Car battery manufacturers

"Most auto batteries are made by just three manufacturers, Delphi, Exide, and Johnson Controls Industries. Each makes batteries sold under several different brand names."


"Exide makes Champion, Exide, Napa, and some EverStart batteries. Johnson Controls makes Diehard (Sears), Duralast (AutoZone), Interstate, Kirkland (Costco), Motorcraft (Ford), and some EverStarts."

Information Source:

http://shopping.yahoo.com/premium/consumerreports/silver.html?id=95700426

*This is more of a reminder for me, as the source post on this articles is gone and  know I will need this information again in the future.

Remove Dell OMCI Low Space Warning

The easy way out is to remove the OMCI application from the Add/Remove Programs, but if you need the application and only want the annoying alerts to go away, start the registry editor (start->run->regedit [enter]) and set the following key to 0:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\DELL\OpenManage\Client\SysInfo\HDDThresholdValue

If you don't find the key, make a DWord value called HDDThresholdValue and set it to 0.

Disable IPV6 in Windows Server 2008

Unlike Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, IPv6 in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 cannot be uninstalled. However, you can disable IPv6 in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 by doing one of the following:

• In the Network Connections folder, obtain properties on all of your connections and adapters and clear the check box next to the Internet Protocol version 6 (TCP/IPv6) component in the list under This connection uses the following items.

This method disables IPv6 on your LAN interfaces and connections, but does not disable IPv6 on tunnel interfaces or the IPv6 loopback interface.

• Add the following registry value (DWORD type) set to 0xFF:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip6\Parameters\DisabledComponents

This method disables IPv6 on all your LAN interfaces, connections, and tunnel interfaces but does not disable the IPv6 loopback interface. You must restart the computer for this registry value to take effect.

Manually move SEP 11 client to another parent server

1. Get the new Sylink.xml from the appropriate folder in the new parent server
- On the computer that runs Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager, go to:
"C:\Program Files\Symantec\Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager\data\outbox\agent\"
You will see folders with 32-character alphanumeric names, each representing a client group.
Find the folder corresponding to the first 4 unique Alpha-Numerals noted for the 'Policy Serial Number'.

2. On the client computer:
Start --> run --> smc -stop ( It will stop the service)

3. Copy Sylink.xml file from Step 1 and replace under c:\program files\Symantec\Symantec end point protection.

4. Start --> run --> smc -start (it will start the service)

5. Verify the client has been moved to the Default group in the SEPM console and move to the appropriate group if necessary.

What to do when CHKDSK keeps finding errors

Confirm that your hard disk or file system is not damaged.

Start your computer from the Windows XP CD-ROM, load Microsoft Recovery Console, and then use the Chkdsk command-line utility. This may solve your problem.

Important We recommend that advanced users or administrators use the Recovery Console. You have to know the Administrator's password to use the Recovery Console.

For additional information about how to check and repair a damaged hard disk by using Chkdsk, see the "Using the Recovery Console" and "Using the Recovery Console command prompt" sections in the following article:
307654 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307654/ ) How to install and use the Recovery Console in Windows XP
Note If the Chkdsk command reports that it cannot gain access to your hard disk, you may have a hardware failure. Examine all cable connections and any jumper settings on your drive. For more assistance, contact a computer repair professional or the manufacturer of your computer.

If the Chkdsk command reports that it cannot fix all hard disk problems, your file system or Master Boot Record (MBR) may be damaged or no longer accessible. Try appropriate Recovery Console commands such as Fixmbr and Fixboot, contact a data recovery service, or repartition and reformat your hard disk.

Important For more help, contact your computer manufacturer or a Microsoft Product Support Services professional.

Allow only qualified personnel to repair your computer. Computer repair that is performed by non-qualified personnel may nullify your computer's warranty.

If you repartition and reformat your hard disk, you lose all the information on the disk.

Source http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308041

Reduce SEM5 DB size (Symantec EndPoint Protection)

Use Dbunload.exe (under ASA folder in the SEP installation folder). If this tool does not reduce the size significantly you may try freeing up space in database by deleting rows in BINARY_FILE and ALERTS tables.

You can mount the sem5 database using DBSERV9.EXE located in \ASA\WIN32 directory. At the same time, create a System DSN ODBCusing the Adaptive Server Anywhere Drivers. The only fields you need to enter are: user name DBA, password, server name (copy from the default SEP System DSN entry) and IP address, in my case: "IP=127.0.0.1".

