For years most like pc users of been
held down Windows. Looking back it was a pleasant at the time. My
first computer 1997 Windows 95 established revolutionary operation
system. Since the Microsoft's Windows has good 98se worst ME to
better 2k sp4 XP sp2 then annoying, disappointing. finicky all-in-one
in Vista. With that mac fanboys and girls most be sneaking
menacingly. Vista defenders Linux make me do it plus the ultimate
kill blue screen of death. Free challenge beats over priced
frustration.

By Seth Lesondak

            I strongly believe that the future of software development must lie with open source software. “Why is that?” people ask. The fact is that proprietary software is simply unable to keep up with a fast-paced technological world due to its closed and single minded approach to program development. It is also accurate to state that many people are unhappy with the direction that proprietary software is going, most obvious in people’s reactions to the release of Windows Vista by the Microsoft Corporation.

            The process for open source software resembles that of writing a novel. First, a piece of software is coded in a universally standard programming language such as C++. Then, the piece of work, and the code that was used to write it, is placed on the internet. General computer users can download the software to use, and developers can download the source code for their own projects. Once a developer has the source code, they can edit it and repost it on the internet as a project of their own, and the process gets repeated, consistently improving the software to keep it ahead of the competition and up to date. With proprietary software, the whole improving process is skipped, leaving only an internally developed piece of software, which usually takes more time to develop and comes out less refined.

            Some people say that they do not use open source software because it is incompatible with hardware. Actually, many hardware companies are beginning to support open source, most notably IBM, who committed $1 billion dollars to developing hardware for open source software in 2001. Also, Dell is currently creating computers for a distribution of Linux called Ubuntu. Most incompatibility issues are, in fact, caused by the people who won’t use open source because of incompatibility issues. In fact, a lot of consumers use open source without even realizing it. For instance, 65 % of all web servers are Apache, a well known commercial open source project, and 14 % are Linux, the most well know and differentiated of the open source projects.

            The main proprietary software producer ever is the Microsoft Corporation, founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975. Both effectively treated the open source community as a joke. “There’s free software and then there’s open source,” Gates said once, while explaining that Microsoft gives away its software in developing countries. “There is this thing called the GPL (GNU Public License*[i]), which we disagree with.” He reasons that the open source license makes it “so that nobody can ever improve the software.” Anybody with and understanding of open source knows that the point of open source is to improve software. It is not as if Mr. Gates has bragging rights. Microsoft’s latest operating system, Windows Vista, has been dubbed, in effect, a huge and catastrophic flop. People hate Vista because it is hard to use, slow, bloated (containing unnecessary applications that slow it down), incompatible with hardware, and requires constant updates. This alone is enough to prove that proprietary software is not superior to or more compatible than open source.

            Proprietary software is failing. Every day it becomes more obvious, with the release of each new patch system patch and product. The alternative is here and I hope that people will see that it is better than Microsoft. Let us insert the patriotic idea of free speech into computer, an ever growing part of our lives.

Aqui Também tem batalhas de vida ou morte.

Most Update Days go smoothly.  What worries me the most is a server not coming back from its reboot properly.  This morning was one of those.  I installed the updates on my Exchange 2003 server, rebooted it, and then tried to open Outlook.  Outlook wouldn't open.  Uh oh!  I make a quick dash to the server room (it's right across the hall).  The Exchange services didn't start.  Exchange going down is my biggest fear, because on two separate occasions in my tenure with this company, I've stayed to the wee hours of the morning restoring Exchange.  So I don't like when Exchange services don't start after a reboot.  I manually restarted the services, but still couldn't open Outlook.  I had to reboot Exchange again.  I've seen that before and it really irritates me when updates make me reboot the server twice.  Exchange is one of the, if not the, most important servers we have.  Even when Exchange hiccups during the day, we get a least one call about it to help desk.  We didn't get a call today, but a user stopped by my desk to say she couldn't get into Outlook.

So nothing like starting the day with a little stress; it's even better at getting me going than a Venti dark roast from Starbucks.  Quite honestly, I drug my butt into work this morning, but I'm awake now!  Things should be good from here on out, though: I got the updates applied, the servers are coming off a fresh reboot, and I just got invited to happy hour after work.  Happy Friday, everyone!

