Dell Precision 5820 Boot Loop KB4497165

Here is my tale of Microsoft's KB4497165 - Windows Updates and how this basically broke my Dell Precision 5820 in the process - Oh - and I fixed the printing issues with MS KB 4560960.

We first started experiencing issues with our network printers ( Ricoh ) not working across a few computers at work. I quickly discovered that MicroDouche release a windows update that broke the printer drivers on these windows 10 computers - there is a fix for this on the Microsoft Catalog Website  http://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Home.aspx. 
I did a quick search online and the fix is to install KB4567512 for your correct operating system for either Windows 10 or Windows Server - if you are not sure what version of Windows you are running simply open up the "run" command window and type:  winver

My system is Windows 10 release 1909 so I found the appropriate fix and installed this. However when I wanted to test this prior to rolling out the fix to other computers, there was also another KB waiting to download and install also,, the dreaded KB4497165, which includes intel microcode updates for your CPU.. YEA !!

Until it breaks your computer.. BOOO !!

After going through the regular install and asked for a simple.. "Restart Now" I lazily selected this and sent my Precision to the 7 level of internet hell.. literally.

Now I was faced with a constant Dell white logo and rebooting again, and again, and again, and.. .well, you know the rest.  Anywho.. this is what I needed to do to fix this.

Find a Windows 10 boot media - either usb or cd,, dvd, I am not going to go through all of that - there are plenty of great internet articles on how to make a bootable USB drive with Windows 10 installer. MAKE ONE OF THESE AND KEEP WITH YOU !! 
Disclaimer: do the following at your own risk ! I cannot / will not take responsibility for you "bricking" you pc.

But I digress

I booted my Precision 5820 with the USB boot media, pounded the F12 key to get into the boot manager options - My Precision was set to UEFI for a boot manager, do not change this in the bios before attempting to fix your pc as this is needed to stay the same for the following to work. In other words, just leave the bios settings as they are.. Boot the UEFI usb drive - in my case was - UEFI SANDISK
Once booted I tried to do the "Exit and return to Windows" - that didnt work.. back to the boot loop
Booted again with the USB drive after F12 - this time I selected Trouble Shoot your PC - Command Prompt option and ran the following  --

 This is where I need to stop and give a HUGE shout out to John Hass of Advanced Networking Professionals http://getanp.com  - he was truly a massive help during this. This guy is a friggin genius and if you are looking for a truly awesome managed service provider,, I suggest you check them out.. Super Guys.. Super Smart !!


Anyway at the command prompt
X:\Sources   this is what was displayed
Ran the following
# wmic logicaldisk get caption  - this will list all the drives on your computer.. make sure you see C: listed otherwise, you may need to load drivers again.
My C: was listed
# C:   hit return to get me into the C drive
#move C:\windows\winsxs\pending.xml C:\windows -- since my computer was stuck in the boot loop while trying to install the KB4497165 - which includes the intel microcode for CPU, this was always looking at the pending install file for updates, with this moved, it should bypass this.
Just for note - I rebooted the computer again and did the exact same commands again - this time I received the message - Error : File Not Found - which means the pending.xml file was not recreated -
When I rebooted the computer again I still only got to the Dell White screen over and over.. Seriously -- WTF -- so I booted with the USB drive again - this time I did a repair sequence and then after another reboot.. windows update came up and listed as 100 % completed. This then did a reboot -- again Dell White Logo - then again - Dell White Logo - but this time the spinning circle dots so I knew I was going to get back the desktop and login again.
Once I got back to the desktop I installed the Printer Fix KB4567512 - and upon reboot I still got the two Dell white logos - the second getting the little circles for a boot to the desktop -
Now that I was able to log back in again - I went to support.dell.com and did a search for BIOS updates for my computer,, low and behold,, there it was - An URGENT update listed on 6 23 2020. that was 3 DAYS AGO FROM MY ISSUE !!!  And yet there were no postings online, nothing from MicroSux about the intel micro code and affecting Dell Precision Workstations - I figured I would write this article out so that maybe it would help someone else in need.
What I did
Already had a Windows Media Boot USB
Boot Computer with USB drive via F12 - boot manager
Tried Exit to Windows -- boot loop
Boot computer with USB Drive via F12 - boot manager
TroubleShoot PC
Command Prompt
#X:\Sources
#wmic logicaldisk get captions  - enter
C:
D:
E:
F:
X:
#C:   - enter
#C:\   move C:\windows\winsxs\pending.xml C:\
1 file(s) moved
rebooted and did this command twice
This time  Error: no file found
Rebooted - still boot loop
Boot with USB drive via F12
Repair PC -
#Attempting to Repair PC
Rebooted with White Dell Logo
Second Dell logo with the spinning circles
Able to access desktop now
Installed KB4567512 to resolve the Printing issues
Reboot
Back to Desktop after two dell logos
Support.dell.com to search for BIOS udpate
Downloaded and installed updated Bios
Reboot
Two Dell logos and back to desktop

By the way, after the bios update, I have a much noticed speed improvement on my computer.

