Trust Relationship between this workstation and primary domain failed

Symptom: When trying to login to the domain with a Windows 7 computer the following message is displayed “The trust relationship between this workstation and primary domain failed”.

Cause: Has the computer been out of sync with domain for some reason the domain computer password might have been expired. Check for trouble with dns or network errors.

Solution:

1. Log on to the Windows 7 computer with a local account
2. Go to system properties and choose Network ID
3. Go through the questions, yes its a domain and so on. Give a valid domain account that has the right to add computers to the domain. Normal user account works for default domains if not locked down.
4. Restart

Other solutions is to remove the computer from the domain. First on the local computer and then from the domain controller. Above solution, which is new for Windows7, is far more effecient though.

Lockscreen shortcut

When bouncing about on different desktops, virtual and otherwise physical its easy to leave a computer unlocked sometimes. This isn’t so good, but shortcuts tends to flip out when accessing remote systems. A good security practice is to create a desktop shortcut that can lock the computer very easily.

So,

1. Create a shortcut

2. Enter: rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation

3. Save and change icon to a padlock or something more logical. This among other icons can be found in Shell32.dll under system32

References:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/13278-lock-computer-create-shortcut.html

http://ask-leo.com/how_do_i_change_the_icon_of_a_desktop_shortcut.html

Change Windows key

When deploying images with ghost or such as we somtimes manage to deploy an already activated windows computer. To change the key to a real oem if such is available run /> slui 3 and change the key.

Bootmgr not found after imagex deployment

Issue with deployment of Windows 8 wim with imagex deployment.

Applied image like below from WinPE

1. Diskpart
2. Select disk 0
3. Clean
4. Create partition primary
5. Select partition 1
6. Active
7. Format quick
8. Assign letter=c
9. Exit
10. Imagex /apply h:\lab\windows8.wim 1 c:

Afterwards system wouldn’t boot, giving error about bootmgr not found. Checked files and everything disk had been imaged correctly. Had to do the following to get the system to start:

1. bootsect /nt60 c:
2. bcdboot c:\windows

Strange, but short on time so this solution works for now.

Problems running applications using older dotnet framework on W8

When trying to download dotnet 3.5 automaticly the download fails. Oddly enough, using an previous offline package installer for dotnet3.5 this package also tells me that it needs the dotnet package.

Chew on that for a minute. The actual install package for dotnet 3.5 requires some older version of dotnet (that is included in this dotnet3.5 package) to installa on Windows 8.

Anyways, if you have a W8-disc you can use solution below.

Solution: This is using a w8 installationsdisc or image.

1. From elevated cmd
2. /> dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:netfx3 /all /limitaccess /source:x:\sources\sxs

Where x:\ is your mountpoint or discdrive.

/all enables all parent features of dotnet

/limitaccess prevents dism from contacting Windows Update

/source specifies location of files.

References:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh506443.aspx

Windows 8 PDF Reader

Lovely idea MS. Really.

However, after 3 months of using W8 I have finally caved and installed Adobe Acrobat Reader. The reasons are these:

1. I can’t have two pdf documents side-by-side.
2. No outlook 2010 integration. Can’t view pdf directly from email, which is quite handy most of the time. Though perhabs more insecure.
3. I can’t use snippet tool with Winpdf. Though I suspect this has more to do with WinRT, than the actual program.
4. I can’t go to specific page
5. Search leaves much to ask for.

Sometimes I need to compare documents or at least copy serials and knick-knacks from the pdf. So above points are dealbreakers for me. And most likely for many other users.

Firefox and Sharepoint authentication

I like sharepoint, and I like firefox. The two don’t like each other.

To get rid of pesky authentication everytime we login to sharepoint with firefox do as follows:

1. In firefox address field: about:config
2. Find network.automatic-ntlm-auth.trusted-uris
3. Edit field and add all sharepoint addresses you want to remember password for. Seperate addresses with ,

Note that this assumes that you’ve actually saved the credentials for the site earlier, via Internet Explorer or Credentials Manager.

References:

http://tech.kateva.org/2009/01/how-to-use-firefox-with-sharepoint.html

Add network folder to Windows Library

If you want to add a network folder to your Windows 8 libraries you’re usually presented with a dialogue telling you that the folder needs to indexed.

This is the workaround.

1. Create folder on disk. For example : c:\images

2. Delete folder

3. CTRL+Q to search. cmd as admin.

4. mklink /d c:\image \\server\images

5. Done.

Now all images are easily accessed from your windows libraries. Plus they get indexed.

Windows 8–still no volume shortcut

Same plague as with previous version. No builtin method to raise or lower volume by keyboardcommands. Something I value since I need to be able to mute or lower volume when call comes in. Using the mouse isn’t effective.

So we still need to use same program as with Windows 7

3RVX

Download it here :http://matt.malensek.net/software/3RVX_2.5.msi

Then to put it autostart for Windows 8, use path : C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

Just copy the shortcut from above Programsfolder.
I usually prefers to change the shortcut-keys to WIN+F11 = Lower, WIN+F12 = Raise, WIN+F10 = Mute. This because the default key is WIN+Mousewheel Up/Down which kind defeats the purpose of a KEYBOARD-shortcut…

References:

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/5180-startup-items-manage-windows-8-a.html

Windows 8 Refresh

A new feature of Windows 8 is the ability to refresh your computer. A built-in way to completly reinstall your os without having to do any actual work. The downside of this is that you have to reinstall all your custom applications.
That is unless you modify the refresh baseline!
To do this,

1. Make sure your system is set up the way you like it, with Office and common tools etc.
2. Run cmd in adminmode
3. mkdir c:\Backup
4. recimg –createimage c:\backup
5. Wait, this might take a while

Now, the next time refresh is used in Windows, this is the image that will be used.
References:
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/251527/windows_8_refresh_feature_makes_it_easy_to_start_with_a_clean_slate.html

Windows.old

If you for some reason gotten stuck with an windows.old folder on your system that is eating away at your precious bytes, this is clean way to get rid of them.

1. Run Disk Cleanup

2. Choose Clean up system files

3. Select Previous Windows installations

4. Ok

This method have to be more nice to the system rather than just deleting it.

References:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/How-do-I-remove-the-Windows-old-folder

Don’t use time.windows.com

At a seminar I once learned that we shouldn’t use the default ntpserver time.windows.com. Which is preconfigured in all Windows installations. This server is apparently under quite a big load. I can imagine, seeing how usually people don’t look twice on this settings.
To change it, change time and date settings, choose Internet Time and change to a less travelled ntpserver. In sweden we can use one of the following:

            server 0.se.pool.ntp.org
    server 1.se.pool.ntp.org
    server 2.se.pool.ntp.org
    server 3.se.pool.ntp.org

The Internet Time tab won’t be visible if the computer is member of a domain. then this settings is being handled by the domain controller.