Now run DBISQLC.EXE and run the following queries, one at a time:

delete from BINARY_FILE

delete from ALERTS

Now you can run dbunload.exe to reduce the database size.


Backup your SEM5 DB before starting this procedure.
Run this at your own risk.

CISCO VPN Client does not work with mobile broadband on Windows 7

I have a computer with Windows 7 64 bit and CISCO VPN client ver. 5.0.07.0290. When I connect via VPN on my wireless network or wired network, the VPN client connects perfectly well and I am able to access computers over the VPN tunnel. However, when I'm using my AT&T mobile broadband card (data connect), the VPN client connects successfully but I am unable to access any resource over the VPN tunnel (no ping, no RDC etc).

Long story short, until CISCO fixes it's VPC client you have two options.

Option 1 is to download and use Shrew VPN Client. That will work just fine with Windows 7 64bit
Option 2 is to create a Dial Up Network to connect to your mobile ISP (that's what I did).

Make sure your HW is properly installed and working before configuring.

Requirements

• A valid SIM card.
• Valid profile information, including a username and password.
• The Access Point Name (APN) of your service provider.

You can find this information by accessing the Profiles screen in Watcher. Once you have your information, exit Watcher.

Add initialization command

1. Open the Control Panel.
2. Select Phone and Modem Options > Modem.
3. Select Sierra Wireless AirCard xxx HSDPA Modem in the list of installed modems.
4. Click Properties.
5. Select the Advanced tab.
6. Type the following command in the Extra initialization commands field:

at+cgdcont=1,"IP","apn", where apn is your Access Point Name
(e.g. for AT&T users, it could be at+cgdcont=1,"IP","ISP.CINGULAR")

Add a new network connection

1. Open the Control Panel.
2. Select Network and Sharing Centre > Properties.
3. Select Set up a connection or network on the left-hand side under Tasks.
4. Select Set up a dial up connection under Choose a connection option, then click Next.

1. Select Sierra Wireless AirCard xxx HSDPA Modem modem under Choose a connection option.
2. Type the following under Type the information from your ISP:
   • *99# for the phone number.
   • The user name and password provided by your service provider.(e.g. for AT&T users, username and password could be blank.)
   • A connection name of your choice. (For example, Aircard_DUN)

6. Click Connect. Vista will connect you to the Internet.
7. Select Browse the Internet now.
8. Select a preferable network location (Home, Work, or Public) under Select a location for the ‘Aircard_DUN’ network. Regular users should select Public.
9. Click Close in the Successfully set network settings screen.

You can manage your newly created connection from the Manage network connections option under Network Connections.

Fix KB974417 Installation Failure

Fix KB974417 Installation Failure—Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 2 Security Update for Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, and Windows XP

Microsoft’s KB974417—.NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 2 Security Update for Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, and Windows XP—fails to install in Windows Server 2003 SP2 / Windows XP SP3 reportedly when computers are part of a domain using Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).


Solution

Uninstall KB976569 (issued February 22, 2010), install KB974417 and then reinstall KB976569.

Make Linux use local time

If you have dual boot (windows/linux) and every time you switch from Linux to Windows your computer clock is wrong, it is because Linux is set by default to use UTC and Windows is set by default to use your local time zone's time (i.e. EDT, PST, etc).

To make your Ubuntu system read the hardware clock as 'local' :

1: edit /etc/default/rcS
2: add or change the following section:

# Set UTC=yes if your system clock is set to UTC (GMT)
UTC=no


REF: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuTime

Restore BACKSPACE functionality to take you to the previous page in Firefox on Linux

1. Type “about:config” in the address bar of Firefox and press Enter.
2. Type backspace in 'Filter' and look for ‘browser.backspace_action’
3. Change its value to 0 (zero).

More information

Background

The backspace key was mapped to the browser ‘Back’ function in Mozilla for consistency with Internet Explorer. However, to improve consistency with other applications running on Linux, it was decided that this mapping should be optional—and set based on which platform the browser was running on. As a compromise, this preference was created to allow the backspace key to either go back/forward, scroll up/down a page, or do nothing.

