Friday, July 22, 2011

How to open a password protected Paradox DB

If you have your own Paradox DB, and you cannot remember the password, here are some universal Paradox passwords...
PARADOX 7.0 and 5.0: "jIGGAe" and/or "cupcdvum"
PARADOX 4.x (DOS): "nx66ppx"

References


How to open a password protected Paradox DB (if you do not know the password) By Zarko Gajic, About.com Guide

Friday, July 1, 2011

HyperTerminal Alternatives for Windows 7

If you’ve recently upgraded to Windows 7 and are wondering what happened to HyperTerminal, you’re not alone! HyperTerminal was a sweet little program that let you connect to other computers, Telnet sites, host computers, BBSs, etc using your modem or Ethernet connection.

In Windows 7 and Vista, you will no longer find the HyperTerminal program. If you need HyperTerminal to control serial devices, there is a way to get it back! Also, there are several new alternatives to HyperTerminal that are probably better for secure shell access and troubleshooting modems.

Windows Remote Shell


Firstly, if you only need remote shell access, you can use the new Windows Remote Shell command line option in Windows 7 and Vista. To learn more about using WRS, simply open a command prompt and type in winrs /?.

It’s basically a SSH replacement that allows remote command line access over an encrypted connection. It also uses the SOAP protocol.

Phone and Modem Options


If you were using HyperTerminal to troubleshoot modems, you can now use Phone and Modem Options to do this. Go to Control Panel, click on Hardware and Sounds and then click on Phone and Modem Options.

All you have to do is provide information about the Country/Region, Area Code, Carrier Code, and Outside Dial Number to access the dialog box. Once you do that, you can troubleshoot your modem in Windows 7 or Vista.

HyperTerminal Alternatives


If you don’t want to use all these alternative methods, you can still use alternative programs for HyperTerminal. Here are some of my favorites.

HyperTerminal Private Edition – This is a commercial terminal emulation program that you can use to communicate with serial COM ports, dial-up modems, and TCP/IP networks.

TeraTerm – TeraTerm is an open-source terminal emulator and SSH module that supports IPv6, SSH1, SSH2, Telnet, serial ports, and file transfer protocols (XMODEM, Kermit, ZMODEM, B-PLUS, etc).

Putty – Another free Telnet and SSH implementation for Windows. It also is an xterm terminal emulator. This is probably my favorite alternative to HyperTerminal.

Original XP HyperTerminal


If you just can’t live without the original HyperTerminal in Windows XP, you can actually extract two files from your XP installation and copy them over to Windows 7 or Vista.

The two files you will need are hypertrm.dll and hypertrm.exe. Simply copy those files into any directory on your machine and it will work. You should be able to find hypertrm.exe in C:\Program Files\Windows NT and hypertrm.dll in C:\Windows\System32.

If you have the Windows XP CD, you should be able to find both of these files in the i386 directory on the CD.

So that’s about it! Even though HyperTerminal is no longer in Windows 7, it’s really not needed since you have a lot of great alternatives like Putty, etc. If you want it simply because you’ve been using it for a long time, either download the Private Edition or copy the files from XP. Enjoy!

References


HyperTerminal Alternatives for Windows 7 Help Desk Tips For IT Pros

DOS Shell: Cannot load VDM IPX/SPX support

Symptom: When you open a DOS shell or if you run some programs in the DOS shell, you will get an error: Cannot load VDM IPX/SPX support

Causes: On Windows 2000 (maybe Windows XP and others), when you install CSNW and Novell's Netware client, it adds extra stuff to your autoexec.nt file. When you uninstall the client, it leaves a few turds around on your system (don't they all?) that could cause problems.

Solution: Edit your %SystemRoot%\system32\autoexec.nt file and delete three lines.

* Double-click on my computer
* Double-click on C:
* Look for "WINNT" or "WINDOWS". Remember which one you saw.
* Start -> Run
* Type in notepad c:\winnt\system32\autoexec.nt
If you saw "WINDOWS" instead of "WINNT" use notepad c:\windows\system32\autoexec.nt
* Look for these lines:

REM Install network redirector
lh %SystemRoot%\system32\nw16
lh %SystemRoot%\system32\vwipxspx

* Delete those three lines, and only those three lines.
* File -> Save
* Close Notepad – You are done!

Problem solved.

References


Uninstalling CSNW Rumkin.com

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Remote Desktop Connection: Advantage Local Server Error 5185

5185 AE_LOCAL_CONN_RESTRICTED


Advantage Error Guide

Advantage Local Server connections are restricted when used from a web server, an application server, a terminal server, or any other type of middleware or server product used to access data on behalf of remote computers.

If you receive this error, it is because your application attempted to make a local server connection from one of these restricted environments. Please review the Advantage Local Server Connections portion of the end user license agreement (license.txt, Section B) for details.

It is possible to get this error when you are not violating the license agreement. If, for example, your web application accesses local data that it uses internally, but is never transferred to a client, that usage is legal.

