Ninite Pro Chrome Update Error

We use Ninite Pro to keep applications updated on our workstations (Windows 7 x64). We have a script that runs weekly to update a select group of applications. One user was reporting that Chrome randomly disappeared from their system. This coincided with the day that the script was running. The first time we thought it was odd and reinstalled Chrome, but it happened a few more times. After digging around, we noticed that if we tried to reinstall Chrome by downloading the installer it would work...but if we tried via Ninite, it would fail with this error:

• Chrome : Install failed - Could not verify installation (1), 1603 - 3227

After lots of searching (without finding much) and having this happen a few more times, we finally found a solution in the Microsoft Fix it Program Install and Uninstall Troubleshooter (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/mats/program_install_and_uninstall). This is what worked for us:

• First, uninstall Google Chrome from"Programs and Features" in Control Panel
• After downloading, run the tool.
• Click "Detect problems and let me select the fixes to apply"
• Click "Installing"
• Select  "Google Chrome" from the list
• Follow prompts to uninstall the program and/or fix issues.

Menus Missing After Installing SPSS 23 x64

There is a bug in SPSS 23 64-bit's originally released installer, if you install using a command like...

MSIEXEC.EXE /i "\SPSS64\IBM SPSS Statistics 23.msi" /qb COMPANYNAME="xxx" /norestart

...and don't include an "AUTHCODE" parameter.

You will be allowed to install SPSS and license using the License Authorization Wizard, but when you start SPSS you will only see the "File", "View" & "Custom" menus.

To fix:

• Edit C:\Program Files\IBM\SPSS\Statistics\23\spssprod.inf
• Edit the line with "DaemonHost=" to be "DaemonHost=no-net"
• Restart SPSS and things will work normally.

OpenVPN Silent Install/Update & Kaseya Procedure

Due to the Heartbleed and more recent MITM vulnerabilies, we have needed to upgrade all of our OpenVPN clients to the latest version as quickly as possible. We are running Kaseya Virtual System Administrator (VSA), although any of these commands could be run via the command line or another tool.

You can download the latest version of OpenVPN here. There are 32-bit & 64-bit versions available.

I found details about command line/silent installation here. I chose to use the following switches:

openvpn-install-2.3.4-I002-x86_64.exe /SELECT_SHORTCUTS=0 /SELECT_OPENVPN=1 /SELECT_SERVICE=1 /SELECT_TAP=1 /SELECT_OPENVPNGUI=0 /SELECT_ASSOCIATIONS=1 /SELECT_OPENSSL_UTILITIES=0 /SELECT_EASYRSA=0 /SELECT_PATH=1 /SELECT_OPENSSLDLLS=1 /SELECT_LZODLLS=1 /SELECT_PKCS11DLLS=1 /S" 

One issue that I had was that OpenVPN makes you "trust" "OpenVPN Technologies, Inc" when installing the OpenVPN TAP adapter. If I hadn't previously "trusted" OpenVPN when installing a previous version, the command line script would fail. To get around this, our script will install install the certificate via the command line before starting the OpenVPN installer.

 

Download a copy of openvpn.cer here.

You can install the certificate using this command:

certutil -addstore "TrustedPublisher" openvpn.cer

My organization is running OpenVPN as a service. If you are not, you can ignore all of the commands related to the OpenVPN service.

Here are procedures that you can import into Kaseya. Make sure to upload the installer you wish to use to the VSASharedFiles section before running the script (In Kaseya VSA 6.5: Agent Procedures -> Installer Wizards -> Application Deploy). If the installer you are using is not version 2.3.4-I002, you will need to edit the procedure.

• 32-bit Procedure OpenVPN 2.3.4 x86.xml
• 64-bit Procedure OpenVPN 2.3.4 x64.xml

In short, here is what the procedures will do:

• Copy openvpn.cer to the system's temp folder
  (Kaseya)
• Copy OpenVPN installer to the system's temp folder
  (Kaseya)
• Run certutil to install the openvpn.cer certificate
  (certutil -addstore "TrustedPublisher" openvpn.cer)
• Stop the OpenVPN Service
  (net stop "openvpn service")
• Kill openvpn.exe & openvpnserv.exe, just to be safe
  (taskkill /IM openvpn.exe, taskkill /IM openvpnserv.exe)
• Run the OpenVPN installer with appropriate switches
  (openvpn-install-2.3.4-I002-x86_64.exe /SELECT_SHORTCUTS=0 /SELECT_OPENVPN=1 /SELECT_SERVICE=1 /SELECT_TAP=1 /SELECT_OPENVPNGUI=0 /SELECT_ASSOCIATIONS=1 /SELECT_OPENSSL_UTILITIES=0 /SELECT_EASYRSA=0 /SELECT_PATH=1 /SELECT_OPENSSLDLLS=1 /SELECT_LZODLLS=1 /SELECT_PKCS11DLLS=1 /S")
• Change service settings to start automatically
  (sc config openvpnservice start= auto)
• Start the OpenVPN Service
  (net start "openvpn service"