Most of the companies have made tie up with the Microsoft and is bringing out their product with windows preinstalled..  but a good configured system with windows installed is little bit beyond the reach of a common man..  here my question is Do you really need Windows.??? Most of you say yes i want windows because thats the only thing i know.  just pause  and think have you ever tried to check what Linux is all about or if something like Mac is there in market..  I'm sure most of those using pirated windows on their computer know there is something by the name linux but has never tried to check what it is because 10 years back someone checked it and said it is a geeks thing..  my simple advice try checking out a computer with ubuntu live cd..  its simply great  if you need all the features  like multimedia in it try fedora..   just see how gr8 it is and ofcourse  the key word.. it is free...  yo can get a copy of it from anyone who has it already. Free dosent mean it is sub-standard. Free means it gets improved every second. this is something unlike from windows. they make you pay and give you the bad experience.  So why not go for more amazing, feature filled linux instead of Windows..  and yeah say good bye to virus along with windows.

I find that bringing my laptop every time I go to my campus is burdensome. Usually, besides the portable computer, I also bring the charger, a mouse, and other necessary cables. An MP3 player may be brought too. Oh, and don't forget books from the libraries or my own ones. Ah, then, the books are not only textbooks. Sometimes my piano scores also should be brought in. Errr then I also should bring some female stuff... waaaa too many already!

My bag is small and so am I. Then I only can bring my laptop and some small things huh??

Other problems rise when I'm urge to the toilet.

I think sometimes I should leave my laptop in my room. But how? I am really used to applications in my laptop!

Luckily, some of my favourite applications in Windows* are available in portable versions, which can be installed into and run on a USB flash drive. [Btw I got one free from NTU in my first year, hehehe...]

FYI, I installed the portable versions of the following applications into my 1GB thumbdrive.

• Firefox Portable,
  I really like the Add-Ons!
  But all the Add-Ons should be installed into the Firefox Portable directly instead of copy-paste from existing 'not-portable' Firefox Add-Ons...
• Thunderbird Portable,
  - The address book is quite neat.
  - Thunderbird is also useful for sending e-mail via Gmail without browser. Actually it can send through free Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail accounts using Webmail extension, but the campus does not allow SMTP [as well as POP/IMAP].
  - Somehow themes do not work in my campus's computer. Perhaps because the theme file format is *.jar, which requires some Java API.
• Sunbird Portable,
  I want to see my Google Calendar without using any web browser!

• Pidgin Portable,
  - I can chat using Gmail, Yahoo, and Windows Live accounts at the same time. But the file transfer only works in Windows Live, I guess...
  - But this application does not provide you with cute emoticons! Anyway, at least you can chat, hehehe...
• KompoZer Portable,
  This one's for making web pages. Hmm... I rarely use it, but I think it'll be useful later.
• GIMP Portable,
  This application is similar to Adobe Photoshop, which helps image manipulations. I believe this will be useful, hehehe...
• Mines Portable,
  Yes, yes! It's Minesweeper. Just for fun though.
• Notepad++ Portable, and
  Hmm I haven't used it. I just like text editor, and unfortunately this is the only one that's quite ok [perhaps].
• Virtual Magnifying Glass Portable.
  This one's like errr... magnifying glass of course. Perhaps it'll be useful if I want to take bigger [more readable] screenshots. [Errr yeah I like taking screenshots.]

So... yeah! I don't have to bring my lappy all the time! I only need to bring and plug in my USB flash disk, and I can happily take away borrow more tons of books from the campus's libraries.

Thank you, PortableApps.com!

* Err... why do I highlight the application use for Windows? Not for Linux, Mac, or whatever..? The reason is that the computers in most of my campus's libraries use Windows (XP) operating system. Therefore, installing such applications for Linux or Mac into thumbdrives is unlikely useful...

Focus groups in San Francisco were recently part of a Microsoft experiment. With all of the hate for Windows Vista, what if people used Vista but didn't know it was Vista...would they still hate it?

The answer? No.

Participants of the focus groups were all Windows XP users and they were told that they would be testing out a new operating system called "Mojave". More than 90 percent of the participants gave positive feedback on their experience with "Mojave", with one user exclaiming "oh wow" while using it.

When each of the groups were finished they were told that they had been using Windows Vista all along, to which they replied "Vista sucks". No, not really. =)

Something this illustrates is the public perception problem Vista has and while Microsoft has an uphill climb to change that perception, at least this research shows that it's possible.

No word yet on whether footage of these focus groups will be used in any advertising but I'd be surprised if it wasn't part of their upcoming $300 million push.

