XP SP3 breaks Remote Desktop: Here’s the fix…

Posted on 2009-01-21 by M. Eric Carr

Microsoft keeps finding new and improved ways in which to be annoying.

Windows XP Service Pack 3, it turns out, breaks Remote Desktop access for some strange reason. Once you know the solution, it’s not a terribly difficult fix (see below) — but you gotta wonder how it ended up being broken in the first place.

Cutting to the chase, here’s the fix. Add the following registry key:


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management]

“SessionImageSize”=dword:00000020

(Disclaimer: If you modify your registry, you imply that you know what you’re doing and want to do this. This mod worked for me; YMMV.)

Posted in System Administration | 1 Comment

Clippy Doesn’t Get It

Posted on 2009-01-20 by M. Eric Carr

There are some things that computers do quite well.

Correcting English grammar, apparently, isn’t included in the list.
(“Subjunctive? We don’t need no steenkin subjunctive!”)

Posted in System Administration | 1 Comment

Highway Robbery

Posted on 2009-01-14 by M. Eric Carr

Sometimes it pays to be a dinosaur.

One of the AET students at Drexel sent me an email asking about a serial add-in card for an older CNC milling machine. The manufacturer’s site listed a used one that was available for $250.

Custom boards for CNC machines and the like can get expensive — so that in and of itself wasn’t too surprising. The student mentioned that the card went into a motherboard, which had two slots available; he wanted to know if a less-expensive card would do the trick.

Here’s the card shown on their site. $250 MSRP, used. (Click for larger.)

Yes — it’s a garden-variety ISA “Super I/O” card (and not even the VESA Local Bus version, at that.) These things were obsolete fifteen years ago — people have a hard time giving them away for free at yard sales. If it weren’t so sad, it would be funny.

I found a very similar one in a box in the "museum" at work; I’m sure it will work fine.

Posted in Digital, Nostalgia | Leave a comment

Windows 7

Posted on 2009-01-09 by M. Eric Carr

What could the newly-released beta of Windows 7 have to do with paleotechnology, you ask? It has everything to do with it, when good ol’ DOS is looking better and better all the time!

I don’t know about you, but the following disclaimer on the Windows 7 download page bothers me. The emphasis is mine; the apocalyptic language is all Micro$oft’s…

To protect your MP3 files
1. Before you install this Beta release, back up all MP3 files that might be accessed by the computer, including those on removable media or network shares.
2. Install the Beta release of Windows 7; download and install the Update to Windows 7 Beta (KB961367) located on this page.

I think I just got inspired to try out Linux as a desktop OS this weekend. No OS — and no application — should ever consider itself as the be-all and end-all music file Gestapo. This is exactly what I don’t like about iTunes/iPod (and to be fair, similar features in Windows Media Player; I’m an equal-opportunity curmudgeon.) Data (be it text, graphics, mp3s, presentations, whatever) should be in as open a format as possible. This is why mp3s are so popular in the first place.

Whatever prompted Microsoft to issue such a worrisome disclaimer about mp3 files (and not hide it deep in the EULA-that-nobody-ever-reads) has got to be bad. What does it do, automatically collect all mp3s it can find into a WMP library and “thoughtfully” convert them to WMA for the user’s “convenience??”

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Posted in Current Events, Digital Citizenship, System Administration | Leave a comment