HyperTerminal and Vista

Microsoft chose not to include HyperTerminal in the Vista operating system.  For most users it is probably no big deal and hasn’t been a problem for me up until now.  I am getting more involved in router configuration and run Windows Vista on my workstation at ClearPointe.  I did a quick search on the Internet and discovered that there are several free applications available for download to overcome Vista’s lack of HyperTerminal.  However, I also discovered that HyperTerminal can be ported from a computer running Windows XP.  Here are the steps:

1. Map a drive between your Windows XP computer and your Windows Vista computer. 
2. On the Windows XP box, navigate to C:\Program Files\Windows NT and copy hypertrm.exe.
3. Paste hypertrm.exe in the C:\Program Files\Windows NT directory on the Vista machine.
4. Back on the Windows XP computer, navigate to C:\WINDOWS\System32 and copy hypertrm.dll.
5. Paste hypertrm.dll in the C:\Windows\System32 directory on the Vista box.

You now have HyperTerminal installed on your Windows Vista system!

Display Computername on Desktop

We monitor and manage hundreds of servers across the country from our Operations Center.  It is not uncommon to have RDP sessions open to several remote servers at any given time.  In order to more easily identify each server and reduce the possibility of mistakes, we implemented a registry hack that adds the computername to the My Computer icon on the Desktop.

1. In the registry, navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
2. Rename the LocalizedString value to LocalizedString.old
3. Create a new REG_EXPAND_SZ value named LocalizedString and set the value to My Computer %COMPUTERNAME%
4. Close the registry editor, right-click on an empty area of the Desktop and select Refresh from the pop-up menu. 

The My Computer icon should now reflect the computer’s name.Alternatively, if you want to also add the logged on user’s name to the My Computer icon, set the  value of LocalizedString to %USERNAME on %COMPUTERNAME%.

On pre-Windows 2000 SP3 servers it might be necessary to copy the contents of the LocalizedString.old value, @C:\WINNT\system32\shell32.dll,-9217@1033,My Computer, and substitute %USERNAME% at %COMPUTERNAME% for My Computer in the value of the new LocalizedString value.

sa Account Lockout in SQL 2005

This posting originally appeared on my Live Spaces site.

We received a MOM alert in our NOC back in April stating that the sa account had become locked out on a client’s SQL server.  I had never seen an instance of the sa account becoming locked out previously.  This particular server was running SQL Server 2005, the latest version of Microsoft’s database software.  After some quick research on the Internet, I discovered that SQL Server 2005 allows local and domain lockout policies to be enforced against SQL Server accounts.  The account can be unlocked by running the following query:

ALTER LOGIN sa WITH PASSWORD = ‘your_password_here‘ UNLOCK

The lockout functionality can be permanently disabled by navigating to Security > Logins > sa > Properties in SQL Server Management Studio.  Uncheck the Enforce password policy option.

Remember the Alamo!

March 6, 1836 – On that fateful day, Davy Crockett woke up and walked from his bunk on the floor of the Alamo up to the observation post on the west wall.   Col. William B. Travis and Jim Bowie were up there already.  As the three gazed at the hordes of Mexicans moving steadily towards them, Davy turned to Bowie with a puzzled look on his face and asked, “Jim…are we landscaping today?”

MOM 2005 – SMS 2003 MP – Management Point Availabilty: Script Error

Thanks to a posting on Scott Moss’ blog site at http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/smoss/default.aspx, I was able to resolve a troublesome MOM alert regarding an SMS script error on a remote server.  I am adding this information to my blog site so that others can benefit, but even moreso so that it is easily available to me in case I need to refer to it again in the future.

Description

SMS 2003 Management Point Availability: Script error. The script ‘SMS 2003 Monitor Management Point Availability’ running under processing rule ‘SMS 2003 Management Point Availability: Monitoring’ encountered runtime error.  Failed to load script variables.  The error returned was: ‘Invalid procedure call or argument’ 5 (0×5)

The Problem

The script was failing because it was expecting to find a value in the file C:\WINDOWS\temp\SMS 2003 Management Point Availability.varset on the SMS server.  As Scott found in his instance, the file was empty on the server and was causing the script to fail.

The Fix

Delete the file C:\WINDOWS\temp\SMS 2003 Management Point Availability.varset.  The next time the script runs it should recreate the file and contain data listing StartDateTime and UnavailableDuration.  In my case, within five minutes the file had been recreated and contained the expected data.  The script error alerts have ceased!