XP SP2 Change Analysis Tool – Tricky on SP3

Deployment Trick when you are given error during install on XP SP3.  The installer expects XP SP2 and it is fixated.

For the message "the version of Windows XP is incompatible with this patch", there is a fix I’ve successfully used.

tip found here:
http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/fix-change-analysis-diagnostic-install-xp-
sp3/

where in the registry you simply flip the CSDVersion data value from 0×300
(SP3) to 0×200 (SP2)

key at:  HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Windows

Following reboot, some services may not start or work correctly on SBS 2000 or SBS 2003

Although this was first released several months back in July (2008), it is very much likely to impact an SBS 2003 installation at some future point in time.  The good news is that the fix is fairly simple.  You edit a single registry key and add port exclusions in a fairly small list.  Voila! Reboot and all is well again.

What is at stake?  Several services not working or starting – IAS, Exchange AUTD notification for ActiveSync, LT2P, and IPSEC

**Note the following copied article has been clipped to shorten its length.  Follow the link at the very bottom for the full original text.

SYMPTOMS

You may experience many network-related problems after you install the Domain Name System (DNS) security update 953230 (MS08-037) on a computer that is running Windows Small Business Server (SBS), and then you restart the computer.
For example, you may experience any of the following problems.

CAUSE

This problem occurs because the DNS Server service is listening on the UDP port that is required by another service.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, add the port that is needed by the service to the ReservedPorts registry value. This prevents the DNS Server service from listening on that port. The following ports are known to cause conflicts:

Ports
Program that uses the ports

1645-1646
IAS

1701-1701
L2TP

1718-1719
H.323 Gatekeeper (ISA 2000 only)

1745-1745
ISA Server 2000 or ISA Server 2004

1812-1813
IAS

2883-2883
AUTD

3500-3619
ISA Server 2000 only

4500-4500
IPSEC

To configure the ReservedPorts registry value, follow these steps:

1.
Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.

2.
Locate and then click the following subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters

3.
Right-click ReservedPorts, and then click Modify.

4.
Type the range of ports that you want to reserve.
Notes

•
You must type the range of ports in the following format:

xxxx-yyyy

•
Do not replace the existing values. Instead, add the additional values.

•
To specify a single port, use the same value for x and for y. For example, to specify port 4000, type 4000-4000.

•
If you specify the continuous ports separately and if one port is reserved and is not used, the next port is not reserved correctly, and the port is used.

•
ISA Server settings only apply to Small Business Server 2000 or to Windows Small Business Server 2003 Premium Edition.

5.
Click OK.
Note If you receive the following warning message, click OK

Warning:
Data of type REG_MULTI_SZ cannot contain empty strings.
Registry Editor will remove the empty string found.

6.
Exit Registry Editor, and then restart the computer.

Notes

•
You must restart the computer after you make these changes for the changes to take effect.

•
If you are using any third-party applications on the server that might require you to use a static UDP port that is higher than port 1024, you should also add it to the list of reserved ports.

Some services may not start or may not work correctly on a computer that is running Windows SBS after you install the DNS Server security update 953230 (MS08-037)

Outlook Express Compacting Annoyance Message

Condition:  After logon immediately following boot-up, a message prompt appears informing you to compact the Outlook Express message store and includes a button to trigger the routine.

Perhaps your users don’t use Outlook Express but in this case it won’t matter.  Lately I’ve experienced a large amount of occurrences of this annoyance on XP SP3 desktops.  For some unknown root cause there is an Outlook Express counter that is suddenly getting triggered upon reaching an open/close limit (100) although it isn’t being opened or closed ever.  There are various reported programs that due to indexing are believed to sufficient trip the counter.  Windows Desktop Search is one of these.  With this app’s ‘Options’, Outlook Express indexing can be manually unchecked; however, still messages continue to appear unabated.

Fortunately I discovered a solution that ends the madness.  The only caveat is that it will permanently disable the counter from ever working.  I’d rather recommend Windows Live Mail over Outlook Express anyway.

Simply altering the Windows Registry to set this counter to 0 will buy you a little time until it reaches 100 again (the limit).  Instead if you completely remove that subkey it stays gone and so do the messages.  Normal precautions and warnings to editing the registry apply.

Here’s where: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities\{GUID}\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express\5.0 ->Compact Check Count

…and of course you can just remove Outlook Express altogether via Add/Remove -> Windows Components

****note:  to be clear as pointed out by Jim in the comments, if you do run Outlook Express again, then this key will get recreated.****

Reserving a TCP Port in Windows

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\ReservedPorts

Above is the registry key that needs tweaked in order to reserve a TCP port. This will protect this port from any inadvertent randomn future assignment by software, patch, or service as what has happened over this past week with the DNS patch.

http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2008/07/17/some-services-may-fail-to-start-or-may-not-work-properly-after-installing-ms08-037-951746-and-951748.aspx

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/812873

thorough Autorun management – Systernals tool

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

Found this from a recommendation today and wow is this tool nice. Autoruns.exe is a GUI management tool from Systernals that will give you all the Autorun information you need to manage your start environments. This is a vast improvement over MSconfig, registry tweaking, ..etc.

Here’s a quick screenshot of this GUI running from a Vista Biz desktop: