ntdll.dll is open or in use by another application

While trying the install Service Pack 3 on the Windows XP Service Pack 2 Computer the following error messaged showed ‘c:\windows\system32\ntdll.dll’ is open or in use by another applications’ I was installing Service Pack 3 Through Windows Update. I downloaded and ran Process Explorer from SysInternals , This let me use the Find function for searching for process’ calling the ntdll.dll file. After looking at the list , and finding out the process with the type “HANDLE” I found the process using this DLL was infact internet explorer ( iexplorer.exe)! Since this update came from Windows Update there was obviously an issue. To resolve the issue , I downloaded  the standalone Network Version of SP3 and made sure Internet Explorer was closed before I reran setup Reran SP3 and the update worked fine!

Tags: ntdll.dll, ntdll.dll is open, Service Pack 3 XP

123 Reg Disabled Account? How to find out!

Recently a 123-reg.co.uk domain account I use, was disabled. The run up to it , was registering a domain under my account for a friend, then getting for a friend who wanted to use it , to pay for it with his paypal. This was fine until 2 years later , when the domain auto renewed and charged the account to my friends paypal account. Unfortunately my friend didn’t want the domain any more and queried the disputed the paypal transaction. Unknown to me, the two sides had arguments and Paypal refunded the money to my friend, and 123 reg disabled the account due to a payment issue! Little did I know that this had happened and upon trying to login to the account one day it would not accept my username and password. Upon retyping a few times I use their password reset facility , which sends an email to the account holder and a link to “Change your Password” Upon clicking on this link it checks an ID value then redirects you to  https://www.123-reg.co.uk/lost-login/change-password.pl ,however after entering the new password twice and choosing “Change Password” button , I was greeted with the following screen, telling me in some unparsed html that there was an error with my request. After trying again twice , it still produced the same error message! After getting a colleague to check their account was ok with password resets and trying on another computer/IP to check if a cache or cookie problem I found the link the email was trying to take me to was : https://www.123-reg.co.uk/rp.pl?t=(idnumber)&a=(username)&id=**%20DISABLED%20** I guess this pointed out clearly what was wrong with my account! After calling up their support number they explained to me what had happened, I offered to pay the domain fee ( £7! ) and they offered to accept the payment for an extra £12.50 Administration Fee via bacs which takes up to 3 days even if it is the same bank! It would have been really useful if 123reg had emailed me or contacted the main account holder (myself) to tell me my account had been suspended. It would have saved some time and investigation, but I am thankful the domain on the account still held it’s DNS records and nameservers in tact which is why it took me 3 weeks to find out something was wrong! Resolution Judging by the look of the url strings , rp.pl file grabs a “t , a and id” value, so rp.pl needs to have a clause in it where if (id = **%20DISABLED%20**) {then send to a correct error page “Your account is disabled , please call this number Monday – Friday to discuss”}