[Via Ars Technica]

A notícia é meio velha, desculpem pela minha irresponsabilidade xD

A Microsoft anunciou que a plataforma Live para PC serão livres de cobrança, tanto para os usuários como para as produtoras. O sistema permite que os games tenham funcionalidades como conquistas integradas ao perfil online do jogador e componentes multiplayer online.

No final do ano, o Games for Windows Live também terá uma área de mercado, no qual será possível distribuir games, vídeos e outros conteúdos, como na contraparte para Xbox 360.

Para o usuário, agora, todas as funcionalidades da Games for Windows Live são gratuitas, incluindo as conquistas, casamento de partidas e integração com jogadores de Xbox 360.

Assim, a companhia espera competir com outros serviços similares de perfil online, comunidade e distribuição de conteúdo, como o Steam, da Valve Software. A companhia também tem um programa de utilização gratuita pelas produtoras de seu sistema.

Redação UOL Jogos

Sempre quis ter um X360 e ter Live aqui, agora esse sonho pode se realizar :)

Ah falei com o Tony ontem, ele disse que só volta semana que vem, então o povo aqui vai ficar até lá sem saber qual as novidades dele! MuHuahauahauhau

Blogosfeando un poco, leo en Applesfera un articulo escrito hoy en el Wall Street Journal por Walter S. Mossberg que, movido por el aumento de la cota de mercado de los ordenadores de Apple durante este trimestre, y que de este aumento, muchos de ellos son personas que no han tenido un mac en su vida, y han hecho el cambio desde windows, estas personas, dentro del mundo maquero, son conocidas como switchers (de la traduccion del ingles, vendria a decirse "cambiantes" ).

En este articulo, claramente orientado a la gente que va ha realizar este cambio por primera vez (y esto es como el lado oscuro de la fuerza, una vez lo pruebas...no vuelves), viene a explicar las similitudes entre los sistemas operativos de las dos plataformas y las diferencias (aunque no hay nada como ver un Leopard en accion)

Algunos de los puntos que se exponen en el articulo, y que yo, como reciente switcher que soy (tengo mi MacBook Pro desde abril) he considerado curiosos y a la vez interesantes de exponer:

• Barras de menú: En Windows, cada programa generalmente tiene su propia barra de menú. En las Mac, hay una sola barra de menú, en la parte superior de la pantalla, que cambia según qué programa esté usando en ese momento.
• Barra de tareas: El equivalente a la barra de tareas del Windows XP en las Mac es el Dock. A diferencia de la barra de tareas, que principalmente contiene íconos que representan ventanas abiertas, el Dock de Mac fundamentalmente está compuesto por íconos de los programas que usa con más frecuencia. Para meter un programa en el Dock, tiene que arrastrar el ícono allí. Para sacarlo, basta con arrastrar el ícono fuera del Dock y éste desaparece con una animación de una bocanada de humo.
• Cerrar programas: En Windows, se puede cerrar un programa haciendo clic en el cuadradito con la "X" roja en el ángulo superior derecho de la ventana que esté usando. Sin embargo, en las Mac, si hace clic en el botón equivalente —una "X" en un círculo en el ángulo superior izquierdo— sólo está cerrando la ventana, no el programa. Para cerrar el programa, tiene que elegir "Salir" en el menú que está más a la izquierda u oprimir a la vez las teclas Command y Q.
• Alternar programas: Una forma común de alternar entre programas en ejecución en Windows XP es oprimir simultáneamente ALT y TAB. Esto muestra íconos de cada programa que está funcionando y le permite cambiar de programa. En Mac, se puede hacer el mismo truco oprimiendo a la vez las teclas Command y TAB. Las Mac también tienen una función muy útil llamada Expose, la cual muestra todas las ventanas abiertas al mismo tiempo, en miniatura, para que pueda navegar entre ellas. Puede activar Expose de varias maneras, pero la más común es presionar la tecla F9 o la tecla Expose, dependiendo de su modelo de Mac.
• Clic derecho: Pese a la creencia común, una Mac tiene una función de menú de clic derecho, al igual que Windows. Muchas Mac de escritorio ahora vienen con un mouse que permite hacer clic derecho, y uno puede usar casi todos los ratones USB de dos botones con cualquier Mac moderna. Si usa una Mac portátil, la cual tiene sólo un botón debajo de la almohadilla táctil, puede simular un clic derecho presionando la tecla Control cuando hace clic, o poniendo dos dedos en la almohadilla mientras hace clic. La segunda técnica, que es la que yo prefiero, debe ser activada en Preferencias del sistema.

