Ramblings

Group Policy Client Failed to Start

I am on a Windows 2008 Active Directory domain and had trouble with one computer. I was not able to remote to the computer using RDP, VNC, nor remote control (SCCM). This was a Windows 7 machine that I could not even ping, yet it was on the network and could access network resources. I figured I would try to check the firewall and that would not even open. I then tried the event log and noticed that the group policy client was not started and the buttons to start it were grayed out and unavailable.

I searched Google and tried a few things, but it ended up being a crash of Windows after an update was applied. As the computer shuts down, more of the updates are applied as well as the computer comes back up. If the computer crashes then, some of the update is not properly applied. In this case, there were a few registry settings that were missing and I found an article that helped me with it.

Why won’t windows connect to the group policy client?

Here is the pertinent information from the article.

There are two places to look in the registry:

  1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services this path should contain gpsvc key (a folder), which is responsible for service parameters and configuration. I found that the key wasintact, so, you do not touch anything here.
  2. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SVCHOST This is the most important path you should look into, as it must contain the keys and values referred in the key #1. Below are descriptions what must be present there.
  • There must be Multi-String value called GPSvcGroup. My laptop was missing it. So, you should create multi-string value named GPSvcGroup and assign it value GPSvc.
  • Next, you must create a key (a folder) and name it GPSvcGroup
  • Then open newly-created GPSvcGroup folder and create 2 DWORD values:
  1. First called AuthenticationCapabilities and you must give it a value of 0x00003020 (or 12320 in decimal)
  2. Second is called CoInitializeSecurityParam and it must have value of 1.

Once you completed all steps above, reboot the computer and the problem will be fixed.

 

Things I Would Never Give Up On

I remember being just out of college and still holding strong to the music and movies, staying current, knowing all the names, watching and listening on a regular basis. I swore I would never give up on these things.

And then I had a daughter.

So, something more important came along and I focused my energy and time into that and the music and movies faded away. I miss it, but I didn’t realize it until recently. No one makes a mix-cd anymore, unless you are the CEO of the company I work for. It was a passing conversation at the end of a meeting, but he did what he promised and gave me some music to listen to.

Now, Cloud Cult is officially awesome!

Cloud Cult

Cloud Cult

Beardless

Joseph Parchem Beardless

Beardless

The time had come. The beard must go. Sad face. But it WILL grow again.

Project Folder Automation

The company had a problem. Multiple file servers, one for each office location, meant there were multiple places a project could live. Organizing thousands of active projects was no easy task, especially if employees from multiple offices were working on the project. The structure for storage of these projects was hard to understand for the average employee, and they were the ones creating the folders. With no governance and lacking a full understanding of how to setup the folders and why, it was a mess. This is what I walked in on.

One of my first projects at the company was to address that. The Project Start Form (PSF) was a Word document inside the office templates. I used that as a base reference, and began creating a web application in VBScript. The accounting database, Sema4, was in an old FoxPro style database, and I used that to provide drop downs and checkboxes. I was able to very tightly control the user interface and make it as easy as possible. Not only that, once that Project Manager was identified, it was a lot like the finder selection in Vision, I would find the office of that employee and automate the folder creation process. I even created a shortcut in the employee’s home drive and saved a copy of the PSF data in the project folder. Once the tool was ready and tested, I took away the PSF office template and replaced it with a link to the intranet-based PSF. (more…)

My Daughter’s Website

My daughter was born in 2006, October. Being the first, I dotted all the i-s, crossed all the T-s, was a model father. Which means a website, because I was also a web father. I am working on resurrecting the actual site, but for now, here is the layout I created for it.

Harper Baby Website Layout