Event ID 4227

Warning: Before making any registry changes or system change make sure you have backed up you system and registry.

The issue:

Log Name:      System
Source:        Tcpip
Date:          12/2/2013 11:52:26 AM
Event ID:      4227
Task Category: None
Level:         Warning
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      xxxxxxxx
Description:
TCP/IP failed to establish an outgoing connection because the selected local endpoint was recently used to connect to the same remote endpoint. This error typically occurs when outgoing connections are opened and closed at a high rate, causing all available local ports to be used and forcing TCP/IP to reuse a local port for an outgoing connection. To minimize the risk of data corruption, the TCP/IP standard requires a minimum time period to elapse between successive connections from a given local endpoint to a given remote endpoint.

The fix:

• First use TCPview or netstat to view how many ports and connections are in use

Fix 1:

You can check the registry and via the command line to see the dynamic port pool size. And change it as need be.

To do it via registry key view HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\MaxUserPort and see what that value is set to. Note this key might not exist you can create it if need be. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc938196.aspx. To do this as command line “netsh int ipv4 show dynamicport tcp” you can see more examples at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929851/en-us if you are running out of ports you can use the command to increase the pool or change the reg key to complete this task.

Fix 2:

This might also be caused by the connection wait delay, if you have this problem you will find lots of connections in a time_wait status in TCPview or netstat.

If this is your problem you can adjust the HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\TcpTimedWaitDelay http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc938217.aspx to resolve this issue. Note again this key might not exist

 

Additional helpful link:

http://www.ittrainingday.com/2012/12/windows-server-tcp-port-starvation.html

Windows User profiles

This is going to be a mixed topic about user profile management.

Note: never delete a user profile out of Documents and Settings or Users. This will only remove the profile’s data, but not its information in the registry. This will cause errors later like unknown profiles.

How to correctly remove Windows profiles

1. Open System in Control Panel.
2. On the Advanced tab, under User Profiles, click Settings.
3. Under Profiles stored on this computer, click the user profile you want to delete, and then click Delete.

Automated way to remove profiles

• Use command line tool “delprof.exe”, works great for a terminal server’s with hundreds of profiles.
• Tool can be downloaded from Microsoft https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5405
• You can find some good scripts as well just make sure they delete the registry data for the profile as well.

How to delete profiles with “NTUSER.DAT in use“

1. Make sure the user is not logged in
2. reboot system, if reboot did not unlock ntuser.dat move on
3. download “User Profile Hive Cleanup Service” from Microsoft https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=6676
4. install
5. reboot
6. ntuser.dat should no longer be in use.

• Note: this sometimes will also clean up profiles listed as unknown
• Note: most “unlock” utilities will not unlock this .dat file.

How to create custom computer policy adm from registry

The problem:

Had to change the default regional settings on windows server 2003 so an application would show data correctly, it was installed as US regional settings but was used in EU. So come to find out that windows does not have a system-wide regional setting. At installation the default profile is set with what was picked at installation. And that default profile is used for all user accounts that get created so after an account is created it stores its own regional settings (currency, date, time, etc). Well come to find out that this is all stored in the registry and we have the option to do a login script, local GPO, domain level GPO, or just delete all the current user profiles. I went with local GPO as it was only for a few systems.

Waring: Make sure you backup your system before you do the steps below and if you don’t know what you’re doing in the registry you may not want to do this as it could destroy your system.

