tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49981011283958749042024-02-20T06:35:23.685-06:00Grand Slam SoftwareAs much as I lean on Google and the internet for help when I'm solving problems, I figured it was time for me to contribute and post some of the things I've learned, problems I've solved, etc. Hopefully, something I post here will help someone solve a problem or at least point them in the right direction.Jesse Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00074579377927386366noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4998101128395874904.post-61049883888341367112012-01-23T08:29:00.001-06:002012-01-23T08:32:22.125-06:00Windows 7 stackhash_26c1 Error - Internet Explorer 9 not LoadingI had a user that called me with a problem that Internet Explorer 9 on Windows 7 was crashing immediately after loading with a "stackhash_26c1" error. I thought a quick workaround would be to just use Chrome instead of Internet Explorer. Unfortunately, Chrome, Safari and Firefox were all crashing with the same error. I searched the net and found many sites talking about similar errors and many different solutions. Some said to reset the security settings for the browser, some said MalwareBytes and various other malware cleaners and some said I had to disable DEP. Unfortunately, none of these solutions worked for me. I was down to my last option before a reinstall of Windows and went out to see if the latest version of Hitman would fix the problem:<br />
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<b>Hitman 3.6</b> - <a href="http://www.surfright.nl/en">http://www.surfright.nl/en</a><br />
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I had already tried Hitman 3.5 and it didn't work. I've had a lot of luck in the past with difficult to clean rootkits, etc. using Hitman so I figured I would check the website to see if there was a newer version. Sure enough, Hitman 3.6 was out so I downloaded it and gave it a shot. It found the problem right off and cleaned the rootkit after a reboot of the PC. Everything worked great after that and the user couldn't be happier.Jesse Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00074579377927386366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4998101128395874904.post-20598600040971493912011-10-05T14:07:00.002-05:002011-10-06T07:03:33.610-05:00XP Blue Screen with UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUMEI recently had a computer stop booting to Windows with the following "blue screen of death" error:<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"></span><br />
<h3 class="post-title entry-title" style="color: #444444; font: normal normal bold 22px/normal Arvo; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; position: relative;">
UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME</h3>
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After searching the web I found a great blog post that explained a quick way to solve the problem. In my case it seems the MBR (Master Boot Record) got corrupted somehow.<br />
<ol>
<li>Start the recovery console by placing the Windows XP CD in the CD Drive and booting to the CD instead of the hard drive.</li>
<li>When you get to the "C:" prompt type the following command and hit ENTER:<br /><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">chkdsk c: /r /p</span></b><br></li>
<li>You might have to wait a while after running the command in step 2. I let the computer run overnight and when I came back in the morning I was back to the "C:" prompt. Now type the following command and hit ENTER:<br /><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">fixmbr</span></b><br></li>
<li>This command ran pretty quickly so it didn't take long at all before I was ready to exit and see if it worked. Just type the following command and hit ENTER to exit the recover console:<br /><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">exit</span></b><br></li>
</ol>
<div>
I was able to reboot back into Windows and everything was working again. I'll update this post again if I notice anything strange but so far so good. I did notice after rebooting it ran through another "check disk" process before opening Windows. However, since that first time it ran "check disk" it hasn't done that again.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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Here is the link to the original post I found that helped me solve the problem:<br />
<a href="http://msgoodies.blogspot.com/2007/08/fixing-unmountablebootvolume-on-windows.html">http://msgoodies.blogspot.com/2007/08/fixing-unmountablebootvolume-on-windows.html</a></div>
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Jesse Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00074579377927386366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4998101128395874904.post-91041557739114188742011-07-19T12:47:00.001-05:002011-07-19T12:48:44.868-05:00XP Home "Access Denied" Error Installing Service Pack 3I had to fix a machine that was out of date so the first thing I normally do is update XP with all of the latest patches from Microsoft. I noticed the machine I was working on only had service pack 2 so I went ahead and started the install process for service pack 3. Unfortunately, after five to ten minutes a nice vague error that read "Access Denied" popped up. I cancelled the installation process and began searching Google for an answer. I tried a few things until I came across this website:<br />
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<a href="http://bcrawfordjr.wordpress.com/2008/05/08/access-denied-when-installing-service-pack-3-for-windows-xp/">http://bcrawfordjr.wordpress.com/2008/05/08/access-denied-when-installing-service-pack-3-for-windows-xp/</a><br />