Me parece un interesante articulo, en el que la gente que esta dudosa de si cambiarse o no a mac puede "disolver" estas dudas de un plumazo (o crearse mas) y yo, os recomiendo que, tengais dudas o no, si teneis que compraros un ordenador nuevo, que lleve la manzanita, por que el Sistema Operativo es super intuitivo, bonito y muy facil de usar, mucho mas que esa cosa que nos venden llamada Windows Vista, y sobretodo, ahora en la era Mac-Intel, quitaros de la cabeza eso de que "los macs no son compatibles con nada" por que eso es una mentira enorme.

Un saludo a tod@s!!

Sudah pernah dengar nama Windows 7 ( dibaca: Windows Seven ) ?

Wah, kalau belum tahu buat referensinya bisa dibaca-baca di sini. Windows 7 ini mempunyai code name "Vienna" atau "Blackcomp". By the way, bagaimana tampilan desktopnya sich?

Nah... kalau kamu pingin tahu gimana tampilan desktopnya, kamu bisa modding alias ngoprek themes WIndows XP menjadi seperti Windows 7 tersebut. Themes dan aplikasi yang akan digunakan namanya Windows 7 Transformation Pack. Caranya gimana?

Ehm... lagi-lagi silahkan saja di-oprek2 sendiri dech! Langkah demi langkah modding-nya nggak terlalu sukar koq! Entar kalau sudah selesai, so pasti jadi tahu bagaimana tampilan desktop Windows 7 yang membuat penasaran kamu!

Berani mencoba? :mrgreen:

Fortunately there are tools that do the job better than the default file managers that come with our native operating systems. Here we take a look at the top five Window file managers.

Quick Start shows the very basics needed to quickly get started with the Blender Video Sequence Editor (VSE).

1) Download the Video Editing Preset .blend - Quick Start tutorial included (works without extra video files!)

2) Download Blender (in case you don't have the latest Blender 2.46)

3) Double-click the .blend

Since Blender works under FreeBSD, Linux, OS X, Solaris and Windows the Blender VSE offers free and open-source video editing for almost any platform that an editor, video artist or company might be using. This means you could start working on your old iMac, send the .blend to your co-editor who has a Windows PC and once you get it back you could finish the project on your new Ubuntu workstation - the same .blend can be opened and edited on all platforms!

See all the new features that the Blender VSE offers since Blender 2.46. For more information, including some current limitations and workarounds, see the Blender Wiki: Using VSE.

2D Title Presets: Updated

1) Download the 2D Title Presets .blend - the tutorial (included) now begins with a few quick steps to get started in no time

2) Download Blender

3) Double-click the .blend

Tutorials = CC Licensed - Your Work = Yours!

Both .blends/tutorials are (now) distributed under a Creative Commons license (Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported) - however you may use these .blends as starting points for your own commercial Blender made projects! Simply remove the tutorial texts (and rename the .blend) before sharing your .blends with others. The license restrictions only apply to the tutorial text and the tutorial as such!

Your editing projects and titles are yours!

If you are an educator, teacher or trainer: you may use these .blends in your classes (e.g. film school, multimedia training etc.) as long as they are distributed in their original form (no changes made) and free of charge.

See the .blends and the CC license for details.

One reason for the restrictions: I plan to update the tutorials, maybe extend them and simply can not support multiple versions. Thanks for understanding.

Special Thanks

...to Paul from the final BUG for hosting the .blend files!

Part 1

Part 2

Most of you have probably already read our post on Network .PST files, or Windows Explorer and SMB Traffic.  We have seen an increase in file server load issue that go beyond some of the obvious issues such as Network .PST files, misbehaving filter drivers, or pool memory depletion. As server environments continue to scale upwards with larger file server needs and thousands of clients connecting to file servers for user profiles and redirected documents, these issues become more common.