Sooooo.. that is my story and I am sticking to it.

Biz

OwnCloud

Let me begin with the following scenario,

I was looking for a way to backup off site computers' data (not connected to any active directory domain controllers) but still connected to our main network via VPN tunnels.

After discussing this issue with another "techie" he asked if I had heard about OwnCloud, a free version based on Drop Box. So I decided to give this a try.

I will go through the commands I issued and results:

My Scenario, I have VMWare installed and setup a Linux Server (Ubuntu 14.04 LTS). I will no go through the setup of this server as other environments will be different in other situations.

My virt server setup is 500 gb for storage, 4 gig virt memory and 2 cpu's assigned to it.

While going through the setup of Ubuntu 14.04, I did install LAMP, let the server assign ip address via DHCP, also setting passwords for main users, mysql root password. After the setup of Ubuntu finished, I wanted to make sure updates were in place so I issued the following commands.

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

when finished I did the following to reboot

$ sudo shutdown -r now

Most of the following commands I used are based on other web sites' how-to's. I am fairly new to Linux and the following sites were GREAT at helping me through the install steps.

http://www.windohs.co.za/install-owncloud-ubuntu-14-04-lts/

http://sharadchhetri.com/2015/04/26/install-owncloud-8-on-ubuntu-server-14-04/

https://doc.owncloud.org/server/8.0/admin_manual/installation/installation_wizard.html

read the tutorials on each site, all have good information

My commands were as follows ( I did a history command and pasted below)

To see what version of apache was installed

    4  apache2 -v

    5  apachectl -v

This command was to install (again) apache with the Maria DB which replaced Mysql use with apache2. Not sure I really needed to do this, could have stayed with MySql, but since I was a "newbie" for this install, I just followed the instructions listed. I believe if you use the installed version of MYSql from LAMP install, you will have the options later with OwnCloud setup to choose which database you want to use, since I installed (Re-installed) apache2 with the MariaDB, with was the option listed later.

    6  sudo apt-get install apache2 mariadb-server libapache2-mod-php5

This installed - updated PHP

    7  sudo apt-get install php5-gd php5-json php5-mysql php5-curl

    8  sudo apt-get install php5-intl php5-mcrypt php5-imagick

Downloaded OwnCloud software from their website

    9  wget https://download.owncloud.org/community/owncloud-8.1.0.tar.bz2

Figured what directory I was currently in, and the "ls" command was to verify the file existed

   10  pwd

   11  ls

This command "unzipped" the file I had previously downloaded into its' own file owncloud

   12  tar -xjf owncloud-8.1.0.tar.bz2 

ls command to verify new file location and contents

   13  ls

   14  cd owncloud/

   15  ls

   16  cd ..

This command copies the owncloud directory into the root of apache2

   17  sudo cp -r owncloud /var/www/

From here I needed to create the owncloud.conf file for apache2, so I changed directory to the /etc/apache2 directory and then changed directory into the conf-available directory ( this could have been done all with one command)

   18  cd /etc/apache2/

   19  ls

   20  cd conf-available/

   21  ls

This is the creation of the owncloud.conf file, which I copied the information listed below into this file.

22  sudo nano owncloud.conf

Alias /owncloud "/var/www/owncloud/"
<Directory "/var/www/owncloud">
    Options +FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
</Directory>

  While sitll in the nano program I issued cntrl 0 to write the file, and cntrl X to exit the nano program

This command created links

   23  ln -s /etc/apache2/conf-available/owncloud.conf /etc/apache2/conf-enabled/owncloud.conf

   24  sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/conf-available/owncloud.conf /etc/apache2/conf-enabled/owncloud.conf

I issued the following command - a2enmode is if you are going to use SSL connections

   25  a2enmod rewrite (didnt work,, needed to be root)

   26  sudo a2enmod rewrite

Needed to restart apache

   27  sudo service apache2 restart

When I tried to browse to http://my ip address/owncloud - I received error messages about not having permissions to write to the directory so I did more research and issued the following:

   28  sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/owncloud/

   29  sudo find /var/www/owncloud/ -type d -exec chmod 750 {} \;

   30  sudo find /var/www/owncloud/ -type f -exec chmod 640 {} \;

From there.. all was well and I was able to finish the install supplying admin username and password,

configure the data folder and set the username and password for the database.

