The I.T. Nerve Center

We've been having problems deploying Windows Server 2008 R2 virtual machines from templates using the VMware vCenter and it's built in guest customization.

It appears that there may be an issue either with Microsoft's built-in sysprep utility in 2008 R2, or with VMware's vCenter guest customization wizard when using a Key Management Server, or KMS. A KMS is part of Microsoft's Volume Activation 2.0 as described here - http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/existing-customers/product-activation... and in this TechNet article - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb892849.aspx

I use an old Dell Latitude D610 for Windows 7 testing. I still want the Aero interface and the Dell Support web site doesn't have any Windows 7 drivers, let alone Windows Vista drivers.

After some Google'ing and trial and error I have been able to get the Aero interface running in Windows 7 on my D610.

The Dell package that will install the proper driver is R153383.EXE. The package installs the ATI MOBILITY RADEON X300 driver (as displayed in the Device Manager). It shows version 8.360.0.0 and is dated 3/14/2007

I logged in to my Windows 7 workstation this morning and there was a Symantec Endpoint Protection notification about a "Security Risk Found." There were 4 total notifications and it appears that SEP deleted encdec.dll from the winsxs directory and from the system32 directory.

Here is the text of the notifications SEP provided:


Scan type: Auto-Protect Scan
Event: Risk Found!
Security risk detected: Packed.Generic.271
File: C:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-tvencdec_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_none_e04e6c93efba3643\EncDec.dll

If you're having problems passing your vulnerability scans and you have a Citrix Netscaler Application Delivery Appliance, here are the links to the Citrix KB articles which describe how to resolve the issue.

Everyone is talking about the big Apple iPad announcement yesterday. I'm quite underwhelmed.

On the day the iPhone was announced I wanted one. I would've bought it that day if it was available. The iPad - not so much.

The UI in the demos (http://www.apple.com/ipad) looks super cool, but $499 for the entry level device is too much for me to plunk down when I'm not even that excited about it. I won't be waiting in line or hitting the Apple Store online when it's available Day 1.

I think it will be a great book reader, and it will smash the Kindle, but I don't read that much.

There are only a few extensions missing from the Google Chrome/Chromium library that are limiting my complete conversion to Chrome on all OS platforms that I use.

I love Google Chrome (http://www.google.com/chrome/) - it's fast, sleek, lightweight, and now runs on all of the major OS platforms that I use. The only thing missing for me to make the complete switch (i.e. not having both Firefox AND Chrome open all the time) are a GMail checking client capable of accessing multiple GMail accounts, and a Twitter client with the same capability.

If you have recently updated to the most recent mod_security RPM from Fedora and you are running Drupal, you've probably noticed that certain things don't work correctly. Most specifically, some of the system CSS pages and tabs look funny, and if you're using the pathauto module with the default URL aliases you are probably get a Forbidden (or HTTP 403) when you try to access your content.