Step by Step Upgrade Path from Windows XP to Windows 7

With 90% of my company's computer still running Windows XP, I knew January was going to be a busy month. Support for Windows XP ends on April 8, 2014 meaning any computers that are still running the outdated operating system will be susceptible to large amounts of security holes and targeted attacks. I dreaded the migration, fearing users would not be saving their local files properly and lose their data, favorites, and issuing lots of complaints. Luckily I stumbled upon the amazing tools (actually built into Windows 7) called Windows Easy File Transfer.

The tool allows you to copy profiles from a Windows XP system to any other newer operating system, exactly what I needed. This allowed me to essentially migrate from Windows XP to Windows 7 64-bit without losing user's local data, yet still refreshing all of the systems with a new copy of Windows 7. We use a custom image that is built through sysprep and Ghost. I won't go into those details of that here but if you are imaging the systems with your own custom image or installing Windows 7 fresh, the procedure remains pretty much the same.

1) Start by installing/imaging Windows to a hard drive.

2) Get the new system to the point where you are ready to deploy it to the user. For us, this means installing their custom software, updates, and the anti-virus program that we use.

3) Contact the user and ask if you can begin backing up their computer. They don't need to know the details of this, just that you are backing up their files so that they do not lose them when you upgrade their system.

4) Start the Windows Easy File Transfer tool on the Windows XP system. We actually deployed the software to all of the machines through a tool called PDQ Deploy, cutting out the step of installing the transfer tool

5) When the transfer tool starts it will scan the system for any local profiles. Select the profiles you wish to save, we exclude most except for the actual user who is using that computer, and the shared files.

6) Save the files to a network drive or USB flash drive. They can be rather large (ours range from 400MB to 3GB) so be prepared to have some extra space available.

7) When the easy file transfer file has been created, return to the Windows 7 machine and import the profiles into the system.

8) Swap out the Windows 7 hard drive with the current Windows XP hard drive and boot it up. When the user logs in they will see all of their Desktop icons, files, and some application settings will even migrate over. This saves us time as printers and Outlook settings generally are already there when they log into their new system.

It's saved my IT team a ton of time as we are able to essentially upgrade the systems to a new hard drive offsite, swap out the hard drives on site, and the user can login and start working. If I hadn't found and realized the power of the Windows Easy File Transfer tool this migration would be taking months. Today we are down to only about 20% XP machines and will be completed with the migration in the next two weeks. Thank you Microsoft for making something right, my time thanks you!

Take Control Over Your Keyboard's Number Lock

Having a number lock turned off, or on, automatically can be a great time saver. It could also be a huge annoyance when the number lock is enabled on a laptop as normal lettered keys may function as numbers with the lock enabled.

To enable or disable the number lock setting for a keyboard during Windows logon, follow the steps below.

1) Go to Start, then Run and type: regedit
!!This will open up the Windows registry. Be VERY careful when editing as incorrect changes can damage your computer!!
2) Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Keyboard
3) Double click the InitalKeyboardIdicators option
4a) To enable the number lock on startup, enter the value data of 2
4b) To disable the number lock on startup, enter the valud data of 0
5) Click OK on the Edit String Window
6) Navigate to: HKEY_USERS \ .DEFAULT \ Control Panel \ Keyboard
7) Double click the InitalKeyboardIdicators option
8a) To enable the number lock on startup, enter the value data of 2
8b) To disable the number lock on startup, enter the valud data of 0
9) Click OK on the Edit String Window

You have now change the startup settings for the number lock on your keyboard. Once you restart your computer and log back in, the settings will be applied.

Clearing a Fickle Printer Queue

Printers are a fickle thing. Honestly, they are my least favorite piece of hardware to troubleshoot. Often I come across a printer jam that is not actually a printer jam, but a jam of the printer queue. While canceling or deleting all the jobs from the queue does sometimes work, there are cases where a print job just will not go away.

To completely delete everything from the queue, follow these steps below.

1) Open a command prompt and enter: net stop spooler
2) Browse to C:\Windows\system32\spool\printers
3) Delete any file that you see in the folder from step two
4) Return to the command prompt and enter: net start spooler

After these four steps are completed, the queue should now be cleared and printing will (hopefully) resume.

What is the best anti-virus software?

I often get asked, both at work and by friends an family, what to use for anti-virus software? Most people are looking for a free solution but often end up paying for consumer grade AV that they don't really need. My first recomendation is always Microsoft Security Essentials. I've used it for a few years now and while yes, it is a Microsoft product, it really does work! Often, I've found that it works more efficitantly then some of the more beefier products out there. It is also very light weight, often non-obtrusive and honestly it just works.

Checkout Microsoft Security Essentials

For a more consumer/business related solution, Sophos would be my first choice. Their enterprise solution is very easy to use and does so much more then AV. I use it to block users from plugging in external drives, stop them from burning to disks and can even block programs from running on their computers. The GUI is clean and user friendly, but most users won't even notice it's there until they get a warning. I can't say how much it costs as it will vary from company to company, but it is definitly something to look into if you are gearing up for a new enterprise AV solution.