<br />
After going through the process outlined on the website I was able to successfully install service pack 3 and continue updating the machine with all of Microsoft's updates.Jesse Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00074579377927386366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4998101128395874904.post-91512394445326531812011-06-25T00:02:00.000-05:002011-06-25T00:02:42.236-05:00Antivirus 2011 Malware Breaking EXE File AssociationI had to fix a PC today that was infected with one of those "Antivirus 2011" malware that do annoying things like prevent you from starting the task manager, msconfig, etc. This one also did a new thing that I had not run across before. It changed the file association in the registry for ".exe" files so that they did not run correctly anymore. I usually use "system restore" as a last resort but I had a pretty good feeling it would solve the problem. However, I wanted to see if I could fix it without doing a "system restore". Once I was able to clean the malware from the computer by identifying the software being loaded and deleting it from the hard drive, I focused on repairing the registry so that executable files ran correctly again. I found a great website that has ".reg" files to do just that. Here is the link:<br />
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<a href="http://www.dougknox.com/xp/file_assoc.htm">http://www.dougknox.com/xp/file_assoc.htm</a><br />
<br />
I downloaded the ".reg" file that fixed the ".exe" registry entries, rebooted the PC and everything was back to normal. There are many other ".reg" files available for download on the website.Jesse Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00074579377927386366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4998101128395874904.post-33676219632131176412011-06-20T15:41:00.001-05:002011-06-20T15:52:19.090-05:00Lost Windows 7 PasswordI had someone bring me a laptop with Windows 7 installed today and he couldn't use the laptop because he had forgotten the password. I didn't think this was a problem until I realized the administrator account password I had originally configured had also been changed. I definitely did not want to re-install Windows so I started searching Google for an answer. I came across a nice free boot disk that allows you to boot into a utility to clear out any password. Here's the link to the utility and a nice step by step video of resetting a password in Windows 7:<br />
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<a href="http://windows-server-training.com/windows-7-password-reset-recovery/">http://windows-server-training.com/windows-7-password-reset-recovery/</a><br />
<br />
I only tried it on Windows 7 but it is supposed to work on older versions of Windows too.Jesse Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00074579377927386366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4998101128395874904.post-49319897373542073522011-06-16T09:45:00.000-05:002011-06-16T09:45:58.720-05:00Unable to Log In to HotmailA user of mine was having trouble logging in to Hotmail and at first I wasn't sure why it wasn't working. I cleared the cache and cookies and that didn't solve the problem. I even reset all of the browser settings to see if that helped and the problem continued. Next I ran a scan to see if any malware was causing problems and that didn't solve the problem. Finally, I noticed I didn't see the Microsoft Messenger icon in the system tray. For some reason, Messenger had been removed from the system. I figured it was worth a shot so I went to Microsoft's website and downloaded the latest version of Microsoft Messenger:<br />
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<a href="http://explore.live.com/windows-live-messenger-xp?form=MSRMCNA&publ=MKTCLE&crea=HTML_CIMS016980_Messenger_EN-US_0X0_73814">http://explore.live.com/windows-live-messenger-xp?form=MSRMCNA&publ=MKTCLE&crea=HTML_CIMS016980_Messenger_EN-US_0X0_73814</a><br />
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After installing Messenger the user reconnected to Hotmail and everything was working perfectly again. I'm not exactly sure why Messenger needed to be installed or needs to be running in the background, but it definitely solved the problem.Jesse Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00074579377927386366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4998101128395874904.post-17886905834718275642011-05-04T10:14:00.001-05:002011-05-04T10:16:26.113-05:00E-Mail Errors Downloading Excel AttachmentsOur company e-mail was working great until all of the sudden we started noticing some timeout errors being reported by Outlook and Outlook Express clients. Here is what the error message looked like:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Your server has unexpectedly terminated the connection. Possible causes for this include server problems, network problems, or a long period of inactivity. Account: '****.com', Server: '****.com', Protocol: POP3, Port: 110, Secure(SSL): No, Socket Error: 10053, Error Number: 0x800CCC0F</blockquote><br />
At first I figured it wasn't a big deal because the next time the user clicked the "send/receive" button it would continue to download e-mail just fine. Then I got a complaint that an e-mail that had a spreadsheet attached wasn't received. After having the sender try multiple times to resend the message it was clear this was a more serious problem because this error was indicating an e-mail wasn't being received rather than just some sort of anomalous network error or timeout error. What was even worse was that the e-mail was being deleted from our hosting server so we didn't even have a backup copy of the message we could view via webmail!<br />