Possible values and their effects

0:
Pressing [Backspace] will go back a page in the session history and [Shift]+[Backspace] will go forward. (Default in Windows)

1:
Pressing [Backspace] will scroll up a page in the current document and [Shift]+[Backspace] will scroll down. (Default in Linux builds before 2006-12-07)

Other:
Any other integer value will simply unmap the backspace key. In Linux builds after 2006-12-07, the default is 2.

Reference: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.backspace_acti

Can't change home page in IE

Consider the following scenario:

- Internet Explorer starts with a page other than what you entered as home page.
- You change the home page to a different one but even so every time you start IE it goes to the other page.
- You have verified that the registry entry for IE is actually the website you entered as home page.

Cause: I addition to your home page which is actually stored as "Start Page" in the system registry there is another entry named "First Home page" that will, if present, be the first page displayed when you open IE. "First Home page" references a URL that is normally displayed only once and then "First Home page" entry is deleted as soon as that URL has been displayed.

Solution: Delete the registry entry "First Home Page"

How to Set Security in Windows XP Professional That Is Installed in a Workgroup

This article describes how to set permissions in a workgroup after an upgrade from Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional to Microsoft Windows XP Professional.

Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

322756 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322756/ ) How to back up and restore the registry in Windows

In Windows XP Home Edition and Windows XP Professional, if working in a workgroup, the Security tab is hidden by default. This behavior occurs because in Windows XP Home Edition and Windows XP Professional, guests are forced to log on to a workgroup.

NOTE: Security can only be set in an NTFS partition. If you remove the Everyone group from the NTFS permissions, the file or folder is inaccessible over the network.

When Simple file sharing is enabled, the user is presented with the Simple File Sharing UI rather than the classic "Security" and "Sharing" tabs. This new UI is implemented by default in Windows XP, Windows XP Home Edition, and Windows XP Professional when working in a workgroup. However, the computer is started in Safe mode, the ACL editor is displayed.

The simplified Sharing UI is different for My Documents and the folders that are located in My Documents. When the My Documents folder is opened, the following options are displayed:

• Only I have access to this folder
• This folder is shared on the network
  Share name:
• Allow other users to change my files

However, when the other folders is opened, the following options are displayed:

• Share name:
• Allow other users to change my files

In addition, when a user password is created in Control Panel, the Protect The My Documents Folder option is displayed. On a Windows XP Professional-based computer, only you can make a registry change to show the classic security UI.

Registry Key and Values

When security settings are set in Windows XP, the following registry key is used:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa

The values are:

• ForceGuest=1: Use this value to force guests on
• ForceGuest=0: Use this value to force guests off

The following table describes the default value for the ForceGuest registry key for each operating system mode and the Sharing UI and ACL editor behavior.

Operating system and mode	ForceGuest	Sharing UI	ACL editor
Personal	1 (no choice)	Simple	Not available
Personal in Safe mode	1 (no choice)	Classic	Available
Professional	0*	Classic	Available
Professional	1	Simple	Not available
Professional in Safe mode	0	Classic	Available
Professional in Safe mode	1	Classic	Available

Windows XP Professional defaults to normal authentication but supports the Log on as Guest option. For example, if the computer is upgraded from Windows XP Home Edition, Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft Windows 98, and Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows XP Professional uses the Guest if in a workgroup option by default.

NOTE: You cannot share a folder that is located in My Documents after you configure the simple Sharing and Security setting to Only I have access to this folder. When security is set for the parent folder, security is set on all child folders; security settings cannot be changed from the child folders.

---

APPLIES TO

• Microsoft Windows XP Professional

source: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290403

ASA 5505: switch ingress policy drops shows a large number of packets dropped

This is what CISCO says about this counter:

This drop is usually seen when a port is not configured correctly. This drop is incremented when a packet cannot be successfully forwarded within switch ports as a result of the default or user configured switch port settings. The following configurations are the likely reasons for this drop:

•The nameif command was not configured on the VLAN interface.

Note For interfaces in the same VLAN, even if the nameif command was not configured, switching within the VLAN is successful, and this counter does not increment.

•The VLAN is shut down.

•An access port received an 802.1Q-tagged packet.

•A trunk port received a tag that is not allowed or an untagged packet.

•The security appliance is connected to another Cisco device that has Ethernet keepalives. For example, Cisco IOS software uses Ethernet loopback packets to ensure interface health. This packet is not intended to be received by any other device; the health is ensured just by being able to send the packet. These types of packets are dropped at the switch port, and the counter increments.

