~ overflow ~

I made this back 2004, and still rocking.

Those are mouse cursors, about 5×3 pixels size, for all allowed windows types. I don’t like the original annoying format and this one suits me better.

They are in inverted format so should be visible in almost of the backgrounds, unless you use it on a gray like deviantart’s.

Download z-Theme Cursors

Problem:

How to make a symlink or anything similar on windows?

Solution:

According to many sites, windows vista and newer has a built-in hability to do junctions (aka symlink on windows) due it’s new file system, but i don’t want all the gayness of vista, so i’m stuck on xp.

I found out that you can also do junctions on windows xp, although the manual method is not easy. But then i came across this post and found out that sysinternals has a tool to make things easy.

Neat huh?

In case you’re wondering, i’m using this “windows symlink” to freeup space on my o/s drive, since i made (long time ago) a setup with not so much space on that partittion and i don’t want to format, i just did a couple of symlinks to another drive, it worked flawlessly.

Problem:

Windows clipboard stop working from nothing;

Windows <=> VNC (unix) not working;

Using alternate copy/paste keys/methods (ctrl/shift + insert, ctrl+x/v/c) will not help;

Solution:

vncconfig must be open on vnc server client

vncviewer must be configurated to allow clipboard transfers

If you are using Xvnc the default options for the server is to allow clipboard transfers, although you might want to check your config file to make sure it’s right (check man page link below).

You can also install autocutsel to check the debug and make sure it’s working.

On windows you might fall into clipboard issues, cleaning the clipboard at `clipbrd.exe` might not resolve the issue, sometimes  a program keeps the clipboard handler open,  making impossible to write data. There’s a little this program that detects that. You may also get the source code for it at code project link below.

Fun:

During the research on this, someone suggested that windows clipboard is a service and that by restarting it you would fix the problem.

Sources:

ObjectMix.com

XVnc Man page

CodeProject

Autocutsel

Problem:

Migrate a SQL 2000 DB to a 2005 Server and IIS 6.0 to IIS 7.0.

Extra Issues:

- SQL2000 is full of procedures, views and identity tables (+200 each)
- Coder who built tables/procedures was lame, so there might be NULL values where it shouldn’t among with other things, like STRINGs being converted to DATE, INT, etc.
- Also includes lame asp coding.
- CRYPT MICROSOFT ERRORS (CRITICAL)

More Problems:

I don’t know why people still using microsoft, everything is against it. Not only the OS, but everything (ASP, SQL, VB, IE, Office, etc) related to microsoft is bad.

When you start to get those `error: XXXXXXXXX` like you know you’re screwed, why:

- Error codes aren’t clear and used by many different instances.. guess what, none of them will fit your issue;
- Microsoft KB isen’t accurate;
- Sometimes, Microsoft KB might present you the right answer, but it will be the last one on a list of 10 possible solutions, since they don’t have much control on the crypt errors themselfs, no wonder;
- Microsoft KB likes to do inaccurate automatic translations of the content (if your not english native), meaning that, if you eventually forgot that, you will be lead to another issue caused by the automatic translation.
- MSSQL don’t have `limit x` on delete/update queries, unless you do a huge workaround that will lead to more issues.
- IIS complies with MSSQL, also showing crypt errors, making the debugging impossible for non-computer beings (eg.: you).
- IIS crypt errors can be more funny when it simple shows `Bad Request`  or `Application Error` and NOTHING ELSE.
- IIS likes to get stuck, if you try to restart/stop/start/recicle a service that takes too much time to happen, IIS manager simply shows a message `Service not responding` and abort the operation, sometimes it abort the operation and a few minutes later it happens, other times it just don’t happen and/or get stuck then you need to reboot;
- Copying database straight from the 2000 server to a local 2005 server gives the following error: `Error, please check your log`; Checking `your log` gives lots, lots of crypt non-sense errors in my native language, guess what? 0 results on google.
- The error above takes 30 minutes to happen, nothing is copied, but there’s a 300mb .mdb file.
- If you do a `SCRIPT DATABASE` you will not get the whole data or/and tables will not have identity columns or/and some data may be corrupted (even deatched);
- If you do a `IMPORT/EXPORT` procedure, you will fall on the VERY SAME problems above, but now you may also get timeout crypt message;
- You can only edit top 300 lines on MSSMS, sorted by MSSMS’ will;
- [db_name].[dbo].[tbl_name] will not appear on the automatic generated scripts, but if you forget to add it your script will miserabily fail with a non-crypt error message (first time) — that only happens if you use MSSMS;
- Can’t stand that green circle looping;
- MSSMS 2005 and 2008 are about the same, meaning you will have the same errors, so don’t even try to update;
- SQL2005 SP3 must be installed before anything, unless you want to fall on unsolved crypt errors, leading to nothingness;
- You can also amazingly fall into crypt errors with ALSO typing errors like `erro XXXXXXXXX`;
- Screaming to the skies and throwing things around will not help;
- Reinstalling SQL Server will not help;
- Reinstalling SQL Server with latest SP will not help;
- Reinstalling OS will not help;
- Reinstalling OS with latest SP will not help;
- Reinstalling <Microsoft Software> with <Any Condition> will not help;
- IIS will not forgive and forget any `;` you put on a asp page, too bad for mainly php coders (eg.: me);
- IIS is for Apache as IE is for Firefox (is this understandable in english? don’t think so);