Microsoft Excel, U.S. Dollar ($) Symbol & U.K. Computer

One of my UK users was trying to work with an Excel file that contained cell with values in US Dollars ($). Things appeared to be working normally until they tried to use formulas. Rather than calculating normally, it would only output "0".

After closer inspection, we figured out that because the computer's region was set to "English (United Kingdom)" it was not treating the "$" symbol as currency. It was treating is as text, resulting in broken formulas. I assumed I could simply select and format these cells as "Currency", "$ English (U.S.)", but that doesn't change anything.

Here is the workaround that we came up with (to replicate, you must set region to UK):

• Create an Excel file with dollar values and a formula that will sum the cells. You can see that they are being treated as text, since they are aligned to the left and the formula result is "0".
  
• Select the cells with the dollar values.
• Press Control-F to open the "Find & Replace" feature.
• Click the "Replace" tab
• In "Find what" enter "$" and in "Replace with" make sure it is blank. 
• Click "Replace All"
  
• The formula will now calculate properly, but we need this to display as currency.
• Select the cells.
  
• Right-click and select "Format Cells..."
• Click "Currency" on the left. In the right pane, select "Symbol", "$ English (U.S.)".
• Click OK
• Values will now display properly with US dollar symbol and the formula calculates properly!
  

Kaseya Antivirus: "Your license will expire in X days"

Over the past year, we have had the issue of Kaseya Antivirus (KAV) displaying "Your license will expire in X days" even though the Kaseya administrator interface shows the license as valid on numerous systems. Our fix has always been to uninstall, reboot, reinstall, reboot. It works, but it is time-consuming and the user can't use their system. Thankfully, Kaseya addressed this and has an easier way to fix:

http://community.kaseya.com/kb/w/wiki/877.why-do-kav-endpoints-show-a-different-license-expiration-than-shown-in-the-kav-ui.aspx

Update 7/9/2013: Because of a recent increase in the incidence of endpoints displaying the "License will expire in 'x' days" message, an update to  KAV 1.4 has been released that adds a "Fix Kaspersky Key" button to the KAV UI that will delete the currently assigned rolling Kaspersky key(s), and reapply both the initial and update key currently available on the VSA.

Contractually, we cannot completely disable the license expiration pop-up, and because of the licensing schema outlined above, the license expiration information is only available on the local endpoint, we do not have the means to gather the local endpoint license expiration for reporting to the VSA and/or KAV module.

ASUS Vivotab Smart Charging Issue

We just ordered a few dozen ASUS Vivotab Smart tablets running Windows 8 (full, not RT) to run some offline surveys. I'm going to try to post any quirky issues I come across, as I haven't been able to find much about them when searching.

The first thing I noticed is that if the battery is extremely low on the tablet, it will not start. Even if you connect a power cord, you must wait a bit for the system to start up. When the battery is low and you press the power button for a few seconds to start...it will flash orange 3 times. Once it has enough battery, it is able to start normally. These charge very slowly, so if you are at 0% battery...you might be charging for a while before it will start.

Can't export from SSI Web CAPI - "An error occured while getting..."

I'm trying to run Sawtooth SSI Web CAPI 3.0.2 for field administrators on a Windows 8 tablet. The software appears to install normally and I can run surveys. After completing a survey, I try to use the "Get Copy of Data..." button, but receive an error:

An error occured while getting
c:\users\username\Desktop\surveyname_data.csv
Please make sure the server is started (using menu item File | SSI Web CAPI Module Settings)
and try getting the data again.

After downgrading to SSI Web CAPI 3.0, I was able to export the data properly. I found the download here: http://sawtooth-software-ssi-web-capi-module.software.informer.com/3.0/

Convert WMV encoded with G2M4 Codec

I ran into some issues using a video created with GoToMeeting. Turns out that GoToMeeting uses its own codec (G2M4) when encoding the videos, so it won't play in all media players. My specific issues was that it wouldn't automatically stream & play in a webpage when uploaded to our Intranet.