There are many websites that will go into further detail about configuring and setup of Own Cloud than what I have listed here,, some much simpler and some GREATLY detailed. READ, READ, READ before trying to install and don't get frustrated. My steps listed above worked for me and now I need to setup user accounts for login, get the clients downloaded and installed on the remote computers,, if I have more comments I will post follow ups.

Hope this helps someone..

biz

Apple Itunes Backup on Windows PC

Location of data storage from iTunes backup on local windows computer.

Windows 7

C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup

You can view backups by date in this folder.

Website for more info on Apple iTunes Backups

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204269

Change or Add TCP port to Remote Desktop Protocol

This is a quick summary of adding another TCP port to Remote Desktop for Windows Operating System

Navigate to the following using Regedit

Hkey_Local_Machine\system\CurrentControlSet\Control\TerminalServer\Winstation\RDP-Tcp

Export this key to  your desktop

Edit
[Hkey_Local_Machine\system\CurrentControlSet\Control\TerminalServer\Winstation\RDP-Tcp]

to
[Hkey_Local_Machine\system\CurrentControlSet\Control\TerminalServer\Winstation\RDP-Tcp-NEW]

this will be close to the top of the registry key settings.

From here you can also change the Port from default (3389) to what ever you choose.

Save
if you add a new tcp port, remote desktop services will now listen to both, default 3389 and new ip port you have assigned

Double click to re add back into registry hive

Reboot the computer

you can check by running the command

netstat -an

you should see both 3389 and the new tcp port

Once you enable Remote Desktop connections on the computer and add a firewall rule (TCP) to allow your new TCP port assigned to remote desktop, this should work.

test with remote desktop client, just add the new tcp port to the ip address such as

192.168.1.1:(new ip port)

Cheers,

biz

SonicWall Allow Ping on WAN Interface from Specific External IP Address

What I am trying to accomplish:
Allow pings requests and responses from the external ip addresses of remote located SonicWalls from only my designated static external ip address.

I did a little research on this.. and found the following: When logging into a remote SonicWall > Network> Interfaces > Selecting X1 WAN > configure. This would bring up the config page and I could select the option to allow ping from the Management. I would select this option to allow ping responses from the WAN address of this device, however, this would also allow pinging from EVERYONE as well, which is what I DID NOT WANT to have happen.

Resolution:
After you select this option to allow ping on the WAN interface, this will automatically create a rule from within the Firewall > Access Rules >
You will see something like the following:

WAN > WAN  ANY  All X1 Management IP    Ping Allow

You can then edit this rule by selecting the "pencil" icon.

Most of the selections will be "greyed" out and you cannot edit these, but you can edit the Source and change this from ANY. From here I created a new Address Object of "My EXT IP Address at my location" and set this instead of the default ANY. Once saved to the SonicWall, I could then get ping responses from my remote location, but when testing outside my network, this would NOT RESPOND to ping request.

Hope this helps someone...



biz

Sending an Excel workbook or worksheet attachment via Outlook 2010

In Excel 2002-2010 you have a option in the User Interface to mail a selection or worksheet in the body of the mail.
Excel 2002-2003 : You find this button next to the save icon in the Standard toolbar or use File>Send to>mail recipient.
Excel 2007-2010 : Microsoft hide it (It is not in the Office button>Send menu or in BackStage View)
But you can add this option to the QAT (Quick Access Toolbar)

1. Office Button/File > Excel Options
2. Customize (or Quick Access Toolbar in Excel 2010)
3. Choose "Commands Not in the Ribbon" in the "Choose Commands from" list
4. Select the command "Send to Mail Recipient"
5. Add
6. OK

Website where I found this info

http://www.asap-utilities.com/blog/index.php/2011/11/21/user-question-how-to-send-this-sheet-to-an-e-mail-in-excel-2010/

biz

IP Address lookup tool, website

Looking for a website for IP address lookup, something a little more robust than Arin.net

Fellow "techie" sent me the following >

http://cqcounter.com/whois/

Thanks Brandon..

biz..