Peter Steier's Computer Troubles

If you want to know why Nokia will perish…

petersteier — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 18:54:30 +0000

… just connect any Nokia device via USB to a PC: endless Installation of “drivers”, probably bloatware. If you do the same with an Android device, you can access the SD card contents after a few seconds. My laptop now is “installing” for some 15 minutes after I connected my wifes Nokia 3710 fold…

A SAMSUNG N150 for my wife

petersteier — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 19:32:07 +0000

I fetch the netbook I had given to my mother and set it up for my wife.

First problem: sleep mode not available. I have to stop “SAMSUNG Fast boot”: See http://www.windows-7-forum.net/windows-7-allgemeines/19601-ruhezustand-win7-starter-aktivieren-geht.html, a typical case of bloat (crap) ware.

Samsung seems to be another of those stupid companies bloating their customers. Please consider: these are customers who have paied. The have paid because they do not want adware. If you bloat them, they will buy another harware next time. We want a clean Windows (or Android) if we buy your Hardware. If you could do better than Microsoft or Google, you would sell software, not Hardware.

If your marketing department tells you different, fire them. They sell only temselves, not your products. If you are the CEO of SAMSUNG and from the marketing department, plese tell me, I will sell my shares. This company is doomed.

After disabling Fast Boot I can configure the suspend to disk.

Set up a WebDAV in Apache

petersteier — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 10:26:40 +0000

/etc/httpd/conf.d/steier.conf:

# Special entries for peter steier’s webdav

Options FollowSymLinks Includes MultiViews
AllowOverride AuthConfig Options Indexes
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
AddDefaultCharset utf-8
IndexOptions Charset=utf-8

.htaccess:

Options +Indexes
AuthName “Zugriff nur mit UserID (hoerer260108) und Passwort!”
AuthType Digest
AuthDigestProvider file
AuthUserFile /wwwera2/steier/Arbeit/Lehre/Praktikum/Elektronikpraktikum/WS2010/.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
Require valid-user
SSLRequireSSL

htdigest -c /wwwera2/steier/Arbeit/Lehre/Praktikum/Elektronikpraktikum/WS2010/.htpasswd ‘Zugriff nur mit UserID (hoerer260108) und Passwort!’ hoerer260108

Windows indexer changes modification dates of .eml files

petersteier — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 20:16:24 +0000

Since I have just reinstalled my Vista, I check whether my bugfixes are still in place; I copy here some info I did put on another blog:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itprovistasp/thread/8dc21ddc-9c87-40f6-a43e-96325ea14f96#7e080428-644a-41f6-aee2-7ad458461349

————————————————

I have not used Vista, but encountered this problem with Windows 7 RC, and I have been unable to use W7 because it messed up my .EML archive. I thought this was related to Windows Live Mail, as the problem did not exist when I uninstalled WLM.

However, while investigating this further, I discovered the following:

1. The problem with .EML date stamp exists out of the box with a fresh install of Windows 7, without installing any applications, and in particular without installing WLM.

2. The problem continues to exist when WLM was installed.

3. The problem stops when WLM is uninstalled.

Comparisons of the registries for these three situations revealed that in (1) and (2), a .eml entry exists under

\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\PropertySystem\PropertyHandlers

This .eml entry is gone once WLM is uninstalled.

After reinstalling WLM, this key entry reappears, and the date stamp problem starts again. However, deleting this key entry and rebooting causes the date stamp problem to stop. Adding back the registry key makes the problem start up again.

The PropertyHandlers key seems to be related to search, but I haven’t noticed any problem resulting from its deletion, admittedly with limited experience.

This workaround may have solved the problem in Windows 7 RC, at least so far. Perhaps this also applies to Vista.

———————————————

Also, I may not be using the registry terminology accurately– e.g., what are considered “keys” and which are not “keys”. I am referring to simply the .eml branch under

\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\PropertySystem\PropertyHandlers

in the Windows 7 registry.

R Sposto

——————————–

I still have this problem on Vista ultimate, newest updates. To make sure I understand the information in this thread:

1) the .eml files change to the present date when they are indexed by the search indexer; this is, a few seconds after creation. Thus, backup/restore/sync will not work properly, but indexing.

