Windows XP

Virtual Server: "could not initialize the emulated Ethernet controller"

Stephen Horsfield — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:14:00 GMT

Overview

Recently, I began having problems with Virtual Server 2005 R2 on my Windows XP computer. I was not aware of anything having changed, except suddenly my VPCs couldn't find a network adapter. Facing the possibility of a complete laptop rebuild, I was scouring the net for a solution...

Failed attempts

Before finally landing a working solution, I attempted the following:

Restarting Virtual Machines (before and after other changes)
Restarting Virtual Server (and associated services)
Looking for patches (none applicable)
Creating new network configurations
Using alternative network connections

None of these helped. I also found various forum articles suggesting I reinstalled my network drivers, but I didn't want to do this unless I really had to. Finally, I found a solution that worked...

A solution

The following worked well:

Uninstall the Virtual Machine Network Service (in network connection properties), not just deselecting it
Restart Virtual Machine Helper and Virtual Server services
Reinstall the Virtual Machine Network service (in network connection properties) and select it for each connection
Restart Virtual Machine Helper and Virtual Server services again
Start a virtual machine and check

I won't promise it will work in all cases, but it helped me out!

References

Versions

Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2
Windows Server 2003 (not verified)
Virtual Server 2005 R2 Enterprise Edition

Metadata

Categories: Virtual Server, IT Management, Windows XP, Windows Server
Additional keywords: missing network adapter, no network, network not working
Technorati Tags: Virtual Server, Networking

Web Development: Flash and the "Press OK to continue loading this page" message

Stephen Horsfield — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:18:19 GMT

Overview

Having added Flash content support to a website, I was getting this message in Internet Explorer 6. Internet Explorer 7 and FireFox both worked without any problems. I knew about the issue of Active Content and Internet Explorer 7, but I didn't know what was causing this problem in IE6.

Solution

It turns out that the message is caused by exactly the same behaviour that causes the infamous "click here to use this control" message in Internet Explorer 7. See this article:

Activating ActiveX Controls (Microsoft MSDN)

I was already using a script to generate the <object> tag source, and was using inline script to change the content of the page, depending on whether an appropriate version of Flash had been detected. However, I was caught out by this inline script line:

flashElement.innerHTML = GenerateFlashElement(...);

The above article comments that the code that adds the <object> tag must be in a separate included JavaScript file, not in inline script. So, all I had to do was replace the code with a method call and pass the tag content and the containing item to the script:

InsertFlashObject(flashElement, GenerateFlashElement(...));

--- flashHelper.js
function InsertFlashObject(element, innerHTML) {
  element.innerHTML = innerHTML;
}

This solved the problem immediately.

Versions

Microsoft Internet Explorer 7
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6
Adobe Flash 9
Windows XP

Metadata

Categories: Software development, Windows XP
Additional keywords: web development, flash, active content
Technorati Tags: javascript, Flash, Internet Explorer, IE, ActiveX

EPiServer: Problems importing data — POST fails

Stephen Horsfield — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 10:47:51 GMT

Overview

I've been importing a live EPiServer site into a development environment for further work. Normally, this works without problem, but this time I've been getting a POST error, but nothing informative. What's happening?

Solution

A quick look at the event logs on the IIS server quickly identifies the problem: the file exceeds the upload limit. Of course this is less likely to happen in a normal development run, but once there is a fair amount of data it fails. If I hadn't spotted the error in the event log, I might have been stuck for some time.

The default ASP.NET upload limit is 4 MB, so if you need more you will have to change the web.config settings. The element you have to change is the maxRequestLength attribute on the <system.web><httpRuntime> element. The size is specified in KB, so for a 32 MB limit, use the following:

<system.web> <httpruntime maxrequestlength="32768" /> </system.web>

References

<httpRuntime> Element (Microsoft MSDN)

Versions

Windows Server 2003
Windows XP
Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0

Metadata

Categories: Software Development, ASP.NET, IIS, EPiServer
Additional keywords: import, POST, error, upload limit
Technorati Tags: software development, IT Management, .NET, ASP.NET, EPiServer, import, problem

Windows: Having problems searching for text in files — not enough or any results...

Stephen Horsfield — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:29:26 GMT

Overview

Do you have problems searching for text in files using Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008? This problem has been affecting us in our development environment, but how can you fix it?

Context

From Windows XP, Microsoft changed the default behaviour of the Windows Explorer search feature. They did this for performance reasons, and from Windows XP Service Pack 2 onwards you can choose to revert to the old behaviour, but the effect was that only certain file types are searched by default.

Solutions

There are two solutions:

Register a handler for the specific file types that you require. This can be completed by installing an indexing filter, such as a PDF filter from Adobe or a compressed files filter. See http://www.ifilter.org for various file type-specific filters
Enable search for all file types using a default handler for unregistered types

Installing a standard IFilter is as easy as running a setup application.

For the other options, the procedure is documented in this Microsoft article: Using the "A word or phrase in the file" search criterion may not work (Microsoft Support).

References

Using the "A word or phrase in the file" search criterion may not work (Microsoft Support)

Versions

Microsoft Windows Server 2003
Microsoft Windows XP

Metadata

Categories: IT Management, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Search
Additional keywords: Indexing service, IFilter, Indexing Filter, Keyword search, Full text search, bug, kbbug, missing results
Technorati Tags: IT Management, search, problem, Windows, Windows 2003, Windows XP, Indexing Service

Windows: Network folders do not refresh automatically in Windows Explorer

Stephen Horsfield — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 17:11:08 GMT

Overview

Sometimes you have to manually refresh folders in Windows XP to see changes that have taken place on network servers.

Context

When you create or delete any file in one or more network folders, you have to refresh the display to see the changes. This can happen with any folder, but most frequently when you are using Microsoft DFS technology.

Solution

You need to follow the instructions in File list in the Windows Explorer folder is not refreshed after you create, move, or delete files (Microsoft Support). This requires two things:

Install Windows XP Service Pack 2
Make a registry change as below:
1. Locate and then click the following key in the registry:
  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
2. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
3. Type NoSimpleNetIDList, and then press ENTER.
4. On the Edit menu, click Modify.
5. Type 1, and then click OK.

Note: These instructions are copied from the Microsoft article.

Versions

Microsoft Windows XP

Metadata

Categories: Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, IT Management, Windows Explorer
Additional Keywords: Network Shares, Folders, Missing Files, Bug, automatically refresh folders in Windows Explorer, network folders do not refresh
Technorati Tags: IT Management, Windows, Windows 2003, Windows XP, problem, networking, Windows Explorer, folder refresh, DFS