Caveat: When Removing Print Drivers

What is always common sense is not always common practice.

NOTE: When removing print drivers from a Windows machine's "Server Properties", ensure that the driver is not in use by *ANY* printers under *ANY* user profile settings.
(Under Control Panel > Printers and Faxes, right-click and select 'Server Properties')

So basically, I was working on imaging a set of Compaq 6720t and the imaging would repeatedly fail at 95% on the printer driver files.

After spending a few minutes thinking about it,I thought I'd share what could save you hours worth of frustration.  Also, it is my hope that by sharing what works, that you would use the information to establish Intentional Best Practices.

So here's the tip:
When you want to remove Windows printer drivers, check ALL your users to make sure that NONE of their printers are using that driver.  Otherwise, you won't get very far.

Is this an issue? No.
Is this some flaw in Microsoft's Windows design? No.
In fact, this is to Microsoft's credit.  They encourage us to earn our living by learning to identify the source of their error messages. :)

(some are obvious, and some are not)

Command-line tips: Configuring IP Addresses

Net SHell (netsh.exe) is a Windows command-line utility (Windows 2000+) that changes network configuration settings on-the-fly. It's scripting-friendly and allows you to do quite a bit on one line of instruction.

Netsh has a kind of "don't ask, don't tell" help system that reminds me a bit of the other command-line administrator tools. For example, for me to find out how to set a static ip address on my Ethernet adapter named "Ethernet", I did the following:

netsh ?

... and it follows with:

"Commands in this context:"
At the bottom of the text returned are 2 important bits of information that look like this:

"The following sub-contexts are available:
bridge diag firewall interface ras routing winsock

To view help for a command, type the command, followed by a space, and then type ?."

What I wanted was to set a configuration on the adapter which for most people would mean "interface". So I typed:

"netsh interface ?"
then ...
"netsh interface ip ?"
then ...
"netsh interface ip set ?"
then ...
"netsh interface ip set address ?"
... and then I see an example ...

" set address name="Local Area Connection" source=dhcp"
" set address local static 10.0.0.9 255.0.0.0 10.0.0.1 1"

I wanted the following configuration on my ethernet adapter:

IP Address ............................................................... : 192.168.1.100
Subnet mask ............................................................ : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway ..................................................... : 192.168.1.1

My Ethernet adapter was named 'Ethernet', so to get the configuration I wanted, I typed:

"netsh interface ip set address Ethernet static 192.168.1.100 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.1 1"

The last '1' is a metric in the routing table. Netsh took that line and gave back to me an eye-pleasing:
"Ok."

I did whatever I needed to do on the 192.168.1.0/24 network and then I typed in the following line to return the IP configuration to DHCP-assigned:
"netsh interface ip set address name="Ethernet" source=dhcp"

It's a simple tip; easy enough, but it's sharing simple things like this that allow network administrators to get to the fun things (ie: project management, resetting passwords, installing and maintaining software projects, etc.)

We're saving IT administrators brain cells and sleep hours, one post at a time!

K.I.S. Router - FreeSCO

If there's one thing that most people love is the K.I.S. principle (most refer to it as K.I.S.S.)

Keep It Simple or Keep It Simple Stupid.

Today's note is on a simple router solution.

FREESCO is a floppy-based linux router that works pretty well. Considering the features that it has and the add-ons available for it, it's worth trying if you have an old PC lying around with 2 NICs available.

Being floppy-based does not mean it can only be installed and run on a floppy. There's a procedure that allows you to install it to a harddrive either on a FAT or an EXT2 partition.

* NOTE: For EXT2 installs you will need to download the EXT2 add-on (available from the 'Add-on packages' menu seen here.)

All-in all, it's a pretty neat product. It's latest stable version is 0.4.2 and you can get more info here.

Does the Dell Dimension 4700 use a standard PSU?

Starting a decade or so ago, a few OEM's decided to use non-standard pin-outs for their PSU's (power supply units) and designed their motherboards to match.

I did a bit of research online finding no *solid* answers telling if the Dimension 4700 was a "DELL Special PC" or if it was a standard ATX PC with a DELL badge.

After comparing the pin layout on the original PSU (0Y2103 Rev A01, Model No.: PS-6311-1DS) with the pin layout on a CoolMax V-400, the verdict is:

YES! The Dell Dimension 4700 uses standard ATX PSU using the 24-pin ATX connector.

Someone somewhere will find this useful. Enjoy your week gang.

Netboot Installs

After hunting for a simple solution to netbooting-via-TFTP, I've found a document that uses one linux package for tftp, dhcp and dns: dnsmasq.

Here's the link:
http://blog.webworxshop.com/2009/06/24/even-easier-netboot-installation

Results are soon to follow.

Thanks to robconnolly for the hardwork.

Welcome to We Learn I.T.

Welcome to We Learn I.T.

A group of Information Technology enthusiasts and professionals decided to pour the wealth of knowledge into a new, smaller knowledgebase courtesy of Blogger/Blogspot and here we are. You can look forward to walkthroughs, tips, best practices, caveats and even reviews of past, current and upcoming technologies.

We're in it to learn and to give everyone a chance to learn from solid information as best as we can provide. So you professionals, neighborhood tech-heads, family I.T. support folks and even frequent-formatters, keep in touch. We've got information on this site to help you learn more about I.T from our subnet to yours. If you happen to know more about something than anyone else has shown on this site, you're quite welcome to join and add content for others to benefit from.

Until the next site update, welcome and blog on.

Brent