Another Complaint:

The triumph of a bad software can’t be explained for me, I can’t also understand why they made so much money on something that simply dosen’t work. Maybe users like
things that don’t work? Maybe there’s something magic on crypt errors and blue screens? Maybe Microsoft is paying developers to use their languages and/or software?

Solution:

After several days, tries and lots of time lost I was able to do the migration using MSSQL Enterprise 2005 SP3, the Developer, Express, SQL 2008, SP1 and SP2 gave me crypt errors when copying the database, nothing related to installing the latest SP was on the KB.
Note that i installed ALL versions to try. Thanks microsoft for such great support and programs, looking forward to support the selling of pirated microsoft dvds on streets.

Solution 2:

Move to LAMP, please.

Problem:

How to run more than one ms sql server version in the same machine?

How to change authentication to MIXED MODE without reinstalling the whole thing?

Solution:

Install with different instances. To connect you will use .\INSTANCENAME or SERVERNAME\INSTANCENAME

To change the authentication method, you need to edit the registry, no wonder it’s another obscure cryptic thing:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQLServer]
“LoginMode”=dword:00000002

dword 1 means windows authentication, while 2 is the mixed mode, just change it and restart the server.

This key is for MS SQL 2005 EXPRESS.

Problem:

How to make windows update agent (the one on tray) to run when you want?

Solution:

net stop wuauserv (not necessarly needed)

wuauclt.exe /detectnow

be patient, it might take a while for it shows up on tray and start downloading

Sources:

Microsoft KB

Problem:

Accents (á,à,ã,etc) not working on vnc viewer, for example:

instead of  á it shows  ”a (double ‘)

Solution:

I’ve been looking around for a long time to fix this issue, i haven’t found any relevant information about it.

So i decided to install a different VNC client program, turns out that TightVNC Fixed the issue.

Note that it will not work if you don’t configure your keyboard proprietly on linux, I write in portuguese and english, so as keyboard i have Generic International keyboard, as layout Brazil / Brazil.

I’ve been reading some articles about this, and figured out that despite the useless speculations all over the place there is no way to make windows regonize more than 3.25gb or 3.5gb, due PCI and other devices memory allocation 32-bit windows is unable to make the whole 4gb avaliable for the programs.

The explanation is a bit complicated, but resuming 32-bit systems can’t handle more than 4gb total memory and because of the other devices on your computer you might not even be able to reach the full 4gb, so depending on your video card and other stuff that got built-in memory you will get your total ram deducted from it.

Although 64-bit OS might sound like a great solution for you being able to use the whole ram you got (if you got 4gb+) it might be a real pain, since not all programs got a 64-bit version.

Apart from that, i saw some comments about twecking the windows boot.ini in order to gain more memory or to allocate a maximum ammount to kernel:

/3GB switch will make kernel have a maximum of 1gb memory while other programs will have 3gb (theorically) — for me this switch is a total crap, it slowed the system, according to microsoft windows take a half of the ram as limit for kernel, so if you have 4gb it will take 2gb as maximum of kernel memory.

/pae switch this will enable access to extended memory, this works only on intel machines with specific chipsets, check microsoft site for more info. This will NOT fix the 4gb issue on windows 32-bit only on 64-bit.

Problem:

Windows pagefile.sys gets fragmented, eventually, if you load something that requires it to get larger or it simply comes fragmented when you install windows. This file can’t be defragmented.

Solution:

Do a partittion just for this file, just like on linux, you do a swap partittion with the same size of the pagefile (a hundred mbs more will be the best since there’s some hidden files and shit) and place the pagefile.sys there, it won’t be fragmented since will be the whole file fills the whole partittion with no other files. That will give a boost of speed on the page file using.

Problem: Connecting a RDC to localhost will loopback and windows will say you can’t do this, because it’s ugly.

Solution: use 127.0.0.2 instead of localhost or 127.0.0.1; This will work on windows xp and older. Another solution is do a different port workaround on mstsc service configuration.