•The VLAN only has one physical interface, but the DEST of the packet does not match the MAC address of the VLAN, and it is not the broadcast address.

In my case the reason was # 5, a second CISCO device

Source: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/asa/asa72/command/reference/s3_72.html#wp1283345

How to change a Symantec Endpoint Protection client from unmanaged to managed in MR3 and above using the Sylink Drop utility

Question/Issue:
How do you manually establish communication between a Symantec Endpoint Protection client and the Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager?

Symptoms:
Clients and the SEPM (Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager) are not communicating. There is no green dot embedded in the gold shield on the task bar of the client and the client does not show in the console, or if it does appear, it does not have a green dot . The green dot indicates that communication is successful.

Solution:
To export the Sylink.xml file:

1. In the console, click Clients

2. Under View Clients, select the group in which you want the client to appear

3. Right-click the group, and then click Export Communication Settings

4. In the Export Communication Settings for group name dialog box, click Browse

5. In the Select Export File dialog box, locate the folder to where you want to export the .xml file, and then click OK

6. In the Export Group Registration Setting for group name dialog box, select one of the following options:

■ To apply the policies from the group from which the computer is a member, click Computer Mode

■ To apply the policies from the group from which the user is a member, click User Mode

7. Click Export

To use the SylinkDrop tool to apply the Sylink.xml file:

1. On Disk 2 of the installation CDs, locate the \Tools\NoSupport\SylinkDrop folder, and open SylinkDrop.exe

2. Take the exported sylink and the SylinkDrop.exe to the client

3. Execute SylinkDrop.exe

4. In the Sylink Drop dialog box, click Browse, and locate the .xml file that you exported

5. Click Update Sylink

6. If you see a confirmation dialog box, click OK

7. In the Sylink Drop dialog box, click Exit

Note: SylinkDrop.exe does not provide a progress indicator. Upon completion, it displays a window with the text "Sylink file has been successfully replaced."

If you want to convert a managed client to an unmanaged client, please see "How to convert Symantec Endpoint Protection clients from managed to unmanaged without uninstalling and reinstalling" at http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ent-security.nsf/docid/2008021910355348

Source: http://service1.symantec.com/support/ent-security.nsf/docid/2009030314365748?Open&seg=ent

An event ID 6002 that references Distributed File System replication is logged several times a day on a Windows Server 2003 R2-based computer

Symptoms

The following event ID 6002 that references Distributed File System replication (DFSR) is logged in the Application log several times a day on a Windows Server 2003 R2-based computer:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: DFSR
Event Category: None
Event ID: 6002
Date: Date
Time: Time
Computer: Computer_Name
Description: The DFS Replication service detected invalid msDFSR-Subscriber object data while polling for configuration information.
Additional Information:
Object DN: CN=2762160d-2aea-4aec-8076-635e0a33cd5c,CN=DFSR-LocalSettings,CN=KFS1,CN=Computers,D C=Domain_Name,DC=Root_Domain
Attribute Name: msDFSR-MemberReference
Domain Controller: Domain_Controller_Name.Domain_Name.Root_Domain
Polling Cycle: 60 minutes

Cause

This issue occurs because of an invalid DFSR object in the Active Directory directory service. Invalid DFSR objects can occur if you select the Delete the namespace folders and associated replicated folders option in the DFS Management snap-in. Because that option may cause objects that are orphaned in Active Directory, we recommend that you first delete the replication group from the DFS Replication node in DFS Management. Then, delete the DFS Namespace.


Resolution

Warning If you use the ADSI Edit snap-in, the LDP utility, or any other LDAP version 3 client, and you incorrectly modify the attributes of Active Directory objects, you can cause serious problems. These problems may require you to reinstall Microsoft Windows 2000 Server, Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server, Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, or both Windows and Exchange. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems that occur if you incorrectly modify Active Directory object attributes can be solved. Modify these attributes at your own risk.

To resolve this issue, remove the object that is the cause of the error by verifying DFS subscriptions. To do this, follow the steps in the "Connect to Active Directory" and "Remove the invalid object" sections.

Note These steps only resolve the issue in which an invalid object exists in the Active Directory directory. The steps do not resolve replication issues.

