I never used Windows Vista (other than dealing with couple of boxes when personal contacts got it pre-installed with their laptop/notebooks and needed some assistance to configure them) and after using Windows XP for almost 10 years, expected Windows 7 also to have the Internet Explorer icon on the desktop. If you “still” remember, this IE icon on the desktop was truly special, as a right-click ->properties allowed the user to straightaway interact with the IE settings. With Windows 7 Internet Explorer icon is not a default desktop icon. Instead a user must create a shortcut if he/she wants an easy access to IE! Read the explanation for this from Microsoft here
Month: March 2010
Disable ‘Admin share’ on Windows OS
Last modified on 8th January 2023.
Be careful prior you disable the Admin Shares from your box. Microsoft strongly object about turning off the admin shares. Software like “Oracle” require Admin Shares to be enabled in order to install most of their software on Windows.
Regardless, I feel it is necessary at many times as I keep some “personal” stuff with my work boxes. There exist a small registry hack actually demonstrating how to disable admin shares with Windows XP, and the same hack works perfectly with later Windows OS as well.
Here is the hack (obtained from petri site)
Start regedit and browse to:
Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Key: SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanManServer\Parameters
Name: AutoShareWks
Data Type: REG_DWORD
Value: 0
A double idiot proof note:
location (i.e. it does not exist) – please right click in the right pane of the window and
create it, If you can’t find the value in the registry under the exact.
You must restart your box in order to get this hack activated.
Windows 7, Oracle developer 10g Crash, Work around
So you finally installed Oracle 10g developer suite on your Windows 7 box? Well if you already did then might have exeperienced the same crashing also!
Here is a simple work around to stop the program being crashed frequently. Before you open existing forms, make sure you are connected to the database instance. This reduces the frequency of crashing for Oracle 10g developer suite.
Dealing with “Windows 7 Additional log on information may be required”
Scenario: Windows 2008 R1 AD Domain, Windows 2003 ADC, ISA 2006 proxy, Windows XP, Windows 7 Clients.
I had couple of other posts related to the same topic in the past. Last week, March 2009, we almost ran into a solution which we expected as a permanent resolution for the annoying “Additional log on information may be required, click here to open the browser” message. However, immediately after couple of days without issues, this message started popping up, especially with 64bit Windows 7 Professional clients (I have one)
This time rather than spending our whole attention towards the client, we tried to do troubleshooting for the live connection and the detailing pans suggested we should sign up with the ISP for this network. Because we are behind ISA server proxy, we assumed the connection assess the same as a re-direction.
We had ISA from last five years and right now running ISA 2006. However we never enabled the auto discovery method for ISA and finally after spending few minutes and with the help of a document from isaserver.org we managed to get the wpad work fine for us.
However, other than my particular box, rest three test boxes running both 64bit and 32 bit clients stopped receiving “Additional log on information may be required” or “abc.com no internet access” status messages. In order to re-produce the scenarios which caused my system to have persistent error messages, I opted for a fresh installation of the OS and started creating manual restore points (how to?)
Post-installation activities
Re-joined my box with previous hostname
Installed ISA firewall client<>’No more You may require additional log on information or the yellow triangle with “abc.com no internet access”
Installed Avast free antivirus<> No problems yet (Many posts refer about antivirus programs causing the status/error messages)
Installed ZoneAlarm free firewall<>Better manageable than built-in firewall, still no error messages.
As writing this post on 20th March 2010, I am yet to receive any error messages about the connectivity. Following are the software I am yet to install which MAY cause problems with the connectivity
- Java VirtualBOX
- VMWare free player
Right now I am too busy to install the virtual machines, however too eager to assess what would happen once after I will finally install them. Please come back and read to know whether one of the installations specifically causes the most annoying error messages you would come across with your Windows 7 network connections!
Even though while connected to the LAN physically I don’t get warning/error messages, while establishing a PPTP connection from home to work, I do receive “Additional log on information may be required” followed by “click here to open the browser” messages.
Update 20.March.2010 afternoon session
Installed VMWare free player (latest edition). Everything works fine. “Additional log on information may be required” message still appears along with the hated yellow triangle only when the cable is physically detached and attached back. Nothing (restarting “Network Location Awareness”) clears the status message and a forced restart required to clear the message.
Uninstalled VMWare player, re-produced the situation to confirm it was not the VMWare networking components causing the error
Found a latest driver for the NIC from BroadCom site itself as HP site provided NIC drivers are rejected by Microsoft stating the drivers supplied by Microsoft being the latest dated to 26th April 2009. The drivers from BroadCom is dated 08th of June 2009 and Windows agreed to upgrade the drivers.
By virtue or out of curiosity disabled the option “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power” under Power Management node.
Re-installed VMWare free player, restarted the machine. Everything seems working fine.
Unplugged the cable, plugged back and bingo, within few seconds the network connection established without throwing any error messages!