Checkout Sophos.com

DIY PC Tower Case Using LED Christmas Lights & USB Cable

Lighting up the internals of your PC may be a bit geeky but it doesn't have to be expensive. Taking advantage of post-Christmas decoration sales, you can light up your PC tower for under five bucks. After returning a gift to Target today, I checked out the Christmas section to see what they had left. Turns out they have a TON of left over battery powered LED strands and are selling them for only $3.50 each! I grabbed a blue and multi-colored strand and headed home to warm up my new soldering iron. I've been wanting to light up my tower for awhile now but figured it would be too expensive, but this really worked well. After cutting the LEDs off the battery pack and chopping a USB power cable in half; I soldered the two wires on the LEDs to the black and red wires of the USB. After testing it with a USB AC adapter (to not fry my PC), I strung them inside my tower, put the USB cable through an extra slot in the back and plugged them in. My case is now glowing blue after spending only a few bucks and 30 minutes of my time.

Sync Your Passwords with Keepass & Dropbox

Everyone has a lot of password and you most likely, like me, can't remember them all all the time. There is a great piece of software out there called Keepass that lets you keep all your passwords locked up in a digital "password safe" encrypted and all. Keepass is simple to use and works really well. Too well in fact, since you will most likely forget all your passwords once you start using it! Having a local copy is the way to start off, but when you have multiple computers you will most likely want your Keepass database to move along with you. This is where Dropbox comes in. If you're tech savy you most likely already have a Dropbox account. The way that Keepass and Dropbox unite is to allow your password database to sync between all machines as you update it. Before you start anything, make sure you have Keepass and Dropbox installed on all computers (and mobile devices) you want your database to sync to. Then just drop your Keepass database file into a folder on your Dropbox account and make sure all devices are set to sync that file. Once the database is there, just point Keepass to the new, Dropbox location of the database file and any changes you make will not be made to all machines.

Get Dropbox Here: Dropbox.com
Get Keepass Here: Keepass.info

Regaining Unusable Space On USB Drives

After playing around with a few USB-Bootable operating systems I found that some of my once 2GB flash drives were down tremendously in size. For instance I popped in a USB drive and was shocked to see it only had 250MB of space. Not just usableable space but 250MB TOTAL space. After reformatting a few times I checked Disk Manager only to find the space was still there, just "Unallocated". There was no easy way to expand the usable space or combine the two. So I did some Googling and found something that actually works: BootIt. It's meant to create a bootable USB drive but works just as well for regaining the space that was missing. Here's how to get it and how to make it work for you.

1. Download BootIt.exe from http://tinyurl.com/bootitexe
2. Plug in the USB drive that is having the issue
3. Unzip the file and launch the BootIt.exe file.
(If you are using Vista or Windows 7 make sure to run it as administrator)
4. When BootIt loads, select your USB drive under Devices
5. Make sure to select Non-Active under the Partition option
6. Press the Format button
7. When the formatting is complete, remove your USB drive and reinsert it into the PC
8. You will be asked to reformat the drive again, select Yes and your USB drive should now be back to full capacity

Microsoft Exchange 2010 & Mobile Device Control

Being new to working with Microsoft Exchange 2010 I was surprised to see how much power it has over mobile devices that are connected to an Exchange server. While doing some work for an upcoming audit I found that not only can you control WIFI, Bluetooth and even camera settings on connected phones, but completely wipe the phones as well. Now when finding this out of course it had to be tested, and thankfully my boss offered up his iPhone to be the "test device". It was more just to see if it actually worked then anything and oh did it do its job.... too well. Just by clicking the "Wipe Drive" option the phone suddenly powered off and rebooted. It was stuck on the Apple logo for about half and hour and when it came back it was if he just bought the phone. We were both shocked since we just assumed it would wipe out any emails or contacts that were associated with the company but no, EVERYTHING was gone. All his apps, all his contacts... everything.

This small but powerful feature is phone to test out but gets very scary if you think about it. Someone could very easily erase an unsuspecting users enter personal phone by accident, or even on purpose if they really wanted to. It does come in handy when a phone is lost, stolen or someone is fired without getting a chance to clear out any settings. But when it comes to a setting such as a college campus where thousands of students can be connected to the Exchange database makes it very scary. Being that I used to work for a college IT department the idea that someone has the power to wipe a students phone, who really has no idea how they are connecting to the network, makes me nervous. I'm surprised we haven't seen stories about more accidental wipes happening but I'm sure the time will come when something goes kind of screwy and hundreds of phones get wiped.

