cluberti

Logging onto the computer is just like logging on at home - there's no communication with the domain structure, thus no policies, logon scripts, etc. get applied to the machine and/or the user. Also, the user account used is local to the machine (rather than an account stored in a centralized directory), and if you need to share files or folders based on permissions, you will need the same user account (with the same passwords!) on all of the other machines you wish to access. Obviously, if the machines are in the domain, you only have one location where user account information is stored, making file sharing, password resets, even user profile storage much more centralized and easier to manage.

Hate to say it, but this is one of those situations where you would be better served using something like RIS to install these machines, rather than sysprep/imaging. Just my .02 (I have also run into this problem when imaging an IBM Thinkpad from an image that originally had a different HAL). Since we were moving to RIS anyway, I didn't bother to troubleshoot it.

I made the assumption that you had a real server OS installed, so my mistake. Everyone here is correct - there is a hard limit imposed on XP Pro in that you cannot have more than 10 concurrent connections to it at any one time. You may be wise to purchase a server with SBS 2003 on it for your workgroup - it's an expense, but it'll alleviate much of the problems you are seeing, whilst allowing for future growth should that be necessary.

Folder redirection, either in group policy or via registry edits, should allow you to relocate your desktop folder to a network share that can be made accessible to others.

It might just be a registry CLSID or possibly shdocvw.dll that has gone south for the winter - perhaps run sfc /scannow on the box may resolve this error.

Not a problem.

Consider auditing events via policy (gpedit.msc, or within the Group Policy object in AD being applied to that server).

I'd suggest not using the server as a router (you've already got a router, you don't need two), especially if you are only going to use ISA 2004 as a caching device (there are articles on how to configure ISA with only one NIC). I'd say configure DHCP to pass out the linksys address as the gateway, and your SBS server as the WINS/DNS servers (you should have DHCP, DNS, and WINS server services installed on your SBS server) and disable the DHCP services of the Linksys device. Active Directory is highly dependant on DNS, and using the Windows DHCP, DNS, and WINS server services reduces some of the issues that can arise when using non-Microsoft versions of these services in an AD environment. Most likely, the user account you're using on the domain isn't a domain administrator - add the account to the domain administrators group, and you should not have that problem. As to the domain issue, it's always easier to have centralized control over all of the PC's when using a domain structure, but you may not want or need the centralized security, login scripting, and permissions that a domain provides. I really don't see a need not to have a domain, but some people just don't want to bother with the extra work it takes to make one work properly (and it is understandable if that person is not an administrator by trade). I would say that you made a good choice in using SBS 2003 as the server since you plan on using one box for everything. It's a great product, and makes all configuration of everything about your domain very easy (read: wizard-driven).

When do you get this box - when opening email, or when opening Outlook Express?

Perhaps getting a netmon trace at each end of the connection when the issue is occuring (from client and server), and seeing if anything is amiss. Is the server running DNS or WINS services? Having a WINS server in a workgroup environment will have a noticeable impact on workgroup lookups and reduce browser elections (which can also cause problems if the workstations are fighting for master browser status).

I would think you could delete them all, although the autoconfiguration entries shouldn't be affecting this.

nLite should be able to remove most of the files that OE uses, or you can use the OEAccess = off setting in the [Components] section of your winnt.sif file to hide any entry points into OE from the GUI (quick launch icon, start menu icon, etc). It is still installed, just no icons.

I second the sysinternals post - use Process Explorer to see exactly what is using CPU on the system (you can even see which thread if you so desire). If you have a few processes using significantly more CPU than the others at idle, then you should be able to get a lot of information about those processes via Process Explorer (you should also be able to kill any offending processes). It sounds like a very odd problem indeed. Does this same issue occur if you boot into Safe Mode?

The previous posters are correct - use the VGA mode of the F8 boot menu, or boot into safe mode and remove the display driver (and monitor, if it's there) from the device manager. Unless you have remote command-line access to the box (telnet, psexec), these are your only options. However, if you have remote command-line access to the box, there is a utility called "Resolution Changer" (http://www.12noon.com/products.htm) which you can use to set the resolution and refresh rate from the command line.

It coud be a virus or spyware (I think there were some disney games awhile back that actually shipped with virus-like code - I don't remember which ones, so I'd check to be safe), or it could be a bad install of directx on the box (I noticed one of the .dll's was a d3d dll). Good catch Zxian .

Well, browseui.dll is an IE and shell component, so if you're having problems after installing an IE update that touches that file, perhaps you should roll back the patch and try again? Does it happen all of the time on that system, or have you only installed the patch once? IE patches can be fickle sometimes... I'll be glad when all patches use the same patch installer. /sighs.

Honestly, I've used it in the past, but I've never been happy with OS imaging in general. I've always fallen back to using RIS as the deployment methodology. The SMS OSD feature was nice and did work as documented, but I can't speak any further about it than that. My use of this stopped as more of a personal preference than a technical shortcoming.

You'll have quite the time getting your network card working in DOS if it's a wireless card - I know of no wireless DOS drivers (although I could be wrong). You will need to A ) place the hard disk in another laptop that has network access and copy files to the disk that way, b ) get a PCMCIA network card (wired) that can boot in DOS, or c ) get an external USB or firewire CD ROM drive.

But it's still beta. I have no doubts it will retain the 16bit subsystem in the 32bit version, but I won't say for sure until RTM code ships .

Really? They've been trying to phase out usage of 16-bit code since Windows 95 - 10 years ago. And even with this push, it'll still be the successor to Windows Vista that will be entirely 64bit (Vista will still come with a 32bit version, that will run 16bit apps to the best of my knowledge). At this time, it's highly unlikely that 16bit code will ever run in a 64bit Windows version. 16bit code running on a 64bit processor makes the OS less stable, so it was a good time to finally remove the option to do something they've been trying to stop for 10 years - execution of 16bit code and drivers.

If you don't have the CD that contains the data for the recovery partition, you will likely need to contact Acer to get the recovery media sent to you. Otherwise, short of sending the PC to a data recovery operation, it's likely it's gone for good.

If you change NTFS permissions on the image folder, a user without permissions cannot access that image (as the user won't be able to enumerate the .sif files).

Take a look at the Office 2003 resource kit, specifically the custom installation wizard.

No need - it appears you have an issue with a misbehaving driver (it appears to be an advance logic soundcard driver). Have you updated this driver recently? If not, I'd suggest you do so. The error states that the driver is attempting to read a memory address, but it's IRQL is not what Windows expected it to be - this causes the kernel to "bugcheck" with a STOP 1D error and the name of the driver which caused it. You could also uninstall the device from device manager (do not reinstall it), and try to recreate the crash again. If the driver really is the issue, the problem should not occur.

Well, since all zeros is an invalid virtual address, I'd say that's the initial problem. The only problem is that svchost.exe can be running multiple instances of itself (it's just a container process for quite a few different services). So the question is - if you boot into safe mode and (via msconfig or autoruns) disable all non-microsoft services, and all startup items, does the problem go away?