Does it mean we are finally dealt with more than a month-long painful exercises to find a solution for this annoyance? Wait, let us wait another couple of days. Last time when we “found” such a solution, the error messages started appearing after 2-3 days…
Minor update (21st March 2010)
Umm I didn’t have to wait for 2-3 days! Now, the latest problem which triggers a hated yellow triangle tightly related with the power saving “enhancement”. After the fresh installation the power options were not altered to suit my current working atmosphere and the machine was having default settings, in which, even while the power is plugged in the system was asked to go into sleep mode after 5-10 minutes of idle time.
Once awaken, the system tries “hard” to re-initiate the network, eventually fails to authenticate(?) something, something, brings back the favorite(?) yellow triangle and the love message “Additional log on information may be required”
The only solution I had was to set up never to allow the PC to enter into the sleep mode while power is plugged in! Seems it is working perfectly (I spent around 12 minutes for lunch and when returned the network connection was still intact without the yellow triangle or error message(s))
Windows 7 “Add new hardware control panel item”
Too familiar with “Add new hardware” snap-in with the control panel? Really missing it with your Windows 7? Well, it is still there..
Press together windows key+R (run) and type in “hdwwiz.exe” and you should get the “Add new hardware” wizard started.
Google search “Windows 7 add new hardware”
Now who is going to give an explanation for why this feature is not anymore available with control panel?
Minor Update (28th March 2010)
Okay, you can invoke the Add new hardware wizard once again from device manager. Click on one of the listed hardware items, after that click on ‘Actions’ menu and select ‘Add legacy hardware’
Hope this information is helpful for others also.
Windows 7, DHCP Settings
I am wondering what does it mean! Usually I use static IP address at work, as I have a local oracle database, our ISA firewall has “strict” rules, limiting IP ranges from downloading from internet etc.
Recent days I was shuttling between two branch offices and was forced to reset my IP settings to obtain DHCP addresses. Interestingly, twice I found that once I pick obtain IP address automatically option, the default gateway (Grayed out) is seen (refer the image) when I open the property console for IPV4 section.
The most interesting factor is, regardless my branch locations (we use 131.102.xx.xxx) where the third octect differs each network (C class), the DHCP settings shows ‘131.102.10.1’ as the default gateway.
Please check the image attached and if you have an explanation, please post it over here.
Windows 7 domain network “no internet access”- A temporary fix!
Scenario: Windows 2008 R1 AD Domain, ISA 2006 SP1, Client Windows 7 Professional 64bit with ISA firewall client installed!
Annoyance factor: Though the client could access the internet, the local area connection/wireless connection to domain network shows “No Internet Access” or when connection shows “Internet Access” the balloon message says “Additional log on information may be required”
Day count wasted to find a solution: 8th day in a row
Activity log as following.
- Googling to find a solution, came against a vista forum post where somebody has mentioned about adding “local service” account under “Administrators” local group.
- Added “local service” and “network service” under local administrators group.
- Restarted “Network Location Awareness” which in due restarts “Network List Services” automatically.
- Noticed the following: Instead of the much hated yellow triangle, the connection (cabled) shown “Additional log on information may be required”
- Flipped the coin, uninstalled the ISA 2006 firewall client.
- Though not prompted, opted for a restart.
- The connection apparently stopped showing both the annoying messages “No Internet Access” and “Additional log on information may be required”
- Re-installed ISA 2006 Firewall client, restarted the “Network Location Awareness” service which restarted the “Network List Services”. Everything look still good
- Moved to nearest Windows 7 client running 32bit Windows 7 Professional. Gone through the above said procedures. Confirmed everything worked fine.
- Moved back to my client machine, removed both “Local Service” and “Network Service” accounts from local administrators group.
- Forced a restart.
- Everything looked fine, no more false messages stating “No Internet Access” or “Additional log on information may be required”!
Annoyance continues
Though the connection status doesn’t piss me off with the messages, the following were observed.
Avast anti-virus client as well Symantec endpoint client were unable to download virus definitions from download servers until manually configured with proxy settings.
Monitoring the ISA Server 2006 pointed towards the download requests being forwarded to ISA without user credentials and ISA was denying access to those requests.
Now wondering how more days I should spend to find a solution for this problem :(
Installing Oracle Developer (forms & reports 6i) on Windows 7 64bit
Update (09.Feb.2012)
Just came across an issue while trying to install Developer 6i suite on Windows 7 64 bit (may apply to 32bi as well), came across following error “forms60.vrf(78):OS_ERROR while getting value Path”. Didn’t have a clue what was wrong as we were able to install Developer Suite 6i more than multiple times (for legacy application used across corporate)
Googling around brought us to this link and found the solution! It was related the path element length, by removing some “unwanted” entries from the path string, we were able to successfully install the Suite.
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Oracle developer 6i (forms & reports) Installation tips.
Including me, many of you out there must be still using the developer 6i and getting this stuff work under Windows 7 64bit environment could be quite tricky.
Run the installer normally (without changing the compatibility mode) and finish the installation for both forms and reports. Go to this link and download the files suggested.
Now go to your developer installation folder, browse to BIN directory and make backups for these files
- NN60.DLL
- NNB60.DLL
Now copy the extracted files from the downloads you already have, to \BIN directory. This should deal with forms developer not responding to the “Run” button click or ‘Ctrl+R’ shortcut key.
Hope this post is useful Oracle developers.