The fix:

1. Make a copy of registry as a backup
2. Make the change as the current user, to the regional settings you want (control panel>regional and language options) on advanced tab check apply all settings to current user and default profile (this will change it for your userid and all new ones)
3. Make a copy of new changes (export reg key HKEY_CURRENT_USER>Control Panel>International) Note: HKEY_USERS>.DEFAULT>Control Panel>International is the default user settings but you DON’T want to copy this one.
4. user a reg to .adm converter tool or create the .adm yourself (RegToADM from the nuts.exe package from http://yizhar.mvps.org/)
5. copy new adm file to C:\windows\inf
6. open gpedit.msc
7. add your new .adm file to the User Configuration>Administrative Templates (right click add/remove templates, then add and find your new .adm file)
8. change your filter options (have administrative templates highlighted and view>filtering, uncheck only show policy settings that can be fully managed. Otherwise you will not see your settings)
9. enable all your new settings (go to your newly created folder under User Configuration>Administrative Templates that the .adm file created, this will now update all current user profiles with the new settings after they login)
10. May need to reboot if its not working well with your applications

Helpful links if you need more help

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924852
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=323639
http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/registry2/jsi-tip-0311-regional-settings-in-the-registry-
http://yizhar.mvps.org/
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/225087
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up0Sd_R8KNM
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/microsoft.public.win2000.group_policy/HbN-0gfR_MU
https://blogs.technet.com/b/askds/archive/2007/08/14/deploying-custom-registry-changes-through-group-policy.aspx?Redirected=true

How to hide unwanted accounts from windows login screen

How to hide a windows account from the login screen list

NOTE: Make sure your system is backed up before making changes to your registry!

1. From Run launch regedit.exe
2. Move to key “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList” NOTE: that most likely SpecialAccounts and UserList will not be there so just create two new sub-keys.
3. Under UserList create a new DWORD (32bit) Value, and name it the userID of the account you want hidden (this is not the display name)
4. Make sure the value is set to 0 (this should be the case by default)
5. To enable the account again just change the value to 1
6. Log off or restart for this setting to take effect.

How to debug a VM with a serial port

1. Get your VM in Vmware workstation or Vmware server (with windows running as the host)
2. Add a serial port to the vm
3. Configure the serial port as

   

4. Configure Msconfig

   

5. Reboot
6. Configure BIOS (may not be needed) change serial port A and B

   

7. Install Debugging Tools for Windows
8. Open Windbg
9. Configure Symbol path (srv*c:\windows\symbols*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols)
10. save workspace

    

11. Configure Kernel Debug

    

12. Save workspace
13. Go to debug>break
14. And it should connect

Deleting a Windows Service

WARINING: Changing the registry or deleting services could leave your system unusable know what it is before changing or deleting it.

Removing a service

1. You can run a command line

sc delete {service name}

2. Delete the key out of the registry

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/system/CurrentControlSet/Services

Note: You can find the service name from the service properties and on the general tab.

Connecting XP/WM/Active Sync to Bluetooth

For some this getting Windows XP and Windows Mobile to connect with Active Sync from Bluetooth is not that easy so here is a great web site that will help you out. http://www.amset.info/pocketpc/sync-bluetooth.asp It gives you step by step and some screen shots.

Why Reboot

The all time windows question, Why Reboot? Well if you install software sometimes you get the popup “Reboot Now” Well there is a free exe out there that will help you see if that Reboot Now is really a Reboot Now. It is called WhyReboot by Exocus Developemnt. This exe will let you see out standing changes that will not take effect until that reboot.

 

Note: there are Limitations with this app.

 

http://exodusdev.com/products/WhyReboot

Self Service Portal

I have blogged about other Quest software free tools like Spotlight and  PowerGUI, well here is an other one that I have been using for about 2 years. Its the quest Self-Service Web Portal, it installs in IIS 5 or 6 (200/XP or W2k3) and installs in to Default Web Page in IIS and is all ASP based.  Well if you are in IT and have a lot of web apps like me and my team it is easier to give one URL instead of them all. This was a great fix for that if you have more of a team environment to keep everyone on the same set of links.

 

 

http://www.quest.com/self-service-web-portal/

Shadow Explorer

If you use Shadow copy in Microsoft Windows like Vista/2008 that have this on by default now you might want to check out Shadow Explorer. This will let you browse through shadows copies, show point in time copies, and to retrieve version of files and folders.

http://www.shadowexplorer.com/