Are you the one who is very much worried about the security patches of your Operating System?
Are you the one who is still attached to your Windows XP even after Microsoft has released Vista and Windows 7?
Well! We belong to the same group! :)
But being over paranoid sometimes (well, very rare!) has it's toll!
Spite of having all the unwanted services disabled, running a personal firewall, custom packet filter, two layers of defence, (no antivirus!! :) because of Virtual Systems! :)), you might have taken by surprise after updating the latest patch from Microsoft.
After rebooting, the shell never loaded! A bit of google revealed that the issue has been reportedly affected millions of people and known as the Black Screen of Death!
What's the quick way to fix it?
Here are the steps:
Press Ctrl + Alt + Del! Presto. The logon dialog displays or in some single user systems (task manager loads).
Select File, New Task Run.
Type Explorer.exe
You should be in your desktop right away!
Well, how to fix it?
Run regedit.exe
Navigate to the following key.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
Look for an entry call Shell on the right side panel. Delete it.
Right click, select New - String Value.
Name the key as Shell.
Double Click on the newly created value and type explorer.exe in the value text box.
Close Regedit and reboot. Voila! the issue is solved!
(N.B., You must be the administrator of the system to perform this operation!)
Well, for people who are not so comfortable in editing the registry, try the following program from PrevX which does the same operations programmatically!
The program is available from: http://info.prevx.com/download.asp?GRAB=blackscreenfix
Courtesy: Lifehacker.com
Wishes for a merry Christmas and happy new year!
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Microsoft Stretch-IT xRM India Challenge Goof-ups!
How many of you tried downloading the DVD from the Dynamics xRM site for Microsoft Dynamics xRM Stretch-IT India Challenge?
The DVD Links are:
CRM40ReadyServer.Part1
CRM40ReadyServer.Part2
CRM40ReadyServer.Part3
CRM40ReadyServer.Part4
CRM40ReadyServer.Part5
CRM40ReadyServer.Part6
CRM40ReadyServer.Part7
As you very well know the contest was to suppossed to over by September 24th, 2009, because of Microsoft's goof-ups, none could get the downloaded Virtual PC Copy of the Windows 2003 image of Microsoft Dynamics xRM to work.
Why??
Contrary to what Microsoft provided as the password for the Virtual PC in this instructions document, the password for image was Pa$$w0rd and not pass@word1.
Also, the Windows 2003 Image in the provided image was past activation and will not allow to activate or re-activate again.
Cover-ups??
Now that's the interesting part!
Because of the "Overwhelming response from the people of India!!!"(boy! that sure tickles the funny bone!!), (who can easily age by downloading the DVD image considering the available bandwidth here in India. Well some could not even download the DVD by the first completion date!!!) and to cover up the goof-ups, Microsoft has decided to strech the contest date to October-15th!!!. What now? you can ask Microsoft for a copy of the DVD mailed to your door steps directly!!!
Initial Contest details with dead-line as September 24th, 2009.
New Contest details with dead-line as October 15th, 2009.
As much as to say Microsoft's PR department is doing the job for the penny spent!!
The DVD Links are:
CRM40ReadyServer.Part1
CRM40ReadyServer.Part2
CRM40ReadyServer.Part3
CRM40ReadyServer.Part4
CRM40ReadyServer.Part5
CRM40ReadyServer.Part6
CRM40ReadyServer.Part7
As you very well know the contest was to suppossed to over by September 24th, 2009, because of Microsoft's goof-ups, none could get the downloaded Virtual PC Copy of the Windows 2003 image of Microsoft Dynamics xRM to work.
Why??
Contrary to what Microsoft provided as the password for the Virtual PC in this instructions document, the password for image was Pa$$w0rd and not pass@word1.
Also, the Windows 2003 Image in the provided image was past activation and will not allow to activate or re-activate again.
Cover-ups??
Now that's the interesting part!
Because of the "Overwhelming response from the people of India!!!"(boy! that sure tickles the funny bone!!), (who can easily age by downloading the DVD image considering the available bandwidth here in India. Well some could not even download the DVD by the first completion date!!!) and to cover up the goof-ups, Microsoft has decided to strech the contest date to October-15th!!!. What now? you can ask Microsoft for a copy of the DVD mailed to your door steps directly!!!
Initial Contest details with dead-line as September 24th, 2009.
New Contest details with dead-line as October 15th, 2009.
As much as to say Microsoft's PR department is doing the job for the penny spent!!
Monday, July 20, 2009
Seagate data recovery in Bangalore
Seagate Warranty Center
Seagate RMA Center
Seagate Service Center
Seagate Service Center
Well, well! some more references might be available for the Seagate HDD Service center.
The recent encounter of a 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 left me ice cold.
The drive was functioning without any glitches and on a fine day BIOS failed to identify the drive. No clicks, Nothing from the drive. It hums when connected to power, but not responding to identify drive command or none of the HDD Commands.
None of my four systems could identify the drive. Wanting to rescue to the data, a quick search yielded that the 7200.11 series of Seagate Barracude indeed has a firmware issue and seagate would replace it for free. But what about the data?
After checking warranty on the seagate warranty information page, located at Seagate Warranty Check Page, sighed a relief! The drive was in warranty, (though it wasn't five years since i've purchased the drive).
After contacting seagate warranty services, got to know that they might not be able to recover the data on the hdd. It contained multiple years photo archives and documents. Though not worrying about the documents, but most about the photos, I thought of visiting the Seagate Service Center in Bangalore.
