Replies

Mercyh – Well, at least I’m pretty sure I know what the problem IS now, anyway – the server not accepting the login name. I’ll figure it out. You helped me get through the syntax and to eliminate some things it wasn’t. That’s huge. Thanks for sticking with this. Thanks to everyone who replied.

Ripley – thanks. I should have mentioned that I tried the quotes. I get “The user context supplied is invalid”, even though it works fine with the NET USER command at the DOS prompt.

Mercyh – First, I did try that third suggestion that you mentioned on Friday. No go. As to the name change, When I check it on the Server, the Login Name is just the first name. Yet, the NET USER command only recognizes the full name in quotes. ??? I’m not familiar enough with Server 2003 to know what to change to accomplish what I need to (with the least amount of damage).

AHA! I believe I’ve at least isolated the problem. Typing NET USER at a command prompt shows that this ONE guy has a two word user name (Joe Smith). Everyone else is just Mary or Tom. I can’t make two names in the batch file work, but without them, the user is not recognized. Is there a way to fix this – either at the server or in the batch file?

Thanks for getting back to me late on a Friday. I just got home so I don’t have access to the Win7 machine until Monday. I’ll try that first thing. You may have hit something. Thanks again. Have a great WE.

Thanks, Paul. Duh. Shoulda seen that. Even so, I still get a system error 5 – access denied. It IS the right name and password for that guy. Not sure what else to try, now. I hate to spend Friday this way.

Okay. I tried LPT2. That wouldn’t work. It couldn’t find the network connection.The
I tried it without the password and it DID prompt for the password. Strangely, it wouldn’t let me type anything in. At all. I finally hit ENTER and got an invalid password msg. The password is a 5-digit number – nothing fancy.
?????

The server is running Windows Server 2003. Currently there’s only about 8 active connections. That shouldn’t be a problem anyway, because the Windows 7 machine is a direct swap for the XP box we took out.
Based on the link mercyh posted, I’ve revised the batch file to this: c:windowssystem32net use lpt1 \Serverlabel password /USER:workgroupusername
I’m getting a ‘System error 5 access denied’ message. Hey, that’s progress, right?
By the way, I can’t disable LPT1. There’s a necessary local printer there. This whole schmear used to work fine with the XP computer. Dang.

Thank you for taking the time to provide such a very detailed reply, Argus. Great information. It will take me some time to work through all the good leads you’ve given me (particularly since they actually expect some WORK out of me here at…. work). I’ll let you know how things go when I get through it.
Thanks for clearing up the error messages (and for the link), also. The meanings seem quite similar – pretty much saying the same thing two different ways, although I know there’s a subtle difference.
To briefly answer your questions before I dive into this though, I’m using the same anti-virus (AVIRA) everywhere and all errors appear on the log as “SR”.

I connected it when I enabled SR, hoping that it would SHOW that it was monitoring the memory stick on the SR tab- and I could then I could actually turn the monitoring OFF. No such luck. It shows that it’s monitoring C: only.
I thought things would be fine if I removed the stick ‘properly’, but still no luck. I just did that, and it deleted my one restore point, this time with a slightly different error code – ‘0xC0000368’ instead of the usual ‘0xC000003A’ – and informed me that it had stopped monitoring the volume.
It seems like there’s a problem with either SR (which I reinstalled) or with the monitoring report on the SR tab, if that’s a separate function. If SR is monitoring the memory stick, as it apparently is, why doesn’t the SR tab show it? Ah, it’s a conspiracy…
Is there a good way to decipher what those error codes mean?

No luck. I disabled SR and rebooted. Then I stuck in the memory stick and turned on SR. With the stick in, it still only showed that it was monitoring C: – not the stick. I pulled out the stick and instantly got another SR error. It acts like it’s monitoring the stick somehow, but it doesn’t show. Hey, this is supposed to be the GOOD version of Windows.

This is the error received in the event log: “The System Restore filter encountered the unexpected error ‘0xC000003A’ while processing the file ‘MEMOREX UFD (F)’ on the volume ‘HarddiskVolume2’. It has stopped monitoring the volume.” It obviously thinks it is (or should be) monitoring the memory stick.
I thought you had the answer, Argus. But when I checked the SR setting with the memory stick in, it shows monitoring on the C: drive only. This occurs with any memory stick, but ONLY on this computer. By the way, this particular 500 MB stick has 375MB free and the computer is current on all updates except SP3. Strange one, isn’t it?

Mark – I think you’ve found something with the profile suggestion. Last night, I created another profile with admin rights and rebooted. It booted to the old profile without asking. I tried it with and without the welcome screen. Again and again, old profile, no choice. I’m able to log off and then log on as the new profile, but I can’t force the login at boot to give me the option.

So I created a third profile and copied my settings to it, thinking that I would then just delete the original and stick with the clean one. When I switched to the new profile, most of my settings were there, but my antispyware, WinPatrol, etc. began firing off, thinking I was an intruder, and several pieces of software wanted registration again. It was late and I didn’t have time to look into it, so I killed off the new profiles and I’ll try again when I have more time.

Thanks for pointing me to this, Mark. I doubt I would have thought of it. And I was wondering how to spend all that spare time this weekend.

Keith

Mark – Very creative thinking. I like it. I’ll try it when I get home this evening.

Keith

Joe,
Thanks for pointing me to that setting. Automatically search for network folders and printers WAS checked, even though this machine is not on a network and there’s no drive mapping. I unchecked it and rebooted. The good news – the boot log looks normal again. 2 1/2 pages. The bad news – none of this had any apparent effect on the three minute boot time. I guess I’m still looking for a clue.

Maybe I’ll just leave it on …

Thanks for the reply. Mark. I’ve already tried the MSCONFIG route with little or no effect. Disk cleanup is a regular thing. Security (adware, spyware, antivirus, firewall) all tight and up to date. Plenty of available real estate on the HD. 512 Mb RAM. I only checked the boot log because I’m running out of ideas. I should have been more specific, however when I said the log was several pages long. It runs to 19 pages at 10 pitch. That can’t be a good thing. I ran one for comparison here at the office on XP Pro SP2. It was two and a half pages.

I’d appreciate any other ideas you might have. I don’t want to start over if I can help it.

Keith