2) if you delete that mentioned registry key, then the indexing of .eml files no longer works, i.e. you cannot find them in a full-text search. However, backup works now.

3) it is unknown whether the other solution, proposed by alecamiga, to link .eml to thunderbird and write lock the files, does the same or works better.

I have some 10000 .eml from 20 years, and I need search indexing and automatic backup. Maybe I have to switch to linux.

————————————

Hello Peter

I am on Windows 7 Professional 32, and I simply delete the registry key, which solves the changing date stamp problem. The .eml files still are indexed, with the CLSID_WLMCMimeFilter, and I can find them by name or by content. I don’t remember, though, whether I had to go into indexing advanced options and reestablish this filter for .eml file. I don’t think so, but perhaps check if .eml appear in the files types being indexed.

RSposto

————————-

Thank you! I deleted the key, and the MIME filter for .eml indexing was still in place. Full text is still found in the e-mails, as far as i can say so far. Sorry for the late response, I lived for half a year without complete backup.

And, by the way, I have to develop a shell script to restore the modification date of my 10,000 e-mails. Thank you, microsoft, for this feature.

Peter Steier

—————–

Now the key is still there. When I try to delete it in regedit, there is an error message, and I cannot delete it. However, a few reboots later with switched of UAC I can delete all entries and leae only the empty “folder”.

Microsoft seems to consider backups and search indexes unnecessary. Probably all their customers are doddlers playing only computer games, but doing no productive work.

word press advises me to add the following words to increase my site traffic: technet microsoft, date stamp, software microsoft, registry key, and machine software. Actually, I need no traffic, as long as I can look up my own pages later.

Windows Vista search index notoriously loosed .pdf filter

petersteier — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 08:49:44 +0000

22.3.2010 Yesterday evening the index was ready; however, it has not indexed the pdf files! I look in the web and see that there is some information about .pdf filters only indexing the file name…

23.3.2010 What I found out: apparently, SearchIndexer was only crawling the file names (called properties) with the “Standard Settings” I had reset. It has lost the filter for PDF, which is installed when Adobe Reader is installed. I reinstall AdobeReader 9.x, touch some .pdf Files, and search for some words in the context – the files appear immediately.

I see whether I can force an update of only the pdf files (I do not want to touch them all, to avaoid loosing the file data): maybe checking and unchecking the file type .pdf in the inexer options: no, Vista warns that the index has to be rebuilt for that also; I check the full-text search again and allow Vista to rebuild the index. I fear this will take two weeks again.

07:41 OpenedFileView: C:\Users\steier\Documents\papers_einsortiert\BNFL2002_Sellafield.pdf; I try whether this file is in the index: it is!

08:30 OpenedFileView: C:\Users\steier\Documents\Arbeit\mails\erledigt081002\E.M.Wild to P.Steier, Poster.eml: I try whether the content of the .ppt attached to this mail is found: yes, it is!

2011-10-03

Again Vista seems to have lost the Adobe .pdf filter, it is grayed out in the indexing options. Presently, it still finds some pdf’s, but progrssively less. I think if I open a pdf, it disappears from the next search! These companies are a complete bunch of idiots. Fast full text search is an absolute requirement for productive work – who has another opinion probably has some 25 files and is a doddler playing with the computer only.

I decide to reinstall Adobe Reader X and hope this installs the filter. The Windows installer gives a strange message that the installer is installed incorrectly? Actually, Reader 9.4.5 is still installed, and cannot be deinstalled, because of the same stupid message.

I will make a system restore to the oldest restore point.

Unfortunately, this does not work! Vista stores only the least recent restore points, and apparently the problem was older than one month (I did not recognize it immediately). And the installer is completely broken; neither installing nor deinstalling anything works.

I try to repait the registry, but it seems to be ok. And Vista does not find any bugs in with sfc /scannow. The msiserver service is not running an net start msiserver just says that the service could not be started.

I decid to do a repair installation. I have an OEM Vista, so no installation disk. I find somebody who share a link to an iso image, and I burn the DVD. Then I find out my Vista Ultimate Key with some public domain software. Then I do a repair install; before that I do backups from all data which I think is important.