To my surprise, the service center was relocated from the following address and the relocation was not published anywhere.
Accel Frontline Services handles the Seagate Warranty Replacement / Service Center across India.
The address from their site (http://www.accelfrontline.in/) was:
Accel Frontline Services
18/1, Cunningham Road
Bangalore - 560 052
Ph: 080 66279805 (Direct Line)
080 66279700 (Board Line)
Fax: 080 22258007.
But when visited, the service personnel informed that they are not handling Seagate HDDs at that location and provided another address:
So, the new address for Seagate Warranty Center Bangalore or Bangalore Seagate RMA Center or Bangalore Seagate Service Center is at:
Accel Frontline Services Pvt Ltd,
No: 2 & 3, 2Nd Floor, New Raja Building,
N R Road, Bangalore - 560002
Land Mark:
(Above Kamat Hotel)
Near City Market And Opp. Town Hall
Contact: +91 080 41231496.
The need to recover the data drove me there instantly! The service personnel were not promising about the recovery of the data and said that they will try. There was a sudden change of mind and I thought of giving it a try before I could giving it to seagate.
Followed the instructions at How to Revive a Seagate 7200.11 (http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=128807)".
Purchased a Nokia CA-42 Data cable from eBay, re-assembled it, connected to the Serial Communication Pins of the SATA HDD, fired up hyperterminal, followed the commands and bingo! after 15 mins, the drive was up and running.
As soon as the drive was recognized by the BIOS, updated the firmware using the following seagate page.
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 Firmware Update Page
All went well and the drive has been performing perfectly since then.
Seagate RMA Center
Seagate Service Center
Seagate Service Center
Well, well! some more references might be available for the Seagate HDD Service center.
The recent encounter of a 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 left me ice cold.
The drive was functioning without any glitches and on a fine day BIOS failed to identify the drive. No clicks, Nothing from the drive. It hums when connected to power, but not responding to identify drive command or none of the HDD Commands.
None of my four systems could identify the drive. Wanting to rescue to the data, a quick search yielded that the 7200.11 series of Seagate Barracude indeed has a firmware issue and seagate would replace it for free. But what about the data?
After checking warranty on the seagate warranty information page, located at Seagate Warranty Check Page, sighed a relief! The drive was in warranty, (though it wasn't five years since i've purchased the drive).
After contacting seagate warranty services, got to know that they might not be able to recover the data on the hdd. It contained multiple years photo archives and documents. Though not worrying about the documents, but most about the photos, I thought of visiting the Seagate Service Center in Bangalore.
To my surprise, the service center was relocated from the following address and the relocation was not published anywhere.
Accel Frontline Services handles the Seagate Warranty Replacement / Service Center across India.
The address from their site (http://www.accelfrontline.in/) was:
Accel Frontline Services
18/1, Cunningham Road
Bangalore - 560 052
Ph: 080 66279805 (Direct Line)
080 66279700 (Board Line)
Fax: 080 22258007.
But when visited, the service personnel informed that they are not handling Seagate HDDs at that location and provided another address:
So, the new address for Seagate Warranty Center Bangalore or Bangalore Seagate RMA Center or Bangalore Seagate Service Center is at:
Accel Frontline Services Pvt Ltd,
No: 2 & 3, 2Nd Floor, New Raja Building,
N R Road, Bangalore - 560002
Land Mark:
(Above Kamat Hotel)
Near City Market And Opp. Town Hall
Contact: +91 080 41231496.
The need to recover the data drove me there instantly! The service personnel were not promising about the recovery of the data and said that they will try. There was a sudden change of mind and I thought of giving it a try before I could giving it to seagate.
Followed the instructions at How to Revive a Seagate 7200.11 (http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=128807)".
Purchased a Nokia CA-42 Data cable from eBay, re-assembled it, connected to the Serial Communication Pins of the SATA HDD, fired up hyperterminal, followed the commands and bingo! after 15 mins, the drive was up and running.
As soon as the drive was recognized by the BIOS, updated the firmware using the following seagate page.
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 Firmware Update Page
All went well and the drive has been performing perfectly since then.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Turn Off LCD / Monitor while listening to Music!
Well, One tends to stare at the monitor when the music is playing and some screen savers are running. But thinking about the current power crisis and go green initiatives, it is better to turn off the monitor to save some energy while listening to music during late nights. Most of the time, either winamp or other media players (if configured) displays nice patterns according to the beat of the music. But frankly, how many watch it for more than one song? (okey. for some it might be a couple of songs). But for people like me who sleep with music on and to prevent the hassle of switching on the monitor everytime the need arises to access, it becomes a pain if the monitor is CRT (which also coughs up a quick surge while initialising from power off mode to power on). Though LCD tend to consume less during the power on initialisation, it is better to keep them soft switched off.
After searching the net for such programs, I stumbled upon a freeware product called TurnOffLCD from Redmond Pie (redmondpie.com). But behold, though it was a small application, it required .NET framework to be installed. I am not complaining about that because almost all computers are loaded with that bloatware, people like me who carry a 32 GB Pen drive loaded with portable applications needed for day to day operations may not appreciate.
With quick whip in C, I recreated that application which is less than 1 KB in size and does the job perfectly. Below is the link for that application. Sorry for posting it in Rapidshare, as I do not have a server space where I can host it.
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