Connect to Active Directory

1. On a server that has the Windows Support Tools installed, open a command prompt. To download the Windows Server 2003 Support Tools, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
   http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=96a35011-fd83-419d-939b-9a772ea2df90&displaylang=en
2. Move to the Drive_Letter:\Program Files\Support Tools folder.
3. Type adsiedit.msc, and then press ENTER.
4. On the Action menu, click Connect to.
5. In the Connection Settings dialog box, type any name that you want to name this connection in the Name box.
6. In the Connection Point area, click Select a well known Naming Context, and then click Domain.
7. In the Computer area, click Select or type a domain or Server, and then type the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the server. Or, you can click Default (Domain or Server that you logged in to), if this option is appropriate for your situation.
8. Click OK.

Remove the invalid object

1. Expand Domain [Server_Name.Domain_Name.Root_Domain].
2. Expand DC=Domain_Name,DC=Root_Domain.
3. Expand CN=Computers.
4. Expand the node for the computer that is logging the errors. For example, expand CN=Computer_Name, where Computer_Name is the name of the server that is logging the errors.
5. Expand CN=DFSR-Local Settings.
6. Under the CN=DFSR-Local Settings node, click each object in the navigation pane until you see an object in the details pane that has a GUID that matches the one that you observed in the event log. For example, to match the event that is listed in the "Symptoms" section, you should see an object that has the following distinguished name:
   CN=2762160d-2aea-4aec-8076-635e0a33cd5c,CN=DFSR-LocalSettings,CN=Computer_Name,CN=Computers,DC=Domain_Name,DC=Root_Domain
7. Right-click the object that you identified in step 5, click Delete, and then click Yes.
8. Exit ADSI Edit.

From: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953527

WSUS Self-update is not working

I've noticed a number of WSUS 3.0 servers are coming up with the following error in the Application event log:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Windows Server Update Services
Event Category: Clients
Event ID: 13042
User: N/A
Computer: WSUS01
Description: Self-update is not working.

To fix the issue, follow these steps:

• Open IIS Manager and ensure there is a Selfupdate virtual directory in the Default Web Site. If not, create it with the Local Path pointing to C:\Program Files\Update Services\Selfupdate


• Click the Directory Security tab and ensure that Anonymous Access is allowed


• Restart IIS

Verify that the problem is fixed by running the following command at the command prompt:

C:\Program Files\Update Services\Tools\wsusutil.exe checkhealth

Then examine the Application event log for the following event:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Windows Server Update Services
Event Category: Clients
Event ID: 10000
User: N/A
Computer: WSUS01
Description: WSUS is working correctly.

As background, WSUS clients must connect to the SelfUpdate virtual directory to check for a new version of the WSUS client before checking for new updates. This always happens anonymously over port 80, even if WSUS is configured to use a custom port, such as port 8530.

Credit: http://www.expta.com/2008/06/fix-for-self-update-is-not-working-in.html

AT&T - Sorry, we did not understand your response. Reply ONLY the word YES to activate the 4 channel/$6 Mobile TV plan

If you ever receive a message similar to this:

AT&T:
AT&T Free Tip: Get weather, movie or restaurant
tips from Google on your phone.
Text HELP to 466453 to get started.
To end Tips send no to 4436

Be careful. I replied by sending "No" to 4436 and got this back:

From: 4436
"Sorry, we did not understand your response. Reply ONLY the word YES to activate the 4 channel/$6 Mobile TV plan"


Did you notice anywhere in the original message anything related to a mobile TV plan?

No, because it was just a free tip from AT&T

The first message is a bait to get you in contact with some vendors and the second message is an attempt to make you subscribe to a mobile TV plan for $4

The only way to stop this annoying messages (which BTW came marked as "URGENT") is to reply with the word "Stop"

I sent Stop to 4436 and got this message back:

FROM: 4436
AT&T AUTO REPLY: You have Opted out of AT&T marketing messages. Please do not REPLY to this message.

How lame for any company to try to trick it's customers to sign in for a subscription this way.

UPDATE: After some time, the messages resumed; I ended up calling customer service and had them remove me from their marketing list. I had to call twice and tell them these messages were in violation to the CAN-SPAM act before the messages actually stopped.


THE CAN-SPAM ACT

In 2003, Congress passed the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act, which makes it illegal to send unsolicited commercial e-mail messages to wireless devices, including cell phones and pagers, without first receiving the consumer's permission. The CAN-SPAM Act works together with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which created the National Do Not Call Registry.