I used these instructions from the folks at AVC to convert the video to a more friendly WMV3 codec:

http://www.any-video-converter.com/convert-g2m3-g2m4-codec-video-to-wmv-avi-mp4-flv.php

Step One:
Please click here to download and install the gotomeeting codec.

Step Two:
Please go to C:\Program Files\Citrix\GoToMeeting\723 (a folder with numbers, which is the version of GTM you have installed). There will be a file called "g2mtranscoder.exe". This is the utility that GoToMeeting uses to convert the file to a generic WMV file after recording.

Step Three:
Now follow the instructions below to use command line to convert the WMV G2M3/G2M4 Codec Video file:
1. Copy g2mtranscoder.exe AND g2m.dll files and paste them onto the ROOT C: drive (ie not in a folder).
2. Place the GoToMeeting recorded WMV G2M3/G2M4 Codec Video file on the ROOT C: drive as well.
3. Launch the command prompt (start -> run -> cmd).
4. If the command prompt launches and shows a file/folder path (ie C:\Documents and Setting\etc) then type "cd.." (without the quotes) until you are seeing just the root C: in the command prompt line (will look like C:\>).
5. Now, type the following at the prompt: "c:\g2mtranscoder.exe source=c:\videofilenamehere.wmv". (Of course put the name of your video file instead of those words and don't forget the .wmv).

6. This should have kicked off the conversion, but there is no visual indication of this. You can make sure it's working though - open Task Manager and click on Processes then sort by CPU usage, you should see the g2mtranscoder hogging all your CPU cycles. It's working!

Please note it would take about 20-30 minutes for g2mtranscoder.exe to convert a one-hour long file to a generic WMV file.
7. When the g2mtranscoder.exe process stops, you would get the WMV WMV3 codec video in ROOT C: drive, which has replaced the source WMV G2M3/G2M4 codec video.

Migrating Scalix to Google Apps: Mail

We are investigating Google Apps as a replacement for Scalix 11.4.6. I am doing a test migration right now that will move all my mail folders using (the older free version of) imapsync. Here is the script that I am using:

imapsync --host1 my.host1.com --user1 username --password1 **** --authmech1 PLAIN \
--host2 imap.gmail.com --user2 username --password2 **** --authmech2 LOGIN --port2 993 --ssl2 \
--exclude "Calendar|Contacts|Deleted Items|Journal|Junk E-mail|Notes|Other Users|Public Folders|Tasks" \
--prefix2 "SX/" --regexflag 's/\\X-*//g' --allowsizemismatch --useheader 'Message-ID' --skipsize

Let's go through the script:

These are the basic lines required for imapsync, specifying our hosts and login credentials.
imapsync --host1 my.host1.com --user1 username --password1 **** --authmech1 PLAIN \
--host2 imap.gmail.com --user2 username --password2 **** --authmech2 LOGIN --port2 993 --ssl2 \

This line excludes non-mail folders that will be moved manually, most likely via Outlook connectors & PST files. (ugh)
--exclude "Calendar|Contacts|Deleted Items|Journal|Junk E-mail|Notes|Other Users|Public Folders|Tasks"

This line will prefix each folder name is Google Apps with "SX". I want to keep migrated data separate from the default folders in Gmail.
--prefix2 "SX/"

This is required to fix an error with headers added by Scalix (BAD parse error: non-storable system tag "\X-Has-Attach"). See this post on the Zimbra forums.
--regexflag 's/\\X-*//g'

Since we are modifying the message (--regexflag, above) we need to tell imapsync to ignore message sizes, since they will no longer match. Instead, we need imapsync to use the "Message-ID" header to compare messages. These options allow us to run imapsync again after the intial sync and only sync changes.
--useheader 'Message-ID' --allowsizemismatch --skipsize

Big thanks to Mark for this post!

Latitude e6220 "Unknown Device"

I was just re-installing Windows 7 x64 on a Dell Latitude e6220. After installing drivers, there was one "Unknown Device" in device manager. In Properties -> Details, the Hardware Id is listed as:

ACPI\SMO8800
SMO8800

Turns out this is a driver for the hard drive's free fall sensor. Go to dell support, select computer type and your operating system. Select the "Application" category and you will see:

ST Microelectronics-Driver
Applies to: Free Fall Sensor

Direct Link (Win7 x64): http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/19/DriverDetails/DriverFileFormats?DriverId=F91KT&FileId=2731102934