When troubleshooting these issues, there is often a need to capture a Network trace of the problem while it is occurring.  However, not every administrator is comfortable with capturing network traces.  On top of that, reading network traces is a bit of an art – and one that does take some time to master.  Today we are going to discuss a tool that can help you capture a network trace with very little effort.  In my next post, I’ll show you how to take that network trace and perform a quick analysis on it that doesn’t require you to be a network expert and apply some simple fixes that have resolved many of the issues that we have seen.  So, let’s get started …

The tool we are going to use is Network Monitor 3.1 OneClick.  This is a free tool available from the Microsoft Download Center.  There are two OneClick packages available – Autorun and ExtractOnly.  The Autorun package installs Network Monitor 3.1 on your machine if you did not previously have it installed and begin a network capture.  The capture is designed to stop automatically when it reaches 30MB in size, or after 120 minutes – whichever comes first.  After the capture completes, if you did not have Network Monitor 3.1 already installed on your machine, then Network Monitor 3.1 is automatically uninstalled.  The ExtractOnly packages is used if you want to save the OneClick utility on a USB key or other portable media and run the tool later on a different machine.  Let’s take a look at how the Autorun package runs on a Windows Server 2008 machine.

When you run the tool, the first thing you are prompted for is a path to save your network capture.  As you can see, the default location to save the capture is in your profile in the “Network Captures” folder.  For this demonstration, I am going to save the data in a different location – C:\TOOLS\NETCAPS.

If you are running this tool on Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 with UAC enabled, you will see the following if you did not run the program with elevated privileges.  Alternatively, if your user account is in the NetMon Users group on the local machine, you should not encounter this error:

So, let’s try this again – and this time, we’ll launch the program with elevated privileges:

This time, Network Monitor 3.1 installed successfully, and the capture is launched.  If I look in the folder where I saved the capture, I can see that the capture reached the maximum size of 30MB and has stopped growing:

Once I am ready to end the capture (assuming that 120 minutes has not elapsed and auto-terminated the capture), I hit the ‘x’ key to terminate the capture and the capturing ends, and Network Monitor is removed:

And that’s how easy it is to get a Network Capture on a server!  The OneClick application automatically captures the traffic on all network interfaces so you don’t even need to worry about specifying which network card to monitor – which is very useful on multi-homed machines, such as cluster servers.

With that, it is time to bring this post to an end.  In my next post, we’ll take a look at an actual capture from a file server having issues and go over a quick fix you might be able to use in your environment,

By Austin Mack

Last year we did a quick series on WMI troubleshooting.  Something that we didn’t cover is a quick method to verify the consistency of the repository.  Many of you have probably done a rebuild of the repository on Windows Server 2003 or an earlier operating system by renaming the repository and  allowing WINMGMT to rebuild the repository automatically.  There are some inherent risks in any rebuild or recovery of the WMI Repository, regardless of the operating system – for example, if an application only updates the repository during installation and does not use .MOF files then a repository rebuild means that the WMI data for that application is lost – at least until the application is re-installed.

Beginning with Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, there is a new switch that can be used to check the consistency of the repository – /verifyrepository.  If you run WINMGMT.EXE /? at a command prompt you can see a description of this switch.  The description is below:

Performs a consistency check on the WMI repository. When you add the /verifyrepository switch without the <path> argument, then the live repository currently used by WMI is verified. When you specify the path argument, you can verify any saved copy of the repository. In this case, the path argument should contain the full path to the saved repository copy. The saved repository should be a copy of the entire repository folder. For more information about errors returned by this command, see the Remarks section.

One quick note – you will need to run the command using elevated privileges, otherwise you’ll simply be presented with an error that looks like the one on the left.

There are a couple of different ways to run the command – against the live repository or against a backup copy.  You can use the /backup switch to create a backup of the repository to a file.  However, for the purposes of this post, I’m going to go ahead and run a consistency check against the live repository on my Windows Server 2008 machine …

In this particular instance, the WMI repository is healthy.  However, if the status had been reported as Inconsistent, then we could have used one of the other new switches, /salvagerepository, to attempt to rebuild the repository.  The /salvagerepository command will first run a consistency check on the repository and if inconsistencies are discovered, then the repository.  The content of the inconsistent repository is merged into the rebuilt repository if it can be read.  The salvage operation only uses the live repository.  Any MOF files containing the #pragma autorecover preprocessor statement are restored to the registry.  Once the salvage operation has completed, you should run another consistency check.

Some other useful switches introduced with Windows Vista are the /standalonehost and /sharedhost switches which can be used to isolate WMI into its own SVCHOST.EXE process and move it back into the shared SVCHOST.EXE process as needed.  Also, whether you rebuild the repository using this method or stopping WMI to rename the repository and allow WINMGMT.EXE to rebuild the repository automatically, be aware that you may have to stop (or disable) some dependent services while performing the maintenance.