Tags: 123 Reg Disabled Account, Paypal 123 Reg, Paypal Refund

Windows 7 Backup Up Now Not Working or UAC Shield Shorcuts Icons

A customer had an issue of opening the Windows 7 “Backup Up Now” button. After investigation on this technet thread http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproui/thread/6a138e65-2834-41ac-bd40-c2344e20b824 it seems the problem is caused by 3rd party application not implementing their context menu(right click option) correctly. This is when you select a file and right click on it and have options such as zipping  it up , or sending it to some backup software. There are a few applications named and shamed below that cause this with the fix from microsoft : “So if you have quicksfv installed and are facing this issue, you can either un-install and install the latest one or check for the below reg key and add it if not already present. 1. regedit-> [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ShellCompatibility\Objects\{906b0e6e-61ce-11d3-8ee2-0060080a7242}] “CTXMENU_NOVERBS”=”" (right click-> New->’String Value’->CTXMENU_NOVERBS->Enter) Other apps which we have been reported to cause this issue: i. “MoveTo CopyTo Context Menu” – gives a right click Move To option – Guid {C8F9EE0B-60AE-40C6-930D-6395F46358E5} ii. “CompareIt!” – (installed with ‘Shell extension’ option) – Guid {398D6F03-7C65-4462-A173-95247F028785} iii. explorer integration for the trojan scanner “a-squared Free” – Guid {A155339D-CCCD-4714-85EB-3754B804C9DF} iv. PCmag’s ContextMenuPlus – Guid {EECB3CFB-8757-11D3-9A66-00105A228F4A} v. J River Media Center 14 – Guid {7578A3D3-CF04-4F4B-A231-43D8F50A4C49} vi. Quicksfv – Guid {906b0e6e-61ce-11d3-8ee2-0060080a7242} vii. Handy Backup Software – {21B897E9-4B62-4C3D-A0C5-5FF356E84ADA} // you can reomve the shell integration feature of this to correct the issue. viii. Easy SFV Creator 2.7.0 by Brad Smith Software – {67FDD158-4C57-4672-A93C-AEDFAACA693F} ix. JujuEdit.exe. (Guid not available – should be uninstalled) x. MyWinLocker. (Guid not available – should be uninstalled) xi. WebEx – Guid {4D185FEC-958C-4DB4-87AA-D4D79A46FAB7} If the guids are not present in the ‘Objects’ reg key, then you need to add the guid and then add the string value. 1. Go to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ShellCompatibility\Objects 2. If the apps guid(mentioned above) is not present, right click on ‘Objects’->New->Key-><guid value> 3. Now click on the <guid> key, on the right side-> new-> ‘String Value’-> CTXMENU_NOVERBS However after checking through the registery subkeys none of these where installed. I tried to be proactive and go through all the keys in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ShellCompatibility\Objects and add the ‘String Value’-> CTXMENU_NOVERBS , however this was to no avail, so I’m guessing the problem software had forgot to create its GUID here. Next step was to check through the context menu and find anything there not default with the windows install. There was MagicISO and Express Zip File Compression Software As Express Zip File Compression Software was the most recently installed , I uninstalled this. After this I was able to rightclick on My Computer and click Manage as well run the Windows 7 Backup and Restore functions Luckily on the technet article there is a representation from Microsoft.com who suggests this, if all else fails! And I would need a dump of the explorer process from your machine. Please follow the below steps: i. Get the machine in the problematic state, ie when the links wont work. ii. right click on task bar-> Task manager-> process tab-> Explorer.exe-> right click-> Create dump file. iii. save the file on local disk(could be a few hundred MBs), upload it onto skyDrive space and send the link. You can email the details to lokkum”at”microsoft”dot”com. Details on the CPPLinks http://cid-921ae32373defa5b.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/.Public/CPLLinksBroken 1. copy the correct architecture exe onto your machine.  Double click on the exe. 2. First page, it asks for a type of file, say Documents. 3. Then pick some random file, may be a .txt file. 4. Generate the report. This should give a link for detailed info. 5. It will give you output in sections. Scroll down to “Verb Handlers” section. This might say some red information about some app returning ‘SUCCEEDED WHERE IT SHOULD NOT’.(ignore the one which says ‘does some I/O during binding’). 6. There will be a guid associated with the above red warning(big number of around 32bits). This is the identifier of the culprit app. 7. Search for this guid in run->regedit-> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ShellCompatibility\Objects\ 8. If found, on the right create a new ‘String Value’ with name CTXMENU_NOVERBS=”" 9. If not, you will have to create a key with the guid first and then do step 6. (This will ask the OS to ignore the fault of the app.) After this your links should work fine. Alternatively at step 4, if you face any difficulty, you have an option to ‘Save log file’(save the report), save it to a file on your desktop and send it across to me. I will try and examine it.

Tags: CTXMENU_NOVERBS, Express Zip File Compression Software, Windows 7 Backup and Restore not working, Windows 7 context menu

Remote Web Workplace Resolution Resizing Problem Full Screen

A client was logging into Small Business Server Remote Web Workplace , however upon initializing the RDP connection with the server. The user was not utilising the full screen size of his local machine and there where black lines surrounding the RDP border. This is usually an issue with resolution set on the initial web settings. After checking this on clicking Optional Settings before clicking on the selected client computer, this was set to full screen.  The RWW takes these settings on launch and saves them to a Default.rdp file on the local My Documents folder so future connections can utilise these. I checked this file and the resolution had been set to full screen. Upon launching the rdp file and putting in a test Remote Server , the screen opened up to the correct resolution. The issue was the user had increased the zoom size of Internet Explorer to %125. This means when the RDP client tried to initiate the screen size through internet explorer it had the wrong resolution. Changing this back to 100% ( Toolbar – View , Zoom ) fixed the problem.

Tags: Black Lines RDP, Remote Web Workplace IE Zoom, Remote Web Workplace Resolution, Remote Web Workplace Screen Size

Office Installation HRSERULT:OX80070BC9 Error

Setting up a new installation of Office 2010 Standard on a computer , and thanks to the standard unistall procedure of Norton Internet Security, the computer restarted half way through the installation. Re installation produced the following error message at the end of set-up HRSERULT:OX80070BC9 To fix this error , download and run the Office 2010 un-installer from here After this has completed , give the computer a reboot and try again , and it will complete this time!

Tags: HRSERULT:OX80070BC9, Office 2010, Office 2010 uninstall

VBScript: Remote Desktop Disconnected

After trying to connect to connect to a computer in the Remote Web Workplace the following message comes up VBScript: Remote Desktop Disconnected An internal error has occured The computer had to be added manually to the domain instead of using the remote web workplace wizard. This means the default Windows 7 options for Remote Desktop is set to “Don’t allow connections to this computer” Setting the “Allow connections only from computers running Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication” will produce this error The option needs to be on for “Allow connnection from computer running any version of Remote Desktop” for connection to work Then choose the Select Users button and add the user who needs access remotely or set to Domain Users for everyone on the domain. Also make sure the RDP port 3389 is enabled on the local firewall of the PC

Tags: An internal error has occured, VBScript: Remote Desktop Disconnected

Path is too Deep and Delayed write failed copying network file

After the moving of 5 computers to a new office, windows shares and transfers where causing issues. Upon opening up any of the programs in the Microsoft Office Suite and saving the document back to the file server, the program would crash and bring up : Windows delayed write failed and Path is too Deep The file path was the root of the drive and the file name was small so there wasn’t a problem with the Path Size in the users computer After manually saving the document to the local desktop and then copying it back to the same server, it worked! Further testing proved that copying a large sized file around 30mb would provide a new error message just after starting the transfer and creating the file  network path is no longer available The network was fine with pings , no drop outs and copying down from the server was fine. The problem pointed to the MTU size or transfer speed not being agreed by the switch or the computer. The problem in the end turned out to be a fault Media Converter ( Fibre to Ethernet ). So if you get the error message I would double check cables , switches and routers in between the two devices!