<br />
I tried many different configuration settings and nothing was working. Finally, I decided to take a look at my firewall appliance. We are using a SonicWALL firewall appliance and it works great. Unfortunately, I think it downloaded an update that added a small configuration setting to my incoming POP e-mail. In the "Gateway Anti-Virus" configuration screen I had POP3 virus scanning enabled. This was working fine until the following setting appeared "Restrict Transfer of MS-Office type files containing macros (VBA 5 and above)". This was preventing certain Excel spreadsheets and Word documents from being received. Unfortunately, rather than allow the message to come through without an attachment, it was preventing the entire message from coming through at all and causing Outlook to display a strange connection error message. Even worse it was causing the hosting server to delete the message entirely! I decided to remove the POP3 scanning entirely to prevent something like this from happening again.Jesse Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00074579377927386366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4998101128395874904.post-42635888929258908552011-04-08T07:52:00.001-05:002011-04-08T07:53:21.699-05:00VPN Client Installation ProblemsYesterday I was getting the following error on a Windows 7 PC:<br />
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<b>Unable to manage networking component. Operating system corruption may be preventing installation.</b><br />
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This is one of those errors where you might think something bad has happened that will require lots of work to correct. You wouldn't think such an error would be very simple to solve. The problem was I didn't realize I was trying to install a 32-bit VPN client onto a 64-bit operating system. Once I downloaded the 64-bit version of the client everything went smoothly.Jesse Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00074579377927386366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4998101128395874904.post-57293128454097430582011-03-25T12:44:00.000-05:002011-03-25T12:44:19.974-05:00MS Windows Tools of the TradeI regularly have to clean and optimize business and personal PCs. I use the same tools in both cases except for my virus/malware protection software.<br />
<br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-size: large;">Basic Tools Used on Every PC</span></b><br />
<br />
These are the tools I use that clean up just about every PC I come across. First clean out all the temporary files and cookies using Ccleaner. Then run MalwareBytes and do a full scan. Once everything is clean run SpywareBlaster to help protect against accidentally navigating to a malicious website.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Ccleaner</u></b><br />
<a href="http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner">http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner</a><br />
<br />
This is an essential tool for cleaning cookies, temporary windows and internet files and all kinds of junk that accumulates on a PC. In addition to that it does a great job of cleaning the registry of old references to missing shortcuts, uninstalled programs, etc.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><u>MalwareBytes</u></b><br />
<a href="http://www.malwarebytes.org/">http://www.malwarebytes.org/</a><br />
<br />
This is an excellent tool I use to clean up just about every malware infected PC I have come across. There are times when I have to go to other tools, but it's rare because this tool almost always does the trick.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><u>SpywareBlaster</u></b><br />
<a href="http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html">http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html</a><br />
<br />
This is a nice free utility that provides some basic protection against dangerous websites. You can also pay a fee if you would like for it to update itself automatically.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-size: large;">More Advanced Tools</span></b><br />
<br />
These tools are sometimes necessary when you have a particularly nasty virus or malware infection. In some cases, booting into Safe Mode and running Ccleaner and MalwareBytes will solve the problem. However, sometimes those tools just can't get the job done.<br />
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<b><u>HijackThis</u></b><br />
<a href="http://free.antivirus.com/hijackthis/">http://free.antivirus.com/hijackthis/</a><br />
<br />
This is a great utility that shows you some of the hidden settings that can be the cause of some of the trouble you are having. Using this tool you can clear out some settings. However, sometimes you can clear out a setting only to have it reappear because the source is hidden somewhere else. This tool will usually lead you to the problem or at least help you to identify the problem.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><u>Hitman Pro</u></b><br />
<a href="http://www.surfright.nl/en">http://www.surfright.nl/en</a><br />
<br />
In almost every case where MalwareBytes failed, Hitman Pro succeeded. Hitman Pro will scan for free but will require you to activate the software for a trial basis of 30 days if you want to clean something. After the 30 days you'll have to pay to use it. However, when the problem gets bad enough that it requires Hitman Pro to solve it you usually don't mind activating it for the 30 days.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>AntiVirus Software</b></span><br />