Creating a self extracting encrypted archive with 7zip

This is a walk-through on how to create a self extracting archive that is encrypted. This is a good way to add security to a file you need to email. What does that mean?

self extracting – a file that will uncompress and unencrypt itself when you double click it

archive – a compressed file containing all the files you need to protect. Compression helps you get by the pesky limits set by gmail etc where you can only send a 20MB attachment. If you have some excel data or word docs you can usually decrease the size by 5-10X.

encrypted – this will encrypt with the AES256 algorithm. The longer the password you use, the more secure it is.

This assumes you have 7zip installed. To check, right click on any file. If 7zip is in your menu like in the screenshot below, it is installed. If you do not, click this link which will pop up a new window with a walk through video on installing 7zip.

To get started -

Put the files in a folder that you want to encrypt.
Open the folder containing the files, drag your mouse across all the files, and right click. Look at this picture:

So Right click

7zip

click Add to archive

The 7zip window should come up. You need to check the following settings:

Add a name.exe

Check Create SFX archive – the self extracting part

Enter a password, the longer the better, numbers and special characters add a lot to the security of the file. I can break into a file with 5 characters in a few minutes. 8+ characters with a letters, numbers and a special character are ideal. A sentence is even better.

Check show password if you want.

Leave encryption at AES-256 and Check encrypt file names.

Hit Ok

This will create your encrypted .exe file in the folder with your files.

Now you need to rename the file.

Now select the file. You should be able to see the extensions like .txt .docx .xlsx .exe. If you can’t click here for instructions on how to have those show up.

Right click on your .exe file and click rename. (or click the file and hit F2 for the fast nerd way to rename)

Erase the .exe part and hit enter. Te 7z icon should disappear and a blank page of paper icon should be there.

Now just open your email, attach the file and send it to the person who needs it. Don’t ever put the password in the email or you defeat the purpose of doing this. The best way is to call the person and tell them what the password is.

When the recipient of the email saves the file, they need to add .exe back to the name using this same rename process. We can’t send .exe files in email because viruses would be everywhere if you could do that.

From: http://windowsnerd.com/how-to-for-normal-people/creating-a-self-extracting-encrypted-archive-with-7zip/

Reviewing File Server Limits

Updated: March 28, 2003

As you plan your file server configuration, keep in mind file system, storage, and other limits related to file servers. Table 2.10 describes these limits.

Table 2.10 File System, Storage, and File Server Limits for Windows Server 2003

Description	Limit
Maximum size of a basic volume	2 TB
Maximum size of a dynamic volume	2 TB for simple and mirrored (RAID-1) volumes. Up to 64 TB for spanned and striped (RAID-0) volumes. (2 TB per disk with a maximum of 32 disks per volume.) Up to 62 TB for RAID-5 volumes. (2 TB per disk with a maximum of 32 disks per volume and 2 TB used for parity.)
Maximum number of dynamic volumes per disk group	1,000 A disk group is collection of dynamic disks. Windows Server 2003 supports one disk group per server.
Maximum size of an NTFS volume	232 clusters minus 1 cluster Using a 64-kilobyte (KB) cluster (the maximum NTFS cluster size), the maximum size of an NTFS volume is 256 TB minus 64 KB. Using a 4-KB cluster (the default NTFS cluster size), the maximum size of an NTFS volume is 16 TB minus 4 KB.
Maximum file size on an NTFS volume	16 TB (244 bytes) minus 64 KB
Maximum number of files on an NTFS volume	4,294,967,295 (232 minus 1 file) There is no limit to the number of files that can be stored in a folder. For recommendations on limiting the number of files stored on a volume, see " Determining Maximum Volume Size" later in this chapter.
Maximum number of clusters on an NTFS volume	4,294,967,296 (232)
Maximum volumes per server	Approximately 2,000 volumes. Up to 1,000 of these volumes can be dynamic volumes; the rest are basic volumes. Boot times increase as you increase the number of volumes. In addition, you must use mounted drives to access volumes when all drive letters on a server have been used. For more information about mounted drives, see " Using NTFS mounted drives" in Help and Support Center for Windows Server 2003.
Maximum number of shared folders on a server	Varies. The number of shares on a server affects server boot time. On a server with typical hardware and thousands of shares, boot time can be delayed by minutes. Exact delays depend on server hardware. Shared folder information is stored in the system hive of the registry. For systems with less than 800 MB of RAM, the System hive can be as large as one-quarter of the physical memory. For systems with more than 800 MB of RAM, the maximum size of the System hive is 200 MB. If the system hive exceeds this limit, the server cannot mount the registry at startup and Windows Server 2003 cannot start.