The first install says the disk is too full. I have to delete some temporary stuff, since my disk is too full. Accidently, I remove my notes on this topic (were on the desktop instead of sorted in). So I write from memory, without links etc.

The second repair install says that some software is incompatible: Windows Poer Shell; web says: on O.S Vista the Powershell program is listed as (Windows Management Framework Core KB968930). Open installed Windows Updates and locate this listing – uninstall.

However, this seems to be stuck in the middle of the deinstallation. May need the msiserver?

This Windows stuff is really pure ***. I think I have to throw away this two-year old, EUR 3000 computer; after bad experience, I know that setting up a Computer yourself from scratch takes some 80 hours of work, and finally not all will be ok again (i.e. ssh tunnels through loopback devices, etc.).

… hours later …

Apparently, did not fail completely. Therefore I censored the last paragraph. Still runs, and is now doing some updates (approximately 90). I think this means that the Installer works again.

Unfortunately, the sound stopped working. I reinstall the drivers for sound from the disk which came with the computer, but no improvement. I do not want to reboot the computer presently, since the Windows update is still running.

I install some workaround from http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/support/jsp/downloadDetail.jsp?soid=1671893&pf=true. This requires a reboot also. I will note later what happens.

After a few reboots, and downloading drivers from Toshiba, sound works. I apply the bugfix for Search Indexer changing the time stamp of .eml files, rendering any backup strategy impossible.

… three days later …

I find out that sleep mode (hibernate) no lenger works. It is no longer available in the start menu, and in the power saving options. I lear that one has to type “powercfg -h on” on a command line prompt as administrator to enable this (http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/re-enable-sleep-mode-in-windows-vista/). This is great fun, took only about 1 hour to solve. I have the feeling that patching one hole always opens another.

… 2011-11-20

After all, I have also reenabled screen rotation when I rotate the screen from laptop to tablet mode: I have to install something called ToshibaTabletPCExtension_v1001.exe, which I find ina subfolder of my “Installed Sofware Downloads” folder; unfortunately, while trying to find this, I have installed some “Toshiba value added …” junk on my computer. I hope it does not cause to much problems.

Temporarily map a folder into Dropbox

petersteier — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 19:08:49 +0000

Without comment, so far:

C:\Users\steier\Documents\GooDocs\Privat\Dropbox>mklink /J E-PraktSS2011 “C:\Users\steier\Documents\GooDocs\Arbeit\Lehre\Praktikum\Elektronikpraktikum\SS2011″

… and DropBox syncs local folder “C:\Users\steier\Documents\GooDocs\Arbeit\Lehre\Praktikum\Elektronikpraktikum\SS2011″ to Dropbox folder “E-PraktSS2011″.

Oops… does not re-sync when files are changed on Vista!What I wrote to the blog where is saw this hint:

Der Artikel ist Desinformation. Wie DropBox und symbolische Links under Windows funktionieren, kann’ snicht gehen: Dropbox erfährt eben nicht, wenn sich hinter einem symlink was ändert. Schade, dass Leute sowas schreiben und es nicht ausprobieren. Nur wenn man die synchronisierung pausiert und wieder fortsetzt, wird der Ordner neu nach Änderungen durchsucht.Der richtige Tip kommt von Lustikus: die Originaldaten in den Dropbox-Folder, und vom ursprünglichen Platz einen Symlink (wahrscheinlich besser eine Junktion?) einrichten.Im Web sind sich die Leute nicht einig, wie man Windows symlinks richtig löscht; ich kann die Junctions in den Papierkorb werfen, und die Daten sind auf der Dropbox immer noch da. Wenn ich in die Junction aber hineingehe (durch anklicken), bin ich eben wirklich im Dropbox Folder, und wenn ich dort was lösche, verschwindet es von der Dropbox!

What you have to do is move the original data into the dropbox folder, and then create the symlink from the previous position. This info is from

http://wiki.dropbox.com/TipsAndTricks/SyncOtherFolders and http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=19704

However, if you move or rename the folder in the dropbox, it will no longer be found through the symlink. And there are other problems, e.g. AlwaySync will follow the Junction like a Directory, and copy the files twice to the backup, which smells like data loss…

On Android, the dropbox app does not autosync files; the third-party app dropsync seems to use the time stamp as only criterion for changes. Also this is bound to fail. Apparently, the cloud is still a construction area with a lot of danger for my data.