If you are using the Advantage Local Server to access data in this manner (or some similar manner where no data is used or seen by a client), and you receive this error code, you can add the following line to the ads.ini file under the [SETTINGS] section to disable this check:

MTIER_LOCAL_CONNECTIONS=1

Note Disabling this check when in violation of permitted connection scenarios set forth in the end user license agreement is a material breach of the license agreement and places you liable to provide appropriate consideration and remedy to iAnywhere.

Note The ads.ini file can be placed in the same directory as the application, in order to modify this behavior on an application-specific basis.

The specific text in the Advantage end user license agreement regarding use of Advantage Local Server and middleware connections (Section B) is as follows. Refer to the Advantage license agreement, license.txt, for the complete EULA.

If an application using this SOFTWARE PRODUCT is distributed to work without the Advantage Database Server (i.e., it uses the Advantage Local Server to access data), the application must act as a "client" that directly accesses and uses the data. To be specific, only computers that have the Advantage Local Server DLL loaded into memory can have access to the data that is obtained by that Advantage Local Server DLL. The application cannot act as "middleware" or as a "server" by having the data forwarded by any means to a separate computer. In other words, it is illegal to use the Advantage Local Server with a web server, an application server, a terminal server, or any other type of middleware or server product to access data on behalf of remote computers. An Advantage Database Server (a.k.a., remote server) product must be purchased and used to allow this SOFTWARE PRODUCT to access data on behalf of applications running on remote computers.

References


Advantage Error Guide: 5185 AE_LOCAL_CONN_RESTRICTED
MediSoft 16 Reports - Microwize Online Community

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Windows: Opportunistic Locking

Client Registry


The location of the client registry entry for opportunistic locking has changed from the location in Microsoft Windows NT. In later versions of Windows, you can disable opportunistic locking by setting the following registry entry to 1:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\MRXSmb\Parameters
OplocksDisabled REG_DWORD 0 or 1
Default: 0 (not disabled)

Note The OplocksDisabled entry configures Windows clients to request or not to request opportunistic locks on a remote file.

Server Registry


You can also deny the granting of opportunistic locks by setting the following registry entry to 0:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters
EnableOplocks REG_DWORD 0 or 1
Default: 1 (enabled)

Note The EnableOplocks entry configures Windows-based servers to allow or to deny opportunistic locks on local files. These servers include workstations that share files.

Windows Vista, 2008, Windows 7: Disabling Oplocks on SMB2


Oplocks cannot be turned off for SMB2. You can apparently disable SMB2 itself, but how to do so is not documented by Microsoft and was only mentioned in a Microsoft support forum post as a workaround for a bug.

According to that post, SMB2 can be disabled on Windows operating systems that support it (Vista, Server 2008).

To disable SMB2 on a Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista PC hosting embedded database tables, change or add (dword) the following Registry value:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters
SMB2 = 0

Once SMB2 is disabled, SMB1 will be used again and the methods described above applied to disable oplocks for SMB1.

How to Disable SMB 2.0 on Windows Vista/2008


So, for troubleshooting purposes, mostly in an environment that has mixes operating systems, you might want to consider disabling SMB 2.0. You need to do so on both the "client" and the "server" operating systems. To disable SMB 2.0 for Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 systems that are the "client" systems run the following commands:

sc config lanmanworkstation depend= bowser/mrxsmb10/nsi
sc config mrxsmb20 start= disabled

Note there's an extra " " (space) after the "=" sign.

To enable back SMB 2.0 for Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 systems that are the “client” systems run the following commands:

sc config lanmanworkstation depend= bowser/mrxsmb10/mrxsmb20/nsi
sc config mrxsmb20 start= auto

Again, note there's an extra " " (space) after the "=" sign.

In order to disable SMB 2.0 on the server-side computer, follow these steps:
  1. Run "regedit" on Windows Server 2008 based computer.
  2. Expand and locate the sub tree as follows.
    HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters
  3. Add a new REG_DWORD key with the name of "Smb2" (without quotation mark)
    Value name: Smb2
    Value type: REG_DWORD
    0 = disabled
    1 = enabled
  4. Set the value to 0 to disable SMB 2.0, or set it to 1 to re-enable SMB 2.0.
  5. Reboot the server.

References


Configuring opportunistic locking in Windows Microsoft Support Article ID: 296264 Last Review: April 4, 2011 - Revision: 11.0
Opportunistic Locking and Read Caching on Microsoft Windows Networks A Data Access Worldwide White Paper Last Edited: July 9, 2009
Computer & Network Troubleshooting Rees Software
Chapter 17. File and Record Locking The Official Samba 3.5.x HOWTO and Reference Guide
Major bug in Vista File Sharing (Peer-to-Peer)? Microsoft Support Forum
How to Disable SMB 2.0 on Windows Vista/2008 Daniel Petri - January 8, 2009
Windows 7 corruption network comp.lang.clipper.visual-objects
Major bug in Vista File Sharing (Peer-to-Peer)?
Data corruption when multiple users perform read and write operations to a shared file in the SMB2 environment Microsoft Support Article ID: 2028965 - Last Review: June 10, 2011 - Revision: 4.1