Troubleshooting Daylight Saving Time Changes

It’s good to know a few facts before we go about troubleshooting DST changes.

By default the PDC in your domain becomes the Time Provider for the clients in a domain. So the first domain controller installed will become Stratum: 1 time provider.

If the PDC was decommissioned and role was transferred to a different DC then it would be necessary to run the following command on it to make it a Stratum: 1 time provide or a reliable time source for the domain.

w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:time.windows.com,0x9 /syncfromflags:manual /reliable:yes /update

Above command would make the DC or any member server you run it on a reliable time source for the workstations in a domain. Other DCs would automatically be Stratum:2 servers that means that they will get their time from PDC and will also be time source for workstations so they are client/servers.

For the DST changes to be applied correctly first make sure that all clients have all current windows updates installed by WSUS or directly from Microsoft. If there are still issues with some computers then see if following helps.

1. Try to restart Windows Time Service

        net stop w32time && net start w32time

1. If that doesn't fix it then consider the following:

• Make sure that the clients are configured to get time from a the Domain

Run the following commands in the same order

         w32tm /config /syncfromflags:domhier /update

         net stop w32time && net start w32time

• TimeZone related information is saved at three locations in registry

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Time Zones

And the Time service parameters

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Time Zones" is often updated by Microsoft and is applied through windows updates.

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time" has the configuration for the time service that includes where the machine should get its time from, whether this computer is a time server or a client/server or just a client and much more.

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation" when nothing works these settings do their magic when it comes to DST changes.

Problem Cases

1. So you have already restarted the time service on a client and still it displays wrong time.

1. Event log says that the client is getting time from the correct DC but still time is displayed wrong.

1. You have setup the TYPE to NT5DS by running the command [w32tm /config /syncfromflags:domhier /update] which would force the clients to get the time from PDC but still it is displaying wrong time.

Solution

Find a computer that has correct DST applied - a computer that doesn't have problem

Go to the registry and export the following

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation

And make sure to add the following entry at the end the exported reg file

"DisableAutoDaylightTimeSet"=dword:00000000

This would make sure that the "Automatically adjust clock for daylight saving changes" is checked or enabled so you don't have the same issue.

The computer a txt file with the names of all computers that have problem and use the following command to apply changes (make sure to have pstools installed)

Psexec –s @txtfilewithcomputernames.txt regedit -s path\to\regfile.reg

Restart the computers

Hope it helps. Happy DST!!

Check the following for more info: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/914387

Remove Duplicate Contacts in Microsoft Outlook 2003, 2007, 2010

Here is what Microsoft suggests

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HP100985411033.aspx#2

But if someone has thousands of contacts then it will take care ages to to click on each duplicate and select, one might need to get a physio session to recover from those clicks. I had around 5oo duplicate entries in my contacts in Outlook because I was testing ActiveSync on an Exchange Server with my mailbox and the client I used had some default settings that duplicated all contacts.

Anyways I could recover my contact list in a minute but I thought this exercise might be helpful to someone out there.

Export your contacts to a CSV file

Import it and while importing contacts chose the following option “Do not import duplicate items

Click on next and then finish, all duplicates should be eliminated.

Office 2010 Web App on SkyDrive

Microsoft has slowly caught up with the web and have been offering great features to boost up the use of live ID or hotmail.

25GB free space in SkyDrive

and now Office 2010 Web Apps, the interface is flawless, much better than Google Docs. I have nothing against Google Docs I use it quite often but when I tried the Microsoft Office Web Apps I realized what Google Docs has been missing.

I have to say, I am impressed with this initiative of Microsoft and thank God now I can use Office on some of my Dinosaurs at home ;-)

Add Trusted Sites in Internet Explorer – Keeping users’ existing list

I received a call from a colleague asking if we could add a few intranet sites to each users Trusted Sites list. I said “Sure” that should be easy, send the list of sites.

Hmmm!! Easy!! Yea but not too easy.

Because if I use a group policy for this, users wont be able to add any site to the list. Which might be a great thing from security point but in our environment its just not acceptable.

So I had to think of a different method.  While changing the trusted zone settings manually I used Procmon.exe to record changes in registry and and found that the Trusted Zones are saved in the following location

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains

Now I felt better because there are many ways to deploy these settings but I used Group Policy Preferences. Easy and Clean.

1. Added the intranet sites to my Internet Options – Trusted Sites

2. Opened the existing GPO for Internet Explorer

3. Navigated to User Configuration –> Preferences –> Windows Settings –> Registry

4. Right Click Registry and chose New –> Registry Wizard

   
   

5. Select Local Computer –> Next and Just Chose the Domain or the sites that you added to the Registry location mentioned above.

6. Make sure to tick/check all the values

That’s it! It will now apply to all users while they have their own list of Trusted Zones.

Microsoft TechNet Wiki Beta Launched

TechNet has served Windows Administrators and Users for many years, this Wiki would be a great addition if Microsoft gets its act together in optimizing their search algorithms.

