Recent Blog Posts - Page 25 of 28

Microsoft Releases Windows Vista

Well, I had the opportunity to deploy a Windows Vista machine yesterday. Yes, on Windows Vista Launch Day, I actually deployed a retail Vista machine for a client. Who would have thought? Well, they needed a new machine set up, and of course, all of the XP machines are "sold out" all across town… the pre-built ones, anyway.

First impressions? It's a lot more polished than the last version I ran, which admittedly was RC1. It was pretty slow on a 3.4Ghz 512MB machine, though. Tolerable, but slow. What's weird is that it was "Home Basic" installed, so no Aero interface, and it was still slow. On a PCI-E Radeon 1100. Hrm.

Anyways, if you are thinking of checking out Vista, and I suggest you do, view this webpage at Microsoft so that you can see the difference between the "editions" of Windows Vista that have been released.

Also, if you are thinking of moving to Vista, I strongly recommend that you go to your local Apple store and play with a new iMac or MacBook. After all, Vista is such a major upgrade, you're going to be purchasing a new machine and new versions of most (if not all) of your software. Don't forget that you can get Microsoft Office for Mac, if you need to.

Alternatively, download and check out Ubuntu Linux. It comes with OpenOffice.org pre-installed, and the downloaded CD that you get can even be used as a "Live" bootable on your existing computer without screwing up the OS you already have installed.

Windows Vista Article

"You've deployed Windows XP in the past, and now you're thinking ahead to Windows Vista."

Here's a short article on what to look for when deploying Windows Vista.

Symantec LU9002

If the retail version of Symantec AntiVirus 2005 gives you an error LU9002 you will need to re-sync with the Symantec server.

In my case, Norton was showing a subscription expiration date of 12/31/1899 (not a typo) and Live Update was complaining that it had expired, so it wouldn't download any definition updates. It wasn't actually expired. The subscription was still valid for about 9 months.

The offical tech document says to go into NAV2005, click Help and Support and then click Renewal Center, then choose Re-Sync. In my case, there was no Renewal Center choice under Help and Support, or anywhere else, for that matter. Symantec telephone tech support was clueless.

However, the tech document for NAV2004 for the same issue says to run a command at the command prompt. This worked. Here's the command-line:

"c:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\LiveReg\symcsub.exe" /synch

Hopefully someone can put this knowledge to use. It took me well over an hour, and a phone call to Symantec before I found this.

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