Saturday, February 23, 2013

Why I dislike printer drivers in Windows

I'd be battling a crazy case of the mstsc dumps.  Basically what happens is this; I'll remote to a server, and just as i'm getting started MSTSC (RDP)  crashes.  Frustrated as this just started happening no, major changes that should affect the rdp systems. I'm running windows 8 enterprise

it happened just about everytime to a windows 2008r2 box, or through Remote Desktop services.  I scoured Microsoft's new "Support site"  which is a slap in the face to people who've relied on being able to us it but i digress.

So I started up windows debugger, and I had to be quick about it since the main pain was through rds (use F6).  Thanks for split screens.  I was able to attach to mstsc.exe quick enough to catch the first break point. So i continued from that point till the actual crash. which led me to a dell throwing a c0000005 access denied message.  The DLL was dlxbujdm.dll which I traced back to a Dell printer driver...  I really don't like Dell printers.

It was my default printer and never had a problem before, so what happened???  I haven't a clue,  But I removed the printer driver and package, rebooted and no more crashes.  If you get a failure in removing, reboot and try removing again.  I think you'll find it'll work that time.

hope this helps someone else from a headache.


How to use the DedicatedDumpFile registry value to overcome space limitations on the system drive when capturing a system memory dump - Ntdebugging Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

How to use the DedicatedDumpFile registry value to overcome space limitations on the system drive when capturing a system memory dump - Ntdebugging Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs:

Outstanding article regarding the dedicatedDumpFile registry Key,

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Chrome and the images that don't load

Had a weird issue with chrome, and to resolve it on windows 7
I went to C:\programdata\ and renamed the chrome directory.
IE: C:\programdata\chrome.old

launched chrome again and was able to get the images/buttons to load again.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Windows 8 Pro, joined to a domain. The App Store is not working." - Microsoft Community

Windows 8 Pro, joined to a domain. The App Store is not working." - Microsoft Community:

this is the solution, knowledge of procmon is a help too.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2798317

I had to add in addition due to my environment:
CLASSES_ROOT\.htm
CLASSES_ROOT\Interface
MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP
MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\RFC1156Agent\CurrentVersion\Parameters
MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\SQMClient
MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ODBC


File level:
%UserProfile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER

  • We've recently run into this problem too. All other suggestions about proxies, etc. did not apply, so I downloaded ProcessMonitor and started digging. After spending a whole afternoon on it, I believe I may have a workable solution.
    Try this:
    1. Open regedit and locate HKCR\AppID\{3EB3C877-1F16-487C-9050-104DBCD66683}.
    2. Right click the {3EB3C877-1F16-487C-9050-104DBCD66683} key and modify permissions.
    3. Go to the "Advanced" permissions options and change the owner of the key to your local administrator account.
    4. Once you have ownership, give yourself full control of the registry key. Assuming you're a local administrator, you could just grant Full Control to the local Administrators group.
    5. Close regedit and open dcomcnfg.
    6. Browse through Computers -> My Computer -> DCOM Config -> and locate "WinInetCacheServer".
    7. Right-click "WinInetCacheServer" and select "Properties".
    8. Click the "Identity" tab and modify this setting to run the application under "The interactive user", rather than the default setting of "The launching user".
    9. Reboot, and your Metro UI Apps should start working again.


    All the regedit stuff is basically just to give you the ability to modify the DCOM component.
    I imagine, if needed, something could be worked into a domain GPO if this "fix" was needed on a grander scale. However, this needs thoroughly testing first. It's working great for us, and we've not seen any adverse effects, but I don't claim to fully understand *why* it works. Switching from launching user to interactive user in the DCOM config was partly guesswork, combined with fairly extensive research on the WinInetCacheServer component and careful review of my ProcessMonitor logs.
    I imagine at some point, Microsoft will recognise this as a problem and issue a "proper" fix. But, until then, please try this and report back to let me know how you get on!
    Best wishes to all for 2013!
    Simon.