Outlook Attachments Bar vs View As Icon
Posted by Wes in 
When using Outlook 2003, I try to discourage the option of “Use Microsoft Word to edit emails”. I don’t see any reason to run Word in the background all the time and the HTML that Word generates is way bloated.
If you turn that option, you have three options for message format: HTML, Rich Text, and Plain Text. The first two allow colors, the third doesn’t.
If you pick Rich Text, then the way that your attachments look will change. When you prepare a new message and add an attachment, it will appear in the body of the message instead of in the attachment bar. Switching to HTML formatting will put it back the other way.
I’m assuming this is because you can actually specify the location of the attachment in the Rich Text format, which would be handy because you could refer the ‘below attachment’ if there were multiple ones.
Another obscure “feature” that changes without warning!
Improved Windows Task Manager: Process Explorer
Using the Task Manager can show you some interesting things about what’s running on your system, but sometimes you have a service going amuck. Task Manager will only show you that “services.exe” is using a lot of CPU and you won’t be able to easily tell what’s actually running wild.
Enter Process Explorer: (info on MS Technet | download)
So far, the graph window (see the second screenshot below) has been super helpful to me. I can set the scan interval to a couple seconds, let it run for a while, and come back. The graph not only stores the CPU usage, but also the process that was running! So, you can mouse-over the graph and get historical information about something chewing up CPU, memory, or I/O.
OWA timeout for Exchange: how to increase it
Using the webmail interface for Exchange is super handy for users at home or on the road. However, I received several questions about being logged out and having to continually log back in.
First, you have the option to select that you’re logging on from a “private” or “public” computer. The default for “private” is 20 minutes, while the default for “public” is two hours. If you log in at home on a weekend and are checking back every-so-often, this might be a pain because you’d be timed out every two hours.
So, I poked around to find the setting that controls this. Turns out there are registry keys for both of the values that you can modify.
Browse to HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeWeb\OWA\ and you’ll find two keys:
- PublicClientTimeout – timeout when someone picks public (default of 20 minutes)
- TrustedClientTimeout – timeout when someone picks private (default of 120 minutes = 2 hours)
I suggest changing this to 1440 (for 12 hours) or 2880 (for 24 hours) so users can stay logged in longer.
Destination Host Unreachable error
I came in to a maddening issue this morning.
The server in question wasn’t available over the network. Troubleshooting:
- The server could ping the loopback and static IP it was assigned.
- The server could not ping the gateway or any other computers on the network, returning the error “Destination Host Unreachable”.
- The network connection said “Connected” and the network cable was switched just in case.
- The switch and router were both power-cycled.
Looking at the System event log, I saw this:
Event 4292 (IPSec): The IPSec driver has entered Block mode. IPSec will discard all inbound and outbound TCP/IP network traffic that is not permitted by boot-time IPSec Policy exemptions.
User Action: To restore full unsecured TCP/IP connectivity, disable the IPSec services, and then restart the computer. For detailed troubleshooting information, review the events in the Security event log.
The security log wasn’t helpful at all.
I found this MSKB that fixed the issue of IPSec being corrupted. Repairing IPSec and restarting restored network connectivity. I’m not sure that this had anything to do with the original problem, but it showed up after installing Blackberry Enterprise Server 4.1 and rebooting for that installation.
WSUS 3.0 memory usage and how to adjust it
I set up a new Windows 2003 R2 Small Business Server (SBS) last week and I’m going over it and tweaking things.
While looking at the task manager, I noticed a process that was using 1.6 GB of RAM. This sqlserver.exe process was going wild!
I turned on the process IDs in Task Manager (View > Select Columns) so I could get a process ID for the offending process. For me, it was process id 1664. Then, I turned to the console for some troubleshooting:
C:\tasklist /svc /fi "PID eq 1664"
You should change your process id to match if you’re running this at home.
Image Name PID Services ========================= ======== ======================= sqlservr.exe 1664 MSSQL$MICROSOFT##SSEE
Microsoft SSEE shows in the services panel as Windows Internal Database, which is the database for Windows Software Update Services. Now that we know the instance name, we can reconfigure it:
C:\osql -E -SMICROSOFT##SSEE 1> sp_configure ’show advanced options’, 1; 2> reconfigure; 3> go Configuration option ’show advanced options’ changed from 0 to 1. Run the RECONFIGURE statement to install. 1> sp_configure ‘max server memory’, 512; 2> reconfigure; 3> go Configuration option ‘max server memory (MB)’ changed from 2147483647 to 512. Run the RECONFIGURE statement to install. 1> exit
While you’re at it, you may want to reconfigure the SBSMONITORING database instance if you’re running SBS. I set mine to 70 MB.
Group Policy for Windows XP Visual Effects
I wanted to alter the setting in this GUI box with a Group Policy, so all users in the domain would have this setting applied automatically:
Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> System -> Tab “Advanced” and then “Settings” in the “Performance” box -> Adjust for Best Performance
I dug around and discovered that those options are stored in the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Explorer\VisualEffects\VisualFXSetting – where 0 is “let Windows choose”, “2″ is “adjust to best performance” and “3″ is “adjust to best appearance”.
I adjusted this registry key with Group Policy. The registry gets changed and the GUI recognizes that, but it doesn’t actually change the appearance!
Turns out that there’s an API call that must occur to change the visual settings, which has to be done via a program that doesn’t exist. Guess I’ve got a reason to learn C# now.
IE7 update hangs after reboot on SBS 2003
While applying service packs for a Windows 2003 SBS today, I installed IE7. After the requisite reboot, I tried logging in and the usual “Setting up personalized settings for Internet Explorer” dialog came up.
It stayed there. And stayed there. It was hung up.
After a little hunting (on my laptop, since the server wasn’t going anywhere!), I found this tip that suggested:
- Control – Alt – Delete
- Log off
- Log back in
And voila!