Windows Media Player 11 won’t open

petersteier — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 21:10:56 +0000

The following solution from http://forums.cnet.com/7726-6644_102-2532473.html?tag=posts;msg2532473:

Windows Media Player 11 won’t open – Solution!

by e160877 – 7/5/07 6:27 PM

In Reply to: Windows Media Player 11 – Won’t Open at all… by st_loosh

I had the same problem and I believe I have solved the problem. Follow the instructions below:

1. Click Start, click Accessories, the right click on Command Prompt and choose “run as administrator”, then type regsvr32 jscript.dll, and then hit enter.

2. Type regsvr32 vbscript.dll then hit enter.

3. Now type exit and hit enter. Now try media player and it should work.

And again samba over ssh broken

petersteier — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 10:23:42 +0000

This time, the log in putty only shows:

2011-08-02 16:53:22   Local port 10.0.0.137:139 forwarding to lehre4:139
2011-08-02 16:53:22   Local port 10.0.0.137:445 forwarding to lehre4:139
…
2011-08-02 16:55:47   Opening forwarded connection to lehre4:139
2011-08-02 16:55:47   Forwarded port closed

I will try to debug this; grmpf. Once in the meantime, I had the same problem; it disappeared when I removed some windows update with system restore. This time I cannot try that before even the oldest available restore point has the same problem. Unfortunately, I had not tried to use the samba for some time.

Oops – I myself have broken my script to grap the loopback adapters ports before vista can do it – I had moved all my docs for automatic cloud sync into a “GooDocs” folder; so the link in the scheduler was broken. I repair it.

Archive messages from IMAP with Thunderbird Add-On SmartSave

petersteier — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:30:10 +0000

SmartSave settings:
Show report when finished
Extension: .eml
User defined format: [YEAR][MONTH][DAY]_[HOUR][MIN][SEC]_[RANDOM] (uses only numebrs- all the predefined formats fail if there is a special character in the subject, name, etc; the file is then missing!)
move all the messages you want to archive into one IMAP folder
File > Offline > Get selected files (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/reviews/display/2887) to download all message bodies (smart save will store the messages without warning and without attachments otherwise!).
Right click folder, “Export messages with smart save”
Wait… (you can look into the export folder to see the files arriving)
Check report for number of files, compare with number of files in IMAP folder, and number of files in local Windows folder.
Delete files from IMAP folder
Clean up names and dates of e-mails with my script below

Samba over ssh tunnels again broken

petersteier — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:08:28 +0000

Today, I can no longer access the samba through ssh mount. The putty log shows the following error messages:

2009-10-19 17:45:08 Local port 10.0.0.1:139 forwarding to lehre4:139 failed: Network error: Cannot assign requested address
2009-10-19 17:45:08 Local port 10.0.0.1:445 forwarding to lehre4:139 failed: Network error: Cannot assign requested address

Grmpf. Which address? 10.0.0.1 or lehre4:139? what does “assign” mean? – Again an error message which gives no sense. I find nothing useful with google. I do NOT want to look into the source code of putty!

I try reboot, change lehre4 to lehre4.rad.univie.ac.at, etc. Situation unchanged.

I have installed a aon wireless connection on my contryside house recently. This crappy connection needs a special software, it cannot connect with the windows wireless setup. Maybe this corrupts the setup?

