Kazmarek Technology Blog

Terminal Server Printing Resources

Robert Masterson — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 21:20:59 +0000

Links to sources for Terminal Server printing issues/fixes

Microsoft Technet - Configure settings for mapping client devices - link

Brian Madden - The Ultimate Guide to Terminal Server Printing - Design and Configuration - link

Brother Printers - Universal print drivers for Terminal Servers and Citrix - link

MS Terminal Services Blog - Windows Terminal Services Printing - link

Microsoft - Terminal Server Printer Redirection Wizard Tool - link

Microsoft - Choosing the right printer drivers - link

KTS - Terminal Server category - link

Windows Mobile 6 / 6.1 Freezes or Hangs when Unlocking

Tracy Sales — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:15:04 +0000

I recently experienced an issue where my Motorola Q9c from Verizon was hanging up for 1 - 2 minutes when I would try to unlock the screen. Normally, you press the unlock soft key and the screen will display a prompt to press the * key to complete the unlock process. With the problem I experienced, it was hanging before showing me that prompt and my phone would be unusable for about 1 - 2 minutes. After this happened, I checked my task manager and found the “Text Messages” process consuming a good chunk of resources. I forced this to quit and my phone would be fine until I wrote another text messsage and that process respawned.

After trying a few things, I found that this issues was actually caused by the text prediction feature and the size of the text prediction history cache. If you are having the same problem, try turning this feature off, or at least clearing the history. Here’s how:

Select “Text Input Settings” from the main settings menu.
To Disable this feature, clear the “Suggest words when typing” option
To clear the history, access the menu by using the right soft key and select “Clear Input History”

Word or Excel File Opens Slowly When Double Clicked

Tracy Sales — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:01:29 +0000

I recently experienced a strange issue with a client where office documents from Word and Excel (.doc and .xls) would open very slowly when double clicked. If you first opened the respective application and then selected the document from the open menu, it would open almost instantly. After exhaustive research, I found the issue was related to the Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) settings for those applications. More on DDE can be found here.

The corrective action was to modify the “Application used to perform this action” string in the DDE settings. Here it is step-by-step:

Open folder options from within the control panel.
Select the tab for file types.
From the list, select the document extension you are having trouble with (.doc or .xls)
Click the advanced button
Append the string “%1″ including the quotes to the end of the existing “Application used to perform this action” string. If the existing string ends with a “/dde” remove that.
Click OK and try again.

Granular Restore Option in Backup Exec 12 with Exchange 2007

Robert Masterson — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 00:15:25 +0000

With the newer versions of Backup Exec and Exchange 2007, Granular Recovery Technology (GRT), a requirement of the Microsoft Exchange Server MAPI Client and Collaboration Data Objects needs to be downloaded and installed on the Exchange/Media server. Microsoft has updated the Mapi and CDO to 1.2.1 to include Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008. 64bit servers have no problem installing.

Link to download.

Event: 0 Source: BMDS in Application Event Log

Tracy Sales — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:41:08 +0000

A recent eventlog entry was occurring very often and seemed to occur after an update of the Java runtime. The error reported was :

======================

Event Type: Error
Event Source: BMDS
Event Category: None
Event ID: 0
Description:
The description for Event ID ( 0 ) in Source ( BMDS ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information…

======================

I found that the soution was to modify the path used for the Java runtime files to the most recent version. The registy key is:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\BlackBerry MDS Connection Service\ImagePath

This contains a long string. Its easiest to copy the string to notepad to work with it. Locate the path to the java runtime files within the string (it will look something like this: “\Program Files\Java\jre1.5.0_07\”) and replace it with the most current path. Restart the Blackberry MDS service and you’re done.

Configuring printer registry settings for Windows Terminal Server

Shayne Comey — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 21:30:02 +0000

Following the installation of a printer driver on at Windows 2003 Terminal Server, it’s good practice to check out the registry to make sure the driver is not using an unsupported Monitor or Print Processor.

To check for the presence of a print monitor:

1) Open Regedit

2) Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\Windows NT x86\Drivers\Version-3

3) locate the newly installed driver by name, click on the key (folder)

4) In the right hand pane you will see a series of settings, look for the Monitor string

5) The Monitor data field should be clear as print monitors are not supported in a TS environment, if you see anything listed there, delete it.

For the print processor:

1) The printer should been connected at least once to the Terminal Server in order for it to show up in the list at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers

2) Navigate to that key in the registry and locate the printer by name in the list

3) In the right hand pane you will see a series of settings, look for the Print Processor string

4) The only supported Terminal Server print processor is the default, WinPrint - if the driver you installed is using a different print processor, replace it with WinPrint.

Once you’ve made these changes, test the printer to make certain it functions via TS.

What directories to exclude antivirus scanning Exchange 2007

Danny Kazmarek — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 21:51:52 +0000

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb332342(EXCHG.80).aspx

Backup Exec fails jobs on corrupt file(s)

Robert Masterson — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 22:14:07 +0000

Backup Exec by default will report a failed backup if corrupt files are encountered. Backup Exec also sees open files ie. QuickBooks databases that are open when the backup is running as a corrupt file. If you want to disable this in Backup Exec, go to regedit and modify the following registry entry from 1 to 0: Fail Jobs on Corrupt Files

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VERITAS\Backup Exec\Engine\Backup

http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/193940.htm

Winmail.dat File Received by Non-Exchange Mail Server Without Attachment Included from Exchange 2007 Server

Danny Kazmarek — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:28:10 +0000

Situation: Exchange 2007 has a contact (not a mailbox) within the GAL that end-user uses to email instead of using the actual non-exchange email address. The non-exchange (network solutions) user does not get attachment sent (Word, Excel, etc.), but does get a winmail.dat file attached.

Fix: Launch Exchange Management Console, goto Recipient Configuration/Mail Contact container, open up contact you’re having the issue with, on the ‘general’ tab change the ‘Use MAPI rich text format’ drop-down to ‘Never’ and test.

Vista ReadyBoost Flash Drive Requirements

Danny Kazmarek — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 19:40:50 +0000

Compatibility and requirements:

The capacity of the removable media must be at least 256 MB (250 after formatting)
Devices larger than 4 GB will have only 4 GB used for ReadyBoost
The device should have an access time of 1 ms or less
The device must be capable of 2.5 MB/s read speeds for 4 KB random reads spread uniformly across the entire device and 1.75 MB/s write speeds for 512 KB random writes spread uniformly across the device
The device must have at least 235 MB of free space
NTFS, FAT16 and FAT32 are supported
The initial release of ReadyBoost supports one device
The recommended amount of flash memory to use for Windows ReadyBoost acceleration is one to three times the amount of random access memory (RAM) installed in your computer