Tags: Delayed write failed, network path is no longer available, Path is too Deep

Duplicate Emails being sent from Outlook 2003

I recently had an issue , where a single user in an exchange server email enviroment, was sending a single email ( one item appearing in Sent Items) , however two where being receipted by the users. Even sending an email to himself or CC’ing himself in, duplicated the message. The messages had different message ID’s. The error seemed to be in the .SRS file of the outlook profile. This is used to store all the ?Microsoft Outlook Send/Receive Settings. You can delete this file by 1) Closing Outlook ( Check the Process Outlook.exe is also closed in Task Manager using Ctrl , Alt and Delete ) 2) Go to the users Outlook Profile Location usually %USERPROFILE%\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook for Windows XP or %appdata%\microsoft\outlook for Windows 7 3) Locate the SRS file for the current outlook profile being used and delete 4) Open up outlook again , which will recreate a new SRS file and should fix the error

Tags: Duplicate Email Outlook, Duplicate Emails being sent from Outlook 2003, Outlooking sending one recieve two

Desktop email program unable to submit message on Blackberry

I recently activated a blackberry to a Blackberry Enterpise Server , however on sending emails , a red cross was displayed with the following error message “Desktop email program unable to submit message” Upon research the problems for this error message are displayed in the KB04422 and further issues showed it was a Send As Error . After checking the user account , BesAdmin did not have Send As Permission. I added the permission let it replicate and restart the blackberry routing service which fixed the issue. An hour last the user came back with the same problem and upon checking the permissions had been reset. Microsoft has provided the following list. If an object (user, machine, or other group) is a member of any of these groups, it will be considered a protected object and will hourly have its ACL reset ( is considered protected and will have its ACL reset hourly )

• Administrators
• Account Operators
• Server Operators
• Print Operators
• Backup Operators
• Domain Admins
• Schema Admins
• Enterprise Admins
• Cert Publishers

1) Remove the problem account from these groups 2)Using the dsacls utility (available in the Resource Kit for your version of Windows Server), you can change the AdminSDHolder object. By using this utility you can allow your Blackberry service account to be added to the AdminSDHolder object. This will allow the ability to add the Blackberry service account to users in protected groups and not have it overwritten. To do this, you will need to install the dsacls utility on a server, create a batch file containing the commands below, and run the batch file on the server with the utility installed: dsacls “cn=adminsdholder,cn=system,dc=mydomain,dc=com” /G “\SELF:CA;Send As” dsacls “cn=adminsdholder,cn=system,dc=<mydomain>,dc=com” /G “\SELF:CA;Receive As” dsacls “cn=adminsdholder,cn=system,dc=<mydomain>,dc=com” /G “\SELF:CA;Change Password” dsacls “cn=adminsdholder,cn=system,dc=<mydomain>,dc=com” /G “\SELF:RPWP;Personal Information” dsacls “cn=adminsdholder,cn=system,dc=<mydomain>,dc=com” /G “\SELF:RPWP;Phone and Mail Options” dsacls “cn=adminsdholder,cn=system,dc=<mydomain>,dc=com” /G “\SELF:RPWP;Web Information” dsacls “cn=adminsdholder,cn=system,dc=mydomain,dc=com” /G “\%BLACKBERRYSERVICEACCOUNT%:CA;Send As” You will need to add the Blackberry service account ( Bes Admin )  with Send As permissions again after this and it won’t get removed with the ACL Update

Tags: AdminSDHolder ACL Reset, Desktop email program unable to submit messag, Domain Admin Send As, Send As Permissions Reset Hourly, Send As Self Removed

Word/Outlook 2003 Check Spelling as you Type Not Working

A user typing in Word and Outlook ( Using word as the email editior) had intermitent issues with her spell check not automatically detecting spelling mistakes as she wrote. Microsoft Office calls this “Check Spelling as your Type” Upon going to Tools , Options , Spelling & Grammer tab and pressing OK this starts the spelling as you type working , until you open up a new document and have to repear the process again. After trying all the obious things Check Spelling as you Type is Ticked Check Grammer as you Type is Ticked Check Grammer with Spelling is Ticked Checking “Do not checking spelling or Grammer” is unticked ( In Tools Language ) The problem turned out to be the problem with the detection of language automatically using the “Detect Language Automatically” tick box After unticking this and Selling the dictionary to English (U.K.) this solved the issue

Tags: Check Grammer as you Type, Check Grammer with Spelling, Check Spelling as you Type, Detect Language Automatically