Windows Update on Windows 7 failing at Configuring Updates

The Problem
So I had a strange problem. I have over the last couple of months had a problem where occasionally my computer when shutting down would have between 11-24 updates(it rose from the lower to higher) but when turning it back on then it would fail while configuring updates. If you are not aware of when this step is it happens before the computer finishes loading up after a reboot or shutdown. So since it failed it would revert changes and none of the updates got installed. This was on a Windows 7 64bit Professional machine. I ignored it since it wasn't causing me any problems(oddly I find I don't fix problems on my computers as fast as I do others) but it started getting really annoying delaying me shutting it down/starting up. This was annoying because it is a laptop that gets used heavily.

I was getting no error number and they failed whether I installed them while in windows or while shutting down. So I continued to troubleshoot. I even ran the System Readiness Update Tool from this previous post where I used it for previous such problems, which can be found here. It showed I had a clean bill of health.

The Solution
After this I then tried installing just a couple(4 updates) at a time. This worked. So I then continued to install the updates a couple at a time without mixing types(ie: security, critical, and so on). I was through this process able to install all my updates. It appears from this that one or more of the updates caused a problem when installed with some of the other updates. Sadly I don't know which they were. None the less installing updates in bite sized amounts may fix your issue too if you are facing a similar problem. You may even try one at a time. Good Luck and Happy New Year.

Phone Lock Samsung Rugby 2 - Steps to Unlock

The Problem
I recently had an issue where one of our mobile phones was returned to me with a phone lock on it. I tried a couple of simple passwords and had no luck.

So after working with Samsung & ATT they gave me the following process to reset the phones to factory default, therefore letting you get around the password.

The Solution

NOTE : This will wipe everything on your phone, that is not on your SD card. Thanks J Gardner. I should had this here earlier.

• Turn off the phone. 
• Take off the back cover and remove the battery & SIM Card
• Put the battery back in and turn on the phone
• When you get the message "SIM card is missing" (or something like that) dial the following number:
• *2767*3855#
• It will reset the phone but wait till it is done and turns back on.
• Turn off the phone by using the power button(Don't kill by using the battery)
• Put the sum card back in and put the phone back together
• Turn it back on

It should now work and start up without a password.

NOTE: It was explained to me this would only work on the GSM version of this phone the A847. Not sure if that is the case or not.

Windows Phone 7 Crashes while setting up Outlook Email to Exchange

The Background
I had dropped my phone one too many times and the front glass had cracked. The phone was still usable but I was tired of looking through cracks. It was also starting to act funny sometimes and not haha funny.
I had an an identical phone just sitting in a box and not being used I decided to finally move across to it. It was fairly painless. The only hitch I hit was while setting up my exchange email account on the phone.

The Problem

I clicked on the "Outlook" account and put in my email address and password. It then after a little while asked me for my username and domain name. This is most likely due to my username being a little different from my email address. I put it in and my domain name and clicked on. After a short period of time I got this message.
At the top it said "...and we've found them!" and then the error message "Oops! We're having a problem that we can't solve at the moment. Try again later."

This was confusing because I have 7 other phones just like this that are working just fine. Here were the differences that had happened between my previous phone and this phone.

• All email with exchange had been setup pre-mango. Maybe something with Mango didn't jive with my exchange server. I doubt this one.
• I had changed my username to where it no longer matched(don't think this is the issue)
• Before we had a private cert and now we use a GoDaddy Cert.
• I had also setup auto-discover settings to work

I feel this is something with our auto-discover settings(although outlook and other phone OSs don't have a problem with them outside of our network) since I had done this for other Phones to different exchange servers and not had a problem. I can't guarantee this which is why I put this post up.

The Solution

Windows Phone tries to ask for the least amount of email information when setting up an account. If it doesn't work it asks you for more information. Then if it doesn't work a second time it shows you advanced settings. Well I just fed it wrong information till it showed me advanced settings.

I then manually entered all the settings correctly. Since it doesn't need to auto-discover any settings than it instantly creates the email account and starts syncing. This allows you to bypass whatever is causing it to choke. After a short time it should then start pulling down your emails, tasks, contacts, and events.

I am now running it for a week on the new phone and enjoying it.

