070005 Facility: Win32 Description: Access is denied.".

The user I was attempting to login with was a local administrator.

The culprit? User Account Control. After disabling UAC and restarting the server, I was able to use WMI remotely. It appears that UAC was authenticating the user at a non-elevated level, causing the security issue.

The idea of UAC is nice, but the execution is ugly.

Friday, March 2, 2012

MSI Error 1723: There is a problem with this windows installer package.

MSI file installation errors out with "1723: There is a problem with this windows installer package.". If you try to launch a .vbs file, you get the error message "Can't find script engine "VBScript" for script "filename""

This is caused by an invalid file specified in the following Registry Value:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{B54F3741-5B07-11cf-A4B0-00AA004A55E8}\InprocServer32\Default .

The value should, in most cases be "C:\Windows\system32\VBScript.dll"

In my case, it was set to "C:\Program Files\McAfee\VirusScan Enterprise\scriptsn.dll". Apparently this was leftover from a previously uninstalled copy of McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8.7i, which we no longer use.

In order to edit the value, you should edit the permissions on "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{B54F3741-5B07-11cf-A4B0-00AA004A55E8}\InprocServer32" to give Administrators Full Control.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Repair Missing / Incorrect Product Name in HP Desktop BIOS.

The Product Name / SKU Number / Serial Number in an HP Desktop BIOS are not available for editing by default.

While in the bios, press Ctrl+A , and then go to Security>System ID's. The missing editable fields are now available for editing.
wmic csproduct get name

Windows command line to return Model Name from BIOS. Tested with HP Desktops / Laptops successfully.