Account Lockout - Problem Solved

A customer had a workstation that was not getting connected to his SBS2003 server. 

We could login from his worksation using a different username without any problem.  We could login with his username at a different workstation with no problem.  Initially I thought that his user profile was corrupted.

When I looked a little further I found that his user account was locked out at the server.  If I reset the account - it would get locked out again immediately after he logged in. So, it was evident that something on his computer was causing just his account to get locked out.

Fortunately, my friend Mark C. called me to say he had thought of something that might be helpful.  He told me about the Microsoft Account Lockout Tools - something I had never heard of.  I used one of these tools to log all authentication traffic between the workstation and the server.  After doing this - it was easy to find the process/services that were causing the problem.  On reflection - it makes no sense to me that a service related to his Ricoh copier/printer/fax was the culprit - but when I disabled a couple services of Ricoh - the problem went away - and somewhat surprising also, none of the functionality of the Ricoh printer was lost.

Thanks Mark.

New Response Point SIP Service Connected Today

I finally made the switch - installed my NGT SIP service for Response Point.  The installation was a breeze - Justin at NGT got me all squared away.

A couple things that NGT provides that my previous service did not:

1. E911 support
2. What I call 'spoofing' of outbound Caller ID #.  So when outgong calls are made over any of the non-primary lines - the callee will see my primary line Caller ID information - instead of some weird DID number
3. A Disaster Mode where, if my network or phone system is off-line, incoming calls will be automatically routed to a pre-designated non-SIP phone number.
   
   and last but not least
4. Professional, quality customer service

Now I will give up my analog lines and be on a total SIP basis.

Have fun.

Compromised

Check out this photo.  I know it's not the highest quality. 

Customer had a hard time logging in to the server - the password was not being accepted.  The username that had been filled in was Administrator.  Notice the small blue square with the letters RU in the lower left area.  Then look at the username field and see what happened when we tried to reenter the username - looks like Russian!

XP Mode in Windows 7

So, I just implemented XP Mode in Windows 7 to get my old version of
Quickbooks going. It's kind of interesting.

Basically you install the new version of Virtual PC and install your
application in the virtual machine. If you make sure your launching
shortcut is in the All Users area of the start menu - then - magically -
these application shortcuts will ALSO appear in your All Programs menu
of your Windows 7 host o/s. Pretty cool. Once you have this set up you
exit the virtual machine. When you want to run your application that is
in the virtual pc, just use the shortcut in the menu of the host o/s.
This will launch both the virtual pc and the application but they will
appear as if it was just the application running in Windows 7.

As I think about this, I remember Tim Barrett (Louisville)doing a live
demo for our user group of just this very thing. At the time I didn't
have a need so it didn't sink in very deep but it did make an
impression.

There are pretty good step-by-step instructions for this at
http://lifehacker.com/5245396/set-up-and-use-xp-mode-in-windows-7

Windows 7

I am usually a late adopter for Operating System software. I've got
enough to do without wanting to tinker to get my applications to run on
some unfinished O/S. For example, I'm still running XP on my desktop
computer (this is my primary machine). I have been running Vista on my
laptop but haven't felt anything compelling enough to make me want to
upgrade my desktop.

About a month ago I decided to put Windows 7 RC on my laptop since I had
heard so many good things about it. After using it for a month I have
to agree that it looks really solid. I haven't had any issues with it.
So, now, I am about to do something pretty much out of character for me
- I am planning on reformatting my desktop pc and going to Windows 7. I
want to do a little more preparation since this is my primary system but
I have decided to move ahead.