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.