Now through December 31st, Microsoft is offering a $300 discount off the regular conference rate. Conference registration after the discount is $1,895.

To get more information, go to the Tech Ed website.

Microsoft is not out of the Antivirus business, though. By the end of 2009, Microsoft will release a free antivirus program, code named “Morro.” Yes, that is right, free.

My only concern is that my Live One Care subscription ends on August 2009. Will Morro be available? Will I be a sitting duck for viruses until Morro is released? Or will I have to buy antivirus from another vendor?

So, I have had my share of disappointments with messages from the event viewer.

However, recently, I got an error message in the event viewer that not only told me what had gone wrong (and in language that I could understand), the message actually told me how to fix the problem. And I did not have to go out to a web page either!

The problem that I had been trying to fix was that some computers on my network were not getting the Group Policy firewall settings that I had recently changed. Some computers were getting the settings, but others, even when using a forced GPUPDATE would still not update the firewall setting.

After weeks of searching, I found myself in the place I should have gone to in the beginning - the Windows Event Viewer of one of my Domain Controllers.

In the File Replication Service event viewer there was an error message related to replication of data between my two Domain Controllers. This would explain my situation. Since the two  domain controllers were out of sync, this domain controller had the older firewall settings. Some of my computers were getting their updates using the older settings from this domain controller.

Now normally I would then have to search the Microsoft Knowledge Base to figure out how to solve this. But read the details of this error message (isn’t it pure poetry?)

Event Type:    Error
Event Source:    NtFrs
Event Category:    None
Event ID:    13568
Date:        9/12/2008
Time:        3:13:07 AM
User:        N/A
Computer:    Domain Controller
Description:
The File Replication Service has detected that the replica set "DOMAIN SYSTEM VOLUME (SYSVOL SHARE)" is in JRNL_WRAP_ERROR.
Replica set name is    : "DOMAIN SYSTEM VOLUME (SYSVOL SHARE)"
Replica root path is   : "c:\windows\sysvol\domain"
Replica root volume is : "\\.\C:"
A Replica set hits JRNL_WRAP_ERROR when the record that it is trying to read from the NTFS USN journal is not found.  This can occur because of one of the following reasons.
[1] Volume "\\.\C:" has been formatted.
[2] The NTFS USN journal on volume "\\.\C:" has been deleted.
[3] The NTFS USN journal on volume "\\.\C:" has been truncated. Chkdsk can truncate the journal if it finds corrupt entries at the end of the journal.
[4] File Replication Service was not running on this computer for a long time.
[5] File Replication Service could not keep up with the rate of Disk IO activity on "\\.\C:".
 Setting the "Enable Journal Wrap Automatic Restore" registry parameter to 1 will cause the following recovery steps to be taken to automatically recover from this error state.
[1] At the first poll, which will occur in 5 minutes, this computer will be deleted from the replica set. If you do not want to wait 5 minutes, then run "net stop ntfrs" followed by "net start ntfrs" to restart the File Replication Service.
[2] At the poll following the deletion this computer will be re-added to the replica set. The re-addition will trigger a full tree sync for the replica set.
WARNING: During the recovery process data in the replica tree may be unavailable. You should reset the registry parameter described above to 0 to prevent automatic recovery from making the data unexpectedly unavailable if this error condition occurs again.
To change this registry parameter, run regedit.
Click on Start, Run and type regedit.
Expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
Click down the key path:
   "System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NtFrs\Parameters"
Double click on the value name
   "Enable Journal Wrap Automatic Restore"
and update the value.
If the value name is not present you may add it with the New->DWORD Value function under the Edit Menu item. Type the value name exactly as shown above.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

It’s just amazing! The solution is in the error message details!

After I performed the steps outlined in the error message, all of my clients now have the proper firewall settings.

This is error documentation at its best!

So, my recommendation from this experience is this. If you are having a problem with Group Policy settings not being applied to all of your clients, check the File Replication Service Event log on all of your domain controllers for any error messages.  Who knows, it may give you the solution to your problems.

I ran xampp-portcheck, the port check utility that was included with XAMPP. It showed that ports 80 and 443 were being used by SYSTEM (see below).