Check out the TechNet Wiki page here

Microsoft Pink Phone

It's finally official: Microsoft Pink -- the product of Redmond's acquisition of Danger -- has just been unveiled as a pair of handsets sourced from Sharp (which made most of Danger's Sidekicks) known as the Kin One and Kin Two. The devices are being marketed as Windows Phones, and while they're ultimately based on most of the same underpinnings of Windows Phone 7, it's a distinctly and totally different experience -- the entire user interface is custom to Kin with a heavy social media slant, a custom browser (we're told it's based on the Zune's browser), and surprisingly, zero support for third-party apps. The displays are capacitive with support for multitouch (yes, you can pinch and zoom in the browser), but there's no support for in-browser Flash or Silverlight…… Read Full Story Here

 

More Info:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/KIN/

Father of the PC Dr. Henry Edward Roberts Died on 1 April 2010

Dr Henry Edward Roberts was the inventor of the Altair 8800, a machine that sparked the home computer era.

Bill Gates and Paul G. Allen contacted Dr Roberts after seeing the machine on the front cover of a magazine and offered to write software for it.  The program was known as Altair-Basic, the foundation of Microsoft's business……

Read for more details

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8600493.stm

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/business/03roberts.html

The Windows Enterprise 90 Day Trial Has Been Extended

Microsoft’s marketing and advertising strategy for Windows 7 has been well planned and executed. This is another smart move for creating  a stronger customer base.

Read the full article here - 90 Day Trial Has Been Extended

List of Top Free Windows Administration Tools

This is a comprehensive list of Windows Administration Tools available for free. There are some great detailed reviews about tools, all of these review are written by Michael Pietroforte.  I like his reviews as they are informative and honest.

Windows Administration Tools 

Above is a precious collection of any Systems Administrator.

XP Mode Without Hardware Virtualization

For those who have machines with no Hardware Virtualization support – You can use XP Mode in windows 7. Microsoft has launched an update to Windows Virtual PC that enables running XP Mode without Virtualization support.

Read the following KB for more details.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/977206

Download the update from from following locations.

• For 32-bit host operating systems:http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=837f12aa-1d37-464e-ae59-20c9ecbebaf6
• For 64-bit host operating systems:http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e70dd043-e262-43c0-a002-446567f1e2b4

Microsoft previews IE9

After the success of Internet Explorer 8, Microsoft didn’t delay the next browser in line. To stay updated with Features and new capabilities of Internet Explorer 9 visit http://www.ietestdrive.com/ 

You can also download the Platform preview from the above location.

Enable File Content Search in Windows 7

Search is one of the strong features of windows 7, some on us might find it not too useful because by default Windows 7 only search within the file in an Indexed location. So there is no visible option like XP to search text within a file.

To enable File Content Search option there are two options

Option 1 (Searches will be a little slow)

• Go to Tools –> Folder Options or Organize –> Folder and search options
• select “Always search file names and contents” option in Search tab.

 Option 2

• Add the Directory or Drive to Indexed locations from Indexing Options.

Note: If the location is already being indexed and still its not searching the content of certain file types. Use the following option to make sure its being indexed correctly.

• Click on Start menu and type Indexing
• Choose Indexing Options
• Click on Advanced
• In File Types find the Extension you are looking for and click on it.
• In the “How should this file be indexed?” select “Index Properties and File Contents”

Error while importing option “6.” while moving DHCP database from Windows Server 2008 to another Windows Server 2008/2003 or 2008 R2

 

To move DHCP from one server (2003/2008) to another you can use the following steps

1. At the command prompt type netsh dhcp server export C:\dhcpdata.txt all , and then press ENTER.

Note: You must have local administrator permissions to export/import the data.

Configure the DHCP server service on the server that is running Windows Server 2008

1. Add DHCP Server Role
2. Make sure to Authorize DHCP while installing the Role.

Import the DHCP database

1. Copy the exported DHCP database file to the local hard disk of the Windows Server 2008-based computer.
2. At the command prompt, type netsh dhcp server import c:\dhcpdata.txt all and press ENTER

If might receive the following error

“Error while importing option “6.” “This option conflicts with the existing option “” An Internal Error Occurred.”

It is because by default when you install DHCP Server Role, it puts the following entries in Server Options.

006 DNS Server
015 DNS Domain Name

To fix the Error –> Just delete the above two entries from Server options and Run the Import DHCP database command again.

Outlook 2007 crashes on Import/Export

Lets say you are trying to export your contacts to a Tab Delimited Text file or CSV file. The process begins but outlook crashes right away leaving the following event in your event log

Event ID: 1000
Source: Microsoft Office 12

Discription:
Faulting application outlook.exe, version 12.0.6514.5000, stamp 4a89dc70, faulting module oladd.fae, version 12.0.6500.5000, stamp 49a6ed5f, debug? 0, fault address 0x00008c24.

One of the reasons why it might happen is that Microsoft Exchange Management Tools for Exchange 2007 are installed on the computer and Microsoft says it not supported.

To Fix it

Open command prompt and type fixmapi and press enter (there will be no notification, its instant)

Make sure Outlook is closed while you do the above, reopen Outlook and try to Export it should now work fine.

Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 logon delays

Consider the following scenario:

• You have a computer that is running windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2.
• You set a solid color as the desktop background.
• The Desktop Window Manager Session Manager service is running.
• You log on to the computer locally.

In this scenario, the Welcome screen is displayed for 30 seconds during the logon process.

So if you like a plain desktop, its not necessarily what Microsoft thought was the case.  One of the reasons why you might face the issue of delayed logons can be that you have chosen a solid color for your desktop.

see the following link for more details and a hotfix.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/977346