Fun times.

I vlited Vista a while back when SP1 was released. I cropped almost 3GB worth of Vista DVD into 900MB worth of awesome install. It fit on two CDs. I liked it.

Fast forward to today – SP2 for vista was released a couple days ago to MSDN/partners. I download the rather large install and attempt to update my system. Fail. Epic. Apparently I’m “missing” key components needed by the SP2 installer. So I’m stuck on 1. Yippie.

So I go ahead and download the whole schebang – Vista Enterprise SP2. Then I go ahead and vlite this installation – but I only manage to cut the installer in half – 1.58GB out of the original 2.98GB. Four CD’s later I’m in business; burned and ready to install.

Installed without any issues, and it’s not even complaining. Seems faster already too.

ANYway, I attempt to run the Activation for windows. ERROR! ERROR! ERROR!

slui.exe – System Error

The program can’t start because SCARDDLG.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem

Well that sucks. How am I supposed to activate this beast? I check on the original DVD to see if the dll is floating around – no dice. I check on another vista machine (SP1) – no dice. So then I remember that post CAB file days, Microsoft has files known as WIMs. AND since I needed to install that 1.3GB AIK microsoft installer for vlite to run, I already had the tool required to view said WIM files.

Grab the original Vista SP2 Disk and put it in your Optical drive (Or Daemon Tools virtual mount the ISO)
Create a directory called “vistamount” on your C:\ drive
Start -> All Programs -> Microsoft Windows AIK -> Windows PE Tools Command Prompt

imagex /mount f:\sources\install.wim 1 c:\vistamount

Now you’ll be able to navigate to c:\vistamount\windows\system32\scarddlg.dll. Throw this file into c:\windows\system32 and then try to reactivate.

I was recently given a laptop that refused to cooperate with the end user. Safemode only worked half the time, and regular boots would just hang after attempting to login.

The computer ended up having a windows init known as sdra64.exe. I don’t even care what these programs do anymore – I just get rid of them.

Quick google search provided me with this guy’s blog:
http://mrmusicmaker.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-to-remove-sdra64exe-yourself-for.html
Although I’m going to provide a different way to fix this issue, a lot of the knowledge was gained from the above blog about this problem and how to fix it.

First, grab your handy IT-Fix-It Disc (Hirens).
Boot off the hirens disc – I’m using version 9.8, current at the time of this writing
Boot into Tiny/Mini XP
After XP loads, open My Computer and navigate to C:\windows\system32\
Find the file sdra64.exe and either delete or rename this file. I renamed just in case I really wanted to go back to the way it was.
Then reboot back into safe mode (F8 before Windows starts loading).

When in safe mode, open the registry Start
Run
Regedit
Navigate to
HKLM\software\microsoft\windows nt\currentversion\winlogon
Find the “userinit” key
Double click on this key
You should only have the following:
C:\Windows\System32\Userinit.exe,
So delete anything after that comma.

Reboot once again, but this time don’t go into safe mode. You probably will have other infections that you should remove using Malwarebytes or Eset’s Nod32. Combination attacks work the best.

In case you haven’t noticed, Microsoft took a giant leap backwards from their AD management of Exchange. It’s now back to the way it was Pre-2000 (5.5 anyone?) instead of 2000/2003 ish. One of the nice things about 07 is that they gave us a command line interface that is actually pretty nice (once you get the hang of how it all works).
This is how to setup a user with full mailbox rights – you can also choose other options instead of FullAccess.
This also assumes that you know the login/mailbox of the user you want to give permissions to as well as the user you want to take the permissions from.

Open up the Exchange Management Tools
Add-MailboxPermission OF_USER -User TO_USER -AccessRights FullAccess

So in my case it was:
Add-MailboxPermission computeruser -User computeradmin -AccessRights FullAccess
Which gave the computeradmin full access to use the computeruser’s mailbox.

I’ve had this issue more often than I’d like to actually care to remember.

First thing I check is website security settings:

Open IE
Select Tools
Select Internet Options
Click on the Security Tab
Click on the Trusted Sites button (check mark)
Click on the Sites button
Add https://update.microsoft.com, http://update.microsoft.com, and any other microsoft update related sites

Next thing I generally check is if the Trusted Sites are actually being trusted

Open IE
Select Tools
Select Internet Options
Click on the Security Tab
Click on the Trusted Sites button (check mark)
Click on the Custom Level button
Make sure that the security is at Medium or below (Medium, Medium Low, or Low) – I generally put this at Low

After that make sure that the following services are enabled:

Start
Run

services.msc

Automatic Updates/Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS)

Finally, if nothing else works, turn off Automatic Updates and remove the SoftwareDistribution folder

Start
Run

services.msc

Right-Click on Automatic Updates and select Stop
Start
Run

%windir%\SoftwareDistribution

Open the DataStore folder
Delete everything inside
Right-Click on Automatic Updates and select Start
Retry the Windows Update