Fixing the Active Desktop Recovery Error

If you live/work in an area where the power just isn't too great, possibly gets knocked out by wind say 7 times in one day or even just every now and then, you probably have seen this error. The dreaded "Active Recovery Desktop" white background with a button that SAYS it will restore your Desktop back to normal.... but never works. This can be annoying as most people think there is something terribly wrong with their machine and they've lost everything. Turns out the background just goes away and you get the wonderful white screen with a big exclamation point on it. It's an easy fix, as long as you are comfortable editing the registry. And if you're still reading this I'm pretty sure you are. So here's the fix:

1) Open up the registry by running regedit from the run box

2) Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Desktop\SafeMode\Components

3) Change the value of the HTMLDesktopVersion from whatever it is currently set to to 0

4) Right click the Desktop and click Refresh

5) Your wallpaper and icons should now be back to normal

Spring Cleaning for Your Noisy/Slow PC

Recently I've been noticing one of the workstations in my house has been running very slowly and actually pretty loud as well. By "loud" I mean noisy in the sense that the fan is constantly running. Now a quick smack to the side of the case sometimes stops the noise... but it always comes back. So I've resorted to finally cleaning the thing up. First thing to do is blow out all the dust and trust me, no matter how clean your house is your computer WILL have dust in it. It's very easy to clean, just open up the case (most are easy to open these days but if you have an older computer you may run into some issues) and grab a can of compressed air. Just be careful that you don't blow any cables or random pieces out of place, maybe take a picture of the inside just in case something does get loose.

Next is actually cleaning off the software installed on the PC. This can be done through Windows built in Remove/Uninstall programs utility or by a third party. One that I've found usual recently is CCleaner. I've read about it in the past and finally decided to try it out. I found it to be extremely useful and user friendly. After launching the software you can clean out missing Registry files (be careful with this one though), clean out old internet files and also uninstall software right from CCleaner. The last is the best in my opinion as some programs not showing up in the Windows uninstaller appear in CCleaner. Not sure why but that makes it ten times better. Another piece of software I used to quiet the loud machine is Speedfan. It runs in the background and tries to keep your fans running at optimal speed. It does so by monitoring the temperature of your CPU and adjusting the fans based upon the current temperature. Last but not least is a big one. Run a malware scanner like Malwarebytes or HitManPro. Once again, be careful with what you remove but doing so will clean out the last bit of junk that could be slowing your computer down and making it noisy.

So what other options are out there to speed/clean up your PC? Please don't say calling those numbers that you hear on commercials... it makes no sense to have someone "clean up your PC" for some crazy amount of money when you can do it all for free! It just takes a little bit a work and a lot of patience.

Using Hiren's Boot CD to Recover Lost Causes

One of the first problems I had to face at my new job was a computer where the local user password was forgotten. Actually they've been changed a few times, so we just couldn't find the one that worked. Once the computer was removed from the domain there was no other way to log in, so ater doing some searching I found Hiren's BootCD. It did the job, did it well and fairly easily too! All I had to do was boot up the Hiren's CD, launch the password recovery application and was able to reset the password. This allowed me to actually log in using a local account, change a few settings and put the computer back on the domain. The CD has some other pretty cool features as well like booting up into a Windows XP live session or even a Linux live session. Other tools include ghosting options, partitioning options and several applications that let you run thourugh diagnostics on the machine or even run a pre-boot virus scan. I recommend just burning this disk and just putting it in your collection. You never know when you'll need but assuming you work in IT, I assume it won't be long before you will. You can download and create the Hiren's BootCD by going to their website at: http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd

The Drive May Be Gone, But the Files Are Still There

Recently my aunts computer died, yet again, and being the good nephew that I am (and the only one in the family who has a clue when it comes to computers) I decided to fix it for her. Now you have to realize, this computer is probably seven or eight years old, made from laptop parts and most likely shouldn't even be running anymore. It's a Gateway Profile 4 All In One.... so yes it gets very hot and I assume that's why the hard drive died. 

So back to the "IT" portion of the post. With the hard drive clicking I figured just throw in a new one and reinstall windows. But then I remembered all the pictures and files she had stored on the old one and I panicked. I've never really been good at retrieving old files from deceased drives but I figured I'd give it a try. After doing some extensive searching I found a few pieces of software that claimed they would work, but cost money. So I tuned to trusty (sometimes) Download.com, placed my search for ONLY free software and found a true winner: MiniTool Data Power Recovery.

The MiniTool Data Power Recovery worked amazingly well and is free for home use. If you want to use the software in a business environment they ask they you purchase the license, luckily that wasn't the case for me but I can sure see how this would be very usual at my job and for many others I'm sure as well. Being that I didn't have a IDE to USB convertor at home I had to take the long route and slave the drive onto an old Sony Viao I have in the basement. Once everything was hooked up correctly and the MiniTool software installed, I just selected the "Corrupt Partition" option, let the software search the drive and BOOM there were all of my aunt's files. Transfering to the old Viao's hard drive took some time but other then that the software worked great, especially considering it was free! I would recommend the software to anyone who is in desperate need of restoring files from their old hard drives. Had I known about this software a few years ago I would have some myself a huge headache but now I'm glad I did my research and found something I can trust.

You can download the free verison of MiniTool Data Power Recovery at http://www.powerdatarecovery.com/download.html