<br />
<b><u>Microsoft Security Essentials</u></b><br />
<a href="http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/">http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/</a><br />
<br />
This is a nice piece of free software provided by Microsoft. It does a good job of protecting PCs and doesn't seem to bog the machine down too badly. Running any AntiVirus software will slow the machine down somewhat so I was happy to see this work well and for free it's hard to complain too much.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><u>Prevx Enterprise</u></b><br />
<a href="http://www.prevx.com/securitybreachmanagement.asp">http://www.prevx.com/securitybreachmanagement.asp</a><br />
<br />
I've been pretty pleased with the management tools and performance of this AntiVirus product. The support has been pretty good too so I'm hopeful this will be a tool I use for many years to come.Jesse Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00074579377927386366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4998101128395874904.post-33365349461620755622011-03-24T13:24:00.000-05:002011-03-24T15:24:46.267-05:00Upgrade from Great Plains 9 to Great Plains 2010We just recently upgraded from Great Plains 9 to Great Plains 2010 and it went pretty smoothly. I had heard the upgrade to Great Plains 10 was pretty bad so I was concerned. We don't use a lot of modules so that helps. We did lose a couple of reports but I was able to import the missing reports from the old reports dictionary into the new one without any problems. As issues arise I will update this post with how the issues were resolved.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Issue #1:</u></b><br />
<br />
Our custom Check Remittance report stopped working. When we would run the Check Remittance report we kept getting the following error: Undefined Symbol F01343D00789 Sequence Num<br />
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Thankfully, I found the following blog post that explained how to fix the problem:<br />
<a href="http://mohdaoud.blogspot.com/2011/02/undefined-symbol-errors-when-upgrading.html">http://mohdaoud.blogspot.com/2011/02/undefined-symbol-errors-when-upgrading.html</a><br />
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Be sure to also read the response to the article that mentions you have to select key #3 in the Report Writer tool after importing the modified report.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><u>Issue #2:</u></b><br />
<br />
I have quite a few integrations written using the Great Plains Integration Manager. Everything worked after the upgrade except for the "After Document" script I had written. Because the script runs after the integration is successful there isn't any error logged by the Integration Manager. The error reported by the Integration Manager in the status window was "variable uses an automation type not supported in VBScript". I am using the "After Document" script to update a different database with a success flag so that the row I just imported isn't imported again. I knew this wasn't working because the Integration Manager was importing the same data over and over again.<br />
<br />
What I finally figured out was that the SQL string I was building was failing because it was no longer dynamically converting my integer datatype to a string when concatenating the two together. So for example, what I used to have was something like this:<br />
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strSQL = "UPDATE ExportToGreatPlains SET SuccessFlag = 1 WHERE ExportID = " & SourceFields("ExportID")<br />
<br />
This used to work perfectly fine in Integration Manager 9. However, once we upgraded to Integration Manager 11 with Great Plains 2010 it didn't like this anymore. What I had to do was convert the integer to a string and then concatenate the two together like this:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">strSQL = "UPDATE ExportToGreatPlains SET SuccessFlag = 1 WHERE ExportID = " & Cstr(SourceFields("ExportID") )</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Now everything works perfectly again. I was able to add some message box displays in the script to help me pinpoint the error in the script and would recommend using them to help you when debugging these kinds of errors.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div><br />
</div>Jesse Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00074579377927386366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4998101128395874904.post-20744827893858408422011-03-24T13:03:00.000-05:002011-03-25T16:07:27.828-05:00What is this?As much as I lean on Google and the internet for help when I'm solving problems, I figured it was time for me to contribute and post some of the things I've learned, problems I've solved, etc. Hopefully, something I post here will help someone solve a problem or at least point them in the right direction.<br />
<br />
I currently support a network of around 70 Windows PCs across two locations. I also write the software the company uses to run the business. The software handles bidding, purchasing, scheduling, inventory, etc. The only thing I didn't write was the accounting system, for that we use Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains. I've written many different integrations between our internal software and a GPS system, a fuel tracking system, a mobile inventory system, a credit card system and Great Plains. I also develop iPhone software, maintain some PowerBuilder applications, and am working on a large web application written in ASP.net and jQuery.Jesse Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00074579377927386366noreply@blogger.com0