For information about optimizing NTFS performance, see the Storage Technologies Collection of the Windows Server 2003 Technical Reference (or see the Storage Technologies Collection on the Web at http://www.microsoft.com/reskit).

From: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc780559%28WS.10%29.aspx

Recovery of MS Office Files from Temp Files

Microsoft Office has extensive AutoSave and Auto Recovery options that allow you to rescue your work in the event that it is lost due to a power failure, system crash or plain human error. However many people don't know how to use these features or that they even exist.

Even if you don't have these features enabled, you can sometimes recover data from the various temporary files that are created by Office while you are working on the document.

Microsoft have changed the way AutoSave and Auto Recover works in different versions of Office. Therefore you may want to experiment before you rely on this information.

Finding the Temporary Files

When a new file is started a temporary file is created. This can be either in the windows temp directory, in "C:\ Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Microsoft". If the file is stored on a network drive then it will be temporarily created there.

This temporary file will have a few different letters after the tilde (or squiggly line “ ~”) . These are good ones to look for to find some lost info:

Word

If you are looking for files used by word, then the following file types should be searched for, where "xxxx" is a number.

• A word document file will look like ~wrdxxxx.tmp
• A temp document file will look like ~wrfxxxx.tmp
• An auto recovery file will look like ~wraxxxx.tmp
• An auto recovery file that is complete will have the extension of .wbk.

PowerPoint

The temp file for PowerPoint looks like pptxxx.tmp

Excel

The temp file for excel looks like ~dfxxxx.tmp

There are others, but these are the ones most likely to contain data that can be recovered.

Finding and using the temporary and auto save files

Word

The default auto save time for word documents is 10 minutes. You can control this time in Options under the "Save" tab. The auto save files are placed in one of the following two locations, which is where you should look to recover the data.

1. "C:\ Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Microsoft\Word".
2. "C:\ Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Temp"

When you have found a file that looks like it might contain data, you may want to open it in notepad instead of trying to get Word to reassemble it. The easiest way to do this is to open Notepad from the start menu then drag and drop the file in to it. The file will then be opened so that you can view the contents.

If the document was open when the system failed (power failure or crash) then you could try just opening Word again (not the document, just Word itself from the start menu). Word will then try to recover the lost document.

Excel

Excel doesn't have the AutoSave feature enabled as default, you have to add it. This is because it isn't always practical to have this functionality enabled. If you have it enabled and want to experiment with a spreadsheet, you should create a copy then open that so that the AutoSave doesn't overwrite the original.

To enable the AutoSave feature, you have to use an Add In. Go to "Tools" "Add ins" and choose "AutoSave".
With Office XP, AutoSave has been moved out from Add Ins to Options, in a similar way to Word. You will find the settings under "Save" where you can also disable the Auto Recover feature for that particular work book.

Excel automatically saves every 10 minutes to the default location of "C:\ Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Temp" The files are identifiable as they are saved as a number .tmp e.g. "28.tmp". This means that they look different from word or any other temporary files that are being saved there by other applications.

PowerPoint

PowerPoint Auto save feature is enabled as default and will save every 10 minutes. It will prompt you for a file name the first time the auto save runs.
If you are looking for the temp files for PowerPoint then the naming convention is pptxxx.tmp (where xxxx is a number) and they are saved by default in "C :\ Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Temp".

Other Useful Information

If you have been working on a file for hours and the document was created via copying and pasting or at one point had cut the entire page or document to paste some place and then placed something else on the clip board, the data may not have been lost. This is because when any info is copied it is sent to a temp file with the name ~wrlxxxx.tmp. Therefore you could search your system for files of this name and then use the same "Drag and Drop" technique to view the data in Notepad to recover the data.

Another interesting thing to note is that when a change is made to a document that requires a temp file to be created, when you press the save button all the temp files are merged together into one file and the file is renamed to what you called it. The original document that you created is then deleted.

Source: http://www.amset.info/tips/office-recovery.asp