Essential Business Server Forefront Fails to Create Reports

The Problem

Error when trying to generate TMG Report

So as part of a need to start seeing who was sucking down my bandwidth than I decided I would take a look into the reporting that is included with Windows Essential Business Server 2008(EBS) on the Security Server which is Forefront Threat Management Gateway. I opened the Forefront TMG Console and after creating a report I then told it to "Generate and View Selected Report" This resulted in the error to the right popping up.

The report Web Usage could not be generated....

After trying various other variations of the report thinking that maybe there was some problematic data it was still giving me issues. At this point I decided to dig a little deeper into the error.

Error when browsing to site. (Click for Larger)

It was giving me a 500. That wasn't really specific so after some additional digging on the net for troubleshooting they recommended opening the URL in IE. and I should get the Report Server interface. Instead of that I got this screen. This was good because it told me it was a 500.0 error as well as gave me the following more info to use in my searching:

HTTP Error 500.0 - Internal Server Error

The page cannot be displayed because an internal server error has occurred.

Detailed Error Information

Module: IsapiModule

Notification: ExecuteRequestHandler

Handler:  AboMapperCustom-2299220

Error Code: 0x800700c1

Requested URL: http://127.0.0.1:9009/ReportServer$ISARS

Physical Path: C:\Program Files(X86)\Microsoft SQL Server\ MSSQL.3\Reporting Services\ReportServer

Logon Method: Neogitate

Logon User: (My Username)

I then started looking around this path and stumbled on a post about Coldfusion running on IIS7 and this error being created almost identically. The problem for that post was that Coldfusion was running as 32bit and IIS7 was 64bit. The Solution was to run a script that would enable 32bit web apps.

Well just glancing at the task manager I could see IIS was running 64bit and that the reporting server was running as 32bit. I also remembered that for the installation of an update that the EBS Blog had me enable and then disable this particular flag Enable32bitAppOnWin64. After hunting I found that entry http://blogs.technet.com/b/essentialbusinessserver/archive/2009/05/06/sql-2005-sp-3-kb-955706-fails-to-install-on-the-ebs-management-server.aspx

I decided to try this solution.

The Solution
Open an Command Prompt with elevated privledges on the security server and run the below script:
cscript %SystemDrive%\inetpub\AdminScripts\adsutil.vbs set w3svc/AppPools/Enable32bitAppOnWin64 1


After this I restarted the IIS Service. After this when I browsed to the web page it password prompted me. I knew that was a good sign. I then Jumped into the Forefront Report and pulled up my report. This time it worked without an error.

So my problem was either that that flag was set to disable since the beginning(never used the reporting server till now so not sure) or in following their blog entry to install the update for SQL Server it asks to set that flag to disable. They could have meant to just do that on the Management server but since their blog posts are a tad vague and the update was to apply to both so no was y of knowing if it was my goof or theirs.

Either way reporting is working now after hours of time on it. Now on to the next problem.

IE8 Error while installing. "Setup cannot continue because..."

The Problem
I was installing updates on a laptop running Vista x64. Mid install of updates it rebooted and then told me it was uninstalling some updates due to improper install of them. Which was fine. After the computer came back up I continued to install updates. Sadly I couldn't get Internet Explorer 8 to install due to it popping up the error "Setup cannot continue because a more recent version of Internet Explorer has been detected on this computer." I rebooted the computer and still had problems. I would usually ignore this but for other updates to show and progress I needed to get this to work.

I decided I would uninstall IE8 so it could re-install. After jumping into Programs and Features IE8 was no where to be found. So I then jumped online to see how to manually uninstall. Ran across a Microsoft Article showing the steps I had just checked earlier. No Go. They also showed a long command to run to get it to potentially uninstall the app. That didn't work either.

I then stumbled onto a forum post by "Chris Oliphant" on answers.microsoft.com. His post was my solution.

The Solution

I downloaded IE8 for my version of Windows. Make sure you have the right version x64 or 32bit. I ran it and got the same error. Leaving the box open I browsed to the Root of the drive. You should a folder there with a long numbers and letters name.

Open that folder and run IE8.msu.(You may need to copy the files elsewhere if you run into issues) It will not check to see if IE8 or 9 are installed and will just overwrite the install of IE8 that is on the computer.

After it is done installing reboot the computer. You can now delete that folder that is at the root of the drive. (Be careful don't delete something else and mess up your computer) Re-run Windows Update and it should then find the additional updates. You are then good to go.