RESULT
——

Service              Port   Status
==================================
Apache (HTTP)          80   SYSTEM
Apache (WebDAV)        81   free
Apache (HTTPS)        443   SYSTEM

MySQL                3306   free

FileZilla (FTP)        21   free
FileZilla (Admin)   14147   free

Mercury (SMTP)         25   free
Mercury (POP3)        110   free
Mercury (IMAP)        143   free

I opened a browser and it reacted as if I had a web server on localhost. The page was blank.

I decided to view the HTML source code and found the following:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN”>
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content=”text/html; charset=windows-1252″></HEAD>
<BODY></BODY>
<META content=FUGCLQURCL name=SKYPE_FRAMEID>
<META content=FUGCLQURCL name=SKYPE_FRAMEID></HTML>

I noticed that at the bottom of the source code in a META tag, there was a value of SKYPE_FRAMEID. I decided to stop Skype and sure enough Apache was able to start.

I then started Skype and both programs are able to run.

Skype is a smart program. Since most firewalls allow ports 80 and 443 for web traffic, Skype uses those ports if they are available. If 80 and 443 are in use, Skype will choose other ports to use.

The latest Microsoft commercial campaign is entitled "I’m a PC". Although Bill Gates does appear briefly, Jerry Seinfeld is not. <insert sigh_of_relief here>

The commercial is a mix of celebrity and real people and FINALLY a direct response to the Mac vs. PC ads.

And best of all, I know what the commercial is advertising. (as opposed to four and a half minutes of Seinfeld’s "nothing" which was entertaining, but not advertising)

It’s comical and geeky. Enjoy!

Go check it out (if you haven’t already!)

First of all, thank you to all who have purchased CBT Nuggets videos through my web site link. I appreciate your sales very much. I will try to demonstrate my appreciation in the future with regular and useful blog posts.

I have just received access to the CBT Nuggets videos for Windows Vista, tests 70-620 and 70-622. Both videos are taught by one of my favorite CBT Nuggets instructors, James Conrad. I will post a review of these videos hopefully within the next month.

I am also working on two software deployments: Microsoft Forefront Client Security and Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager Workgroup Edition. I am sure I will have some comments to share with you during and after these deployments.

On a personal note, I am starting my Master’s Degrees in Management Information Systems this fall at the University of Central Florida (where I am also employed). I am excited and fearful about this all at the same time. I have wanted to go back for a Master’s Degree for a long time. This degree will also give me academic credentials in the field that I have been working in for so long (my bachelor’s degree is in Industrial Engineering).

My mention of an academic degree may cause some readers to wonder which is more helpful to your career - degree or certification. My suggestion is that if you have the time and resources, go for the degree. My bachelor’s degree that I earned in 1991 still helps me find work 17 years later. I cannot say the same for my certification in Windows 3.1/MS DOS 6.x that I earned in 1995! However, my certifications do show an employer that I am continuing to learn and remaining current in my field (as opposed to just 1991 knowledge).

Thank you for reading. If you have any questions or ideas for articles, please comment or email me at blogmail@itcertpro.com.

In the coming months, I will be posting a review of a CBT Nuggets title. I have been using CBT Nuggets for my own studies since 2003. In fact, I started selling CBT Nuggets because I enjoyed using them so much.

Let me also apologize for not completing my blog entries for Tech Ed. (I guess I really was tired!  :-)) I will post a summary of the rest of Tech Ed soon.

Thank you for reading.

Got to Tech Ed today just before 9:00 am to hear most of the keynote speech. At the end of the day, two announcements have stuck with me.1. System Center Virtual Machine Manager. A cool feature allows you to move a virtual server to a different physical machine without your users even knowing! And the software even suggests the machine that would be the best one to move the virtual image.2. SQL Server 2008’s compression It not only makes your databases smaller, but it makes them faster as well.I hung out at the MCT Lounge and met some really great MCT’S including Calahan, Kim, Brian and Bob.I also attended a breakout session on System Center Essentials 2007. I wanted to review the featured to make sure I was using the product to its fullest. Dynamic groups seemed to be the coolest feature that I overlooked. Dynamic groups allow you to define conditions, such as OS version, to make computers part of a group.I got to meet with the gang from Train Signal IT Training videos. I got to meet Coach Culbertson in person! He is just as friendly in person as he is in his videos. Train Signal announced that their videos will soon be including Trancender practice tests!Right now the vendor party is going on with everyone eating and drinking. Tonight is the invitation only Microsoft All-Star Community Pit Stop party which should also be a lot of fun.Until next post.