Even if the putty is not running,
“c:\Program Files”\nc.exe -l -s 10.0.0.1 -p 445
yields
Can’t grab 10.0.0.1:445 with bind

I should work now, not play around…
I check my loopback adapter. ipconfig /all reveals that it has a strange ip-adress now? DPHC is activated! Refering to http://www.blisstonia.com/eolson/notes/smboverssh.php (what I used for setting it up) it’s ip should be 10.0.0.1 – somehow this has changed? I set the addresses to:
Ethernet-Adapter LAN-Verbindung 4:

Verbindungsspezifisches DNS-Suffix:
Beschreibung. . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft Loopbackadapter
Physikalische Adresse . . . . . . : 02-00-4C-4F-4F-50
DHCP aktiviert. . . . . . . . . . : Nein
Autokonfiguration aktiviert . . . : Ja
IPv4-Adresse . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.1(Bevorzugt)
Subnetzmaske . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Standardgateway . . . . . . . . . :10.0.0.0
DNS-Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 131.130.1.11
131.130.1.12
NetBIOS über TCP/IP . . . . . . . : Deaktiviert

Putty now yields:
2009-10-19 19:00:38 Local port 10.0.0.1:139 forwarding to lehre4:139
2009-10-19 19:00:38 Local port 10.0.0.1:445 forwarding to lehre4:139 failed: Network error: Permission denied

This looks good…
reboot.

Worked!

However, I suspect that there is still a problem: I think the aon stuff needs the loopback-adapter with 10.0.0.1 set to DHPC. Actually, it was no good idea from me to use 10.0.0.1 for my loopback-adapter: the first local ip adress, the chances that some program would collide were for sure high.

I decide to rebuild the stuff for my a new loopback-adapter 10.0.0.137.

I cite from http://www.blisstonia.com/eolson/notes/smboverssh.php with the adress substituted:
“
1. System->Control Panel->Add Hardware
2. Yes, Hardware is already connected
3. Add a new hardware device (at bottom of list)
4. Install the hardware that I manually select
5. Network adapters
6. Microsoft , Microsoft Loopback Adapter
7. (Go through the installation procedure.)

Now we configure the new localhost adapter.

1. Open up your existing (real) ethernet adapter and write down your gateway and DNS server addresses.
2. Open your new fake ethernet adapter (Network Connections) , enter a made-up IP address (I suggest 10.0.0.1, which is a privately routable address that most folk don’t use.)
3. Enable Client for Microsoft Networks.
4. Disable File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks
5. Enable Interent Protocol (TCP/IP)
6. Click on properties for TCP/IP.
7. Enter your chosen IP address (10.0.0.137), subnet mask (255.255.255.0), and gateway (Peter Steier: I guess 10.0.0.0) and DNS information you got from your real adapter.
8. Under advanced->WINS, Enable LMHosts Lookup and Disable NetBIOS over TCP/IP
9. Enter 9999 for the interface metric. (Necessary?)

At this point I had to reboot; it didn’t tell me to, but it wasn’t working.
“

Actually, I do not reboot, just disable/enable.

ipconfig /all
yields:
Ethernet-Adapter LAN-Verbindung 5:

Verbindungsspezifisches DNS-Suffix:
Beschreibung. . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft Loopbackadapter #2
Physikalische Adresse . . . . . . : 02-00-4C-4F-4F-50
DHCP aktiviert. . . . . . . . . . : Nein
Autokonfiguration aktiviert . . . : Ja
IPv4-Adresse . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.137(Bevorzugt)
Subnetzmaske . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Standardgateway . . . . . . . . . :10.0.0.0
DNS-Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 131.130.1.11
131.131.1.12
NetBIOS über TCP/IP . . . . . . . : Deaktiviert

Putty:
forward 10.0.0.137:139 -> lehre4:139
foward 10.0.0.137:445 -> lehre4:139

(lehre4 is our samba server; it serves only port 139)

I disconnect my Y: network drive and map it new to \\10.0.0.137\data
-> I get a connection! However, it probably woould not work after the next reboot, since vista would grab 10.0.0.137:445 then… change my boot script!

It looks now like:
REM batch file to start the smb service without port 445
REM Peter Steier 2009-02-28
start “bind_port_445″ “C:\Program Files\nc.exe” -l -s 10.0.0.137 -p 445 2>C:\temp\bin_port_445.log
net start smb
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 2 -w 1000 > nul
taskkill /fi “Windowtitle eq bind_port_445″
(remember, port 139 wasn’t the problem. So I could go back to the first version only blocking 445 from vista grabbing)

I set loopback-adoptor 10.0.0.1 to DPHC again, to avoid problems with aon wireless.

reboot…