My Wintel Infrastructure Transitioning Experience

Although I have done many transitions on Intel and Windows Infrastructures in Domestic Market in India, this time I was a part of a very strong transitioning team to transition an International Infrastructure project.

I was in AZ, USA in last November and stayed there for about a month for knowledge transfer and documentation of the current state of infrastructure and used a sequential process centric transitioning to enable customers to experience the benefit of off-shoring. The new model is going to be a global infrastructure support model and will have presence in Mexico, Romania, USA and India.

That was really a nice experience! Meeting with new people, understanding their views, the different perceptions and ideas on life, profession and technologies was exciting me. Soon I came to know that it is not easy to work with people from different regions of the globe. To understand them, to understand their culture, the behavior, the accent, the professional approach of doing the work came out as a challenge and it was not easy to present yourself and make people understand your own view.

I will talk about my team which I feel is really great, very hard working, very strong set of people, self initiator and I think crazy too... We were working at least sixteen hours a day to cut short the transitioning time. I personally feel that I got to do a lot of important work starting from Inventory, tagging of the servers, collecting information/knowledge and documenting the client's infrastructure to visiting datacenters across three states in US and meeting the current staff.

I made few good friends and visited a colleague’s family which was a good opportunity to understand people from different countries. I had real fun too, visited Disneyland in Anaheim and saw Grand Canyon then enjoyed lot of different varieties of food like, Thai, Chinese, Mexican, American, Italian, Mongolian and Indian too.

Currently I am back to India, training new people from Romania, Mexico and India in the project, those are going to support the Intel and Windows infrastructure and also setting up the support model in India.

Find files with the path, longer then given characters limit

One of my friend ask me to find any tool or script which can list all the files longer then 255 characters under any given path including subdirectory.

Here is the solution and its free :)

Path Scan is a useful software application that will calculate the total path length of your files.
Scan files in directories and get their path length. This is useful to determine failures in particular processes which are limited with path length, like CD/DVD burning Software or File Synchronization. Path Scan is a useful software utility that allows you to easily determine if paths are compatible with a process.

My Experience with the Dell Studio Refusbished laptop

During my Visit to US, A good friend of mine helped me to purchased a Dell Studio 1530 Refurbished Laptop and here is my review on it:
Price/Specifications-530$ All inclusive
Memory: 4 Gig
HDD: 350 Gig
Screen: 15.1"
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T7250 2.0 Ghz 800 mhz FSB 2 mb Cache

Buying- The inventory In Dell Outlet is constantly refreshed so finding precisely what you want should not take long. However be sure to fully read each computers description fully as Some are ""Scratch and dent"" Or ""Off lease"" Your best off sticking to factory refurbished. The process is as simple as selecting the system you want adding to cart and Purchasing with a variety of Payment options (I chose to use Paypal). The process is quite simple and fast And if you need to ask any questions Use the live chat on the Dell Main Webpage as it is MUCH faster then telephone support. (Unless it's an inventory question then you have to call).

Shipping- Dell claims most systems Ship Next/Same day from the Outlet. In my case it arrived at my Hotel in just 2 days.

Unboxing- The laptop really..just looked brand BRAND new No scratches no sign of wear...nothing If it was not for the green refurbished sticker on the bottom you would never ever be able to tell this is a refurbised laptop. It was delivered in a plain brown DELL box marked certified refurbished on the side. Inside the Box was a smaller white Box containing all manuals/cords. Below that enclosed in two white styraphome pieces was the actual laptop very well protected.

First Boot up- Everything on the laptop Booted up nicely without issue Very quick No errors no problems what so ever. Screen is immaculate No grainyness No dead pixels.

Gaming- I Don't feel comfortable playing games on Laptops, try a refurbished XBox 360 or PS2 with a big LCD of 42", that will be a good option :)

Build quality- The casing is absolutely same a the new Dell Studio, No difference, I ordered Blue Color, which is my Favorite.

Sound quality - Very Bad, I think speakers are useless in thsi laptop.

Web Cam: Fantastic - It gave me a good experience on Web Chat with my family and other friends during my travel time.

Customer Service - N/A Have not had to contact for this machine

Price - A+ Not many other places will you find machines spec'd this well with these warranties at these prices then Dell outlet.

Condition of Machine- A++ Could not believe it was refurbished! Still amazed.

In short I would highly reccomend those on a budget to consider Dell outlet. You simply can't beat the Price/Performance ratios.

Definition: Disaster Recovery

Today I had a debate with my team mate on what Disaster recovery is! This made me to think again on what I know about Disaster Recovery. By going through various sites; I conclude that I am in right direction and reached to define what Disaster recovery is in the context of IT Infrastructures:

In my words, Disaster recovery is a planed way to recovery from a catastrophic event like Fire, earthquake, terrorist attack etc. It is also related Business Continuity Plan and called as a plan to maintain & run a Business or operation continually with a capacity to recover from any kind of known/unknown disasters.

This specifically requires a Geo separated site to have off-line backups, data and documentation necessary to run a Business / Operation and is intended to plan protection on large losses.

In Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disaster_recovery) words:

Disaster recovery is the process, policies and procedures of restoring operations critical to the resumption of business, including regaining access to data (records, hardware, software, etc.), communications (incoming, outgoing, toll-free, fax, etc.), workspace, and other business processes after a natural or human-induced disaster.

CD/DVD ROM is not showing up under My Computers

If you are not getting your CD/DVD rom undermy computer even if Windows is dectecting it, try this:

Access Registry and delete LowerFilters and UpperFilters here:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}]

Windows 2008 RDC / RDP: "Because of an error in data encryption, the session will end"

Yesterday I had an issue with a newly built Windows 2008 server. I was not able to RDP this server through my home internet connection. The server was on port redirection and it tries to bring the console but gave the following error:

"Because of an error in data encryption, the session will end"

After some research and google search I tried the following workaround and it worked!!!!!:

I Went to:

Show all Network Connections
Local Area Connection -> Properties
Pressed the Configure button (for the Chip)
Advanced;

and set the following disabled: Offload TCP LargeSend

This was unexpected issue...

My team's new achievement: Introduced new freshers team!!

For the first time Intel Team India - Perot Systems was challenged to design, develop and deliver Wintel Technologies to the newly created fresher team. My team have been asked to mentor this team and level-up them to each technical aspect of service we deliver to the client. This is truly fantastic experience to the Team Intel as we were successfully able to share our experience and knowledge to the team.

We hope that we are able to encourage this young team not to be afraid of going after their goals, technical and professional challenges and to form a valuable relationship that will make it possible for them to emerge as great learner and performer. This team is now ready to jet, set, go and will be hitting the floor very soon.

Cheers to them!!!

- Ashish Sharma

Killing a Windows Service that seems to hang on "Stopping"

It sometimes happens (and it's not a good sign most of the time): you'd like to stop a Windows Service, and when you issue the stop command through the SCM (Service Control Manager) or by using the ServiceProcess classes in the .NET Framework or by other means (net stop, Win32 API), the service remains in the state of "stopping" and never reaches the stopped phase. It's pretty simple to simulate this behavior by creating a Windows Service in C# (or any .NET language whatsoever) and adding an infinite loop in the Stop method. The only way to stop the service is by killing the process then. However, sometimes it's not clear what the process name or ID is (e.g. when you're running a service hosting application that can cope with multiple instances such as SQL Server Notification Services).

The way to do it is as follows:

Go to the command-prompt and query the service (e.g. the SMTP service) by using sc:

sc \\Servername queryex SMTPSvc
This will give you the following information:

SERVICE_NAME: SMTPSvc

TYPE : 20

WIN32_SHARE_PROCESS

STATE : 4 RUNNING (STOPPABLE, PAUSABLE, ACCEPTS_SHUTDOWN)

WIN32_EXIT_CODE : 0 (0x0)

SERVICE_EXIT_CODE : 0 (0x0)

CHECKPOINT : 0x0

WAIT_HINT : 0x0

PID : 388

FLAGS :or something like this (the "state" will mention stopping).

Over here you can find the process identifier (PID), so it's pretty easy to kill the associated process either by using the task manager or by using taskkill:

taskkill /PID 388 /F

where the /F flag is needed to force the process kill (first try without the flag).

A Nice Lesson

You Can't Send a Duck to Eagle School by Mac Anderson

A few years ago I had lunch with a top executive from a company known for their legendary retail service. My wife and I are both big fans, and over lunch I shared with him some of the great service stories his people had provided the Anderson family.

I said, "With the service your people give...you must have training manual 2 inches thick."

He looked up and said, "Mac, we don't have a training manual. What we do is find the best people we can find and we empower them to do whatever it takes to satisfy the customer."

Then he said something I'll never forget.
He said, "We learned a long time ago that you can't send a duck to eagle school."

"Excuse me," I said. He repeated... "You can't send a duck to eagle school." He said, "You can't teach someone to smile, you can't teach someone to want to serve, you can't teach personality. What we can do, however, is hire people who have those qualities and we can then teach them about our products and teach them our culture."
As long as I live I will never forget this simple analogy about hiring people. It is branded on my brain forever. And since that day, with every hiring decision I've made, I find myself asking the question: "Am I hiring a duck thinking they will become an eagle?" I can also honestly say that asking this simple question has saved me from making some important hiring mistakes.

I just wish I'd heard it 20 years sooner.

The "Duck to Eagle School" lesson is one of many simple truths of leadership.

Solved Account lockout issue

Today I was working on an issue where an local user account getting locked out with the following event ID:

Event Type: Failure Audit
Event Source: Security
Event Category: Logon/Logoff
Event ID: 529
Date: 5/17/2008
Time: 6:45:00 PM
User: NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
Computer: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Description:
Logon Failure:
Reason: Unknown user name or bad password
User Name: XXXXXXX
Domain: XXXXXXXXXXXX
Logon Type: 4
Logon Process: Advapi
Authentication Package: MICROSOFT_AUTHENTICATION_PACKAGE_V1_0
Workstation Name: XxXXXXXXXXXXXX

Event IDs 528 and 540 signify a successful logon, event ID 538 a logoff and all the other events in this category identify different reasons for a logon failure. However, just knowing about a successful or failed logon attempt doesn’t fill in the whole picture. Because of all the services Windows offers, there are many different ways you can logon to a computer such as interactively at the computer’s local keyboard and screen, over the network through a drive mapping or through terminal services (aka remote desktop) or through IIS. Thankfully, logon/logoff events specify the Logon Type code which reveals the type of logon that prompted the event.