And that’s it for this post.  Remember that the switches we discussed here are not available on any operating systems prior to Windows Vista.  Until next time …

Additional Resources:

• TechNet ScriptCenter: WMI isn’t Working!
• MSDN: Winmgmt (Windows)
• MSDN: Pragma Autorecover (Windows)

By CC Hameed

The DHCP database can be moved or migrated from a Windows Server 2003 server to a Windows Server 2008 server, or from one Windows Server 2008 server to another.  The information below details the necessary steps.

Export the DHCP database from a server that is running Microsoft Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008

To move a DHCP database and configuration from a server that is running Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008 to another server that is running Windows Server 2008:

1.   Log on to the source DHCP server by using an account that is a member of the local Administrators group.

2.   Click Start, click Run, type cmd in the Open box, and then click OK.

3.   Type netsh dhcp server export C:\dhcp.txt all , and then press ENTER.

Note: You must have local administrator permissions to export the data.

Configure the DHCP server service on the server that is running Windows Server 2008

1.   Click Start, click Administrative Tools, click Server Manager. If needed acknowledge User Account Control.

2.   In Roles Summary click Add Roles, click Next, check DHCP server, and then click Next.

Import the DHCP database

1.   Log on as a user who is an explicit member of the local Administrators group. A user account in a group that is a member of the local Administrators group will not work. If a local Administrators account does not exist for the domain controller, restart the computer in Directory Services Restore Mode, and use the administrator account to import the database as described later in this section.

2.   Copy the exported DHCP database file to the local hard disk of the Windows Server 2008-based computer.

3.   Verify that the DHCP service is started on the Windows Server 2008-based computer.

4.   Click Start, click Run, type cmd in the Open box, and then click OK.

5.   At the command prompt, type netsh dhcp server import c:\dhcpdatabase.txt all , and then press ENTER, where c:\dhcpdatabase.txt is the full path and file name of the database file that you copied to the server.

Note When you try to export a DHCP database from a Windows 2000/2003 domain controller to a Windows Server 2008 member server of the domain, you may receive the following error message:

Error initializing and reading the service configuration - Access Denied

Note You must have local administrator permissions to import the data.

6.   To resolve this issue, add the Windows Server 2008 DHCP server computer to the DHCP Admins group at the Enterprise level and redo steps 4 & 5.

7.   If the "access is denied" error message occurs after you add the Windows Server 2008 DCHP server computer to the DHCP Admins group at the Enterprise level that is mentioned in step 6, verify that the user account that is currently used to import belongs to the local Administrators group. If the account does not belong to this group, add the account to that group, or log on as a local administrator to complete the import and redo steps 4 & 5.

Authorize the DHCP server

1.   Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click DHCP.

Note You must be logged on to the server by using an account that is a member of the Administrators group. In an Active Directory domain, you must be logged on to the server by using an account that is a member of the Enterprise Administrators group.

2.   In the console tree of the DHCP snap-in, expand the new DHCP server. If there is a red arrow in the lower-right corner of the server object, the server has not yet been authorized.

3.   Right-click the server object, and then click Authorize.

4.   After several moments, right-click the server again, and then click Refresh. A green arrow indicates that the DHCP server is authorized.

By Wayne Melvin

Issue

In recent weeks we have seen a number of cases with intermittent file sharing connectivity to Windows Server 2008 servers. I wanted to get this information out so that people who may be experiencing the issue won't have to spend a lot of time tracking down the problem.

The issue generally manifests in one of two ways:

• After a period of time Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 clients can connect to file shares on a Windows Server 2008 server but Windows Vista clients time-out.
• After a period of time Windows Vista clients can connect to file shares on a Windows Server 2008 server but Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 clients time-out.

Network traces look similar in both cases. After the TCP 3-way handshake the client sends an SMB Negotiate Dialect but the server doesn't respond.

Eventually the TCP session times out and is reset as seen in this example:

Resolution

Two things are currently known to address the issue:

• Upgrading the NIC drivers is known to help but not completely resolve the issue.
• In the cases we have seen so far, uninstalling anti-virus software has resolved the issue.

Most of these cases involved older anti-virus software versions but we have also seen the issue with current versions that are supported on Windows Server 2008.

While there is not currently a complete resolution, I hope providing this information will help some people identify this issue quickly so they can resolve it and minimize the disruption to their environment.

By David Pracht

Finding a Solution for the 0xC0000005 error.

This is a fairly common Windows access violation error and hopefully this article will help you resolve the problems you are having:

http://www.updatexp.com/0xC0000005.html

Kind Regards

Marc Liron - Microsoft MVP