Playing with Boot Camp on Macs and EFI limitations workarounds.

As you may know, Macs use a GPT (GUID Partition Table) unlike Windows, that usually uses the old MBR (Master Boot Record). On top of that, there is just a BIOS emulation on top of the EFI on Apple machines. As usual, Macs are a step ahead but that creates some side effects:

• Inability to boot from exotic CDs like UBCD, Manufacturers HDD diagnostics and so on...
• Inability to clone Windows partitions using standard tools like Ghost or Acronis.

Hopefully, there are workarounds. First of all, if you have HDD issues, you can move the drive to another computer (PC) to perform extensive testing, especially at the logical and mechanical level. You don't need to actually boot on the HDD - that would be impossible anyway - to analyze it. Moving a drive is not hard and doesn't void the warranty if done properly.

Cloning is now fairly easy, there is an awesome tool called WinClone from TwoCanoes that allows you to backup and restore a functional Boot Camp partition. You can even shrink your Windows partition. They also claim that you can deploy Windows using ARD.

I also would like to share a few reminders:

• Windows is not like Mac OS. You can't have a generic Windows image just by cloning it as every model of Mac is different and requires different drivers and settings (especially on the ACPI side) unless you use a third-party tool.
• Macs doesn't support PXE for obvious reasons. You can use NetBoot though.
• If you don't absolutely need to boot natively into windows, consider using a VM as they are less platform dependant.
• Use Time Machine!

Namaste.

Skipping Windows Vista performance assessment.

Hitting Alt+F4 at Windows Vista performance assessment simply kills it. Saving you time on out of the box machines. Good to know.

Namaste.

Repair the TCP/IP stack in Windows.

Sometimes, the networking layer in Windows gets corrupted. Of course you don't necessarily know why...
There are a few easy steps to fix it. The best one, in my opinion is a good old driver update which will not only reset the stack but will also bring you more stability. Check with your computer manufacturer/chipset vendor for that.

Alternatively or if you already have the best available driver (big up for staying up to date, here), you can issue a command to reset the TCP/IP stack:

• In XP, from a command prompt, type the following: netsh int ip reset c:\resetlog.txt
• In Vista/7, from a command prompt with elevated privileges: netsh int ip reset
  (logging the results of the command is optional in Vista/7)

A reboot is recommended after as a few registry keys need to be regenerated.

Namaste.

Trying to get rid of WINS but still in trouble with rogue Master Browser elections?

There is an interesting article at TechRepublic about GNZ or Global Name Zones in Windows Server 2008.

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/networking/?p=608

For the record, in the Windows Support Tools, you can find the browstat.exe utility (browstat status from a command line) that allows you to check which computer is the Master Browser and then to troubleshoot that mess that is slowing down your LAN.

Enjoy!

Entourage issues with Exchange 2007.

How to resolve Entourage issues with Exchange 2007, especially the infamous "The user's folder could not be found. Entourage could not find a mailbox for the user username_last, username_first." The basic workaround is to instruct users to manually change the mailbox path to: mail.contoso.com/exchange/your.username@contoso.com. But wait! There is a permanent fix:

• From a MMC, open the Exchange Console.
• Select an affected user mailbox and click properties and go to the E-Mail Addresses tab.
• Under the addresses you should see user@domain.com.
• Add user@domain.local.
• Try to access a shared mailbox/calendar with Entourage again... Voilà! You shouldnt see any error message anymore.
• To do this to all the users in your domain, you will need to edit the default email policy and apply it to all the [existing and new] users.