Logon Type 2 – Interactive
This is what occurs to you first when you think of logons, that is, a logon at the console of a computer. You’ll see type 2 logons when a user attempts to log on at the local keyboard and screen whether with a domain account or a local account from the computer’s local SAM. To tell the difference between an attempt to logon with a local or domain account look for the domain or computer name preceding the user name in the event’s description. Don’t forget that logon’s through an KVM over IP component or a server’s proprietary “lights-out” remote KVM feature are still interactive logons from the standpoint of Windows and will be logged as such.
Logon Type 3 – Network
Windows logs logon type 3 in most cases when you access a computer from elsewhere on the network. One of the most common sources of logon events with logon type 3 is connections to shared folders or printers. But other over-the-network logons are classed as logon type 3 as well such as most logons to IIS. (The exception is basic authentication which is explained in Logon Type 8 below.)
Logon Type 4 – Batch
When Windows executes a scheduled task, the Scheduled Task service first creates a new logon session for the task so that it can run under the authority of the user account specified when the task was created. When this logon attempt occurs, Windows logs it as logon type 4. Other job scheduling systems, depending on their design, may also generate logon events with logon type 4 when starting jobs. Logon type 4 events are usually just innocent scheduled tasks startups but a malicious user could try to subvert security by trying to guess the password of an account through scheduled tasks. Such attempts would generate a logon failure event where logon type is 4. But logon failures associated with scheduled tasks can also result from an administrator entering the wrong password for the account at the time of task creation or from the password of an account being changed without modifying the scheduled task to use the new password.
Logon Type 5 – Service
Similar to Scheduled Tasks, each service is configured to run as a specified user account. When a service starts, Windows first creates a logon session for the specified user account which results in a Logon/Logoff event with logon type 5. Failed logon events with logon type 5 usually indicate the password of an account has been changed without updating the service but there’s always the possibility of malicious users at work too. However this is less likely because creating a new service or editing an existing service by default requires membership in Administrators or Server Operators and such a user, if malicious, will likely already have enough authority to perpetrate his desired goal.
Logon Type 7 – Unlock
Hopefully the workstations on your network automatically start a password protected screen saver when a user leaves their computer so that unattended workstations are protected from malicious use. When a user returns to their workstation and unlocks the console, Windows treats this as a logon and logs the appropriate Logon/Logoff event but in this case the logon type will be 7 – identifying the event as a workstation unlock attempt. Failed logons with logon type 7 indicate either a user entering the wrong password or a malicious user trying to unlock the computer by guessing the password.
Logon Type 8 – NetworkCleartext
This logon type indicates a network logon like logon type 3 but where the password was sent over the network in the clear text. Windows server doesn’t allow connection to shared file or printers with clear text authentication. The only situation I’m aware of are logons from within an ASP script using the ADVAPI or when a user logs on to IIS using IIS’s basic authentication mode. In both cases the logon process in the event’s description will list advapi. Basic authentication is only dangerous if it isn’t wrapped inside an SSL session (i.e. https). As far as logons generated by an ASP, script remember that embedding passwords in source code is a bad practice for maintenance purposes as well as the risk that someone malicious will view the source code and thereby gain the password.
Logon Type 9 – NewCredentials
If you use the RunAs command to start a program under a different user account and specify the /netonly switch, Windows records a logon/logoff event with logon type 9. When you start a program with RunAs using /netonly, the program executes on your local computer as the user you are currently logged on as but for any connections to other computers on the network, Windows connects you to those computers using the account specified on the RunAs command. Without /netonly Windows runs the program on the local computer and on the network as the specified user and records the logon event with logon type 2.
Logon Type 10 – RemoteInteractive
When you access a computer through Terminal Services, Remote Desktop or Remote Assistance windows logs the logon attempt with logon type 10 which makes it easy to distinguish true console logons from a remote desktop session. Note however that prior to XP, Windows 2000 doesn’t use logon type 10 and terminal services logons are reported as logon type 2.
Logon Type 11 – CachedInteractive
Windows supports a feature called Cached Logons which facilitate mobile users. When you are not connected to the your organization’s network and attempt to logon to your laptop with a domain account there’s no domain controller available to the laptop with which to verify your identity. To solve this problem, Windows caches a hash of the credentials of the last 10 interactive domain logons. Later when no domain controller is available, Windows uses these hashes to verify your identity when you attempt to logon with a domain account.

In my case the logon type in the error message was 4. So simply I went to the scheduled tasks and found that a task was scheduled to run with the same account and used for wrong password. I deleted ad recreated the task with the right ID and password and then my issue got resolved!!!!