Weather Imagery

I work on a classified program for Lockheed Martin and our network is completely isolated from the internet. Therefore, I have two WSUS servers; one connected to the internet which harvests the updates and the second is on the classified LAN. Each day, I check for updates on the internet WSUS server and if anything new pops up, I export the metadata and copy the files to DVD.

Setting up the WSUS servers was easy. However, understanding how the two WSUS servers interacted was a different story. Here are a few problems I encountered but have since resolved:

If you are finding that the updates on your disconnected WSUS server are not downloading even after you have imported the metadata and copied the files to the server, check and confirm the following:

• The WSUSContent directory should be exactly the same on both servers. That is if on WSUS server #1 the directory path is C:\WSUS\WsusContent\ it should be the same on WSUS server #2. If you have the updates going to a different drive letter, then the metatdata in the database from server #1 will not point to the right place when you import it into WSUS server #2. You can run C:\Program Files\Update Services\Tools\wsusutil.exe help movecontent as a possible solution.




• Within the Update Services application, select Options=>Update Files and Languages and make sure “Store update files locally on this server” is selected, “Download update files to this server only when updates are approved” is checked, and “Download Express installation files” is NOT checked. The express files require communication with the Windows Update website and since your disconnected WSUS cannot communicate with it, all the update files cannot be downloaded. Makes sure these settings are the same on BOTH servers. You may need to re-download all the updates on the internet connected WSUS server to re-sync the files if you at one point had this checked and later unchecked it. You will then need to copy those files to the disconnected WSUS server.




• Within the Update Services application, select Options=>Update Files and Languages and select the Update Languages tab at the top. Make sure the same languages are checked the same on BOTH servers.

Obviously, you have to match the approved updates on the internet connected WSUS server with the disconnected WSUS server. But I did notice when you approve an update on the disconnected WSUS server, it appears as if the server has to download the updates from itself. If you click between one of the Update views and the Server Name where the “Updates needing files” count is displayed, it takes a few seconds to update.

Windows XP by default enables a feature called Fast Indexing. This is only useful if you frequently use the search option to find files or folders on your computer. Now, if you aren’t using this search capability every day there is absolutely no reason to have it enabled and it’s only slowing your computer down and taking up disk space.

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One of the great enigmas of the Windows operating system has been the error reporting “feature”. When an application or process crashes, by default, Windows will pop up a message box prompting you to either send an error report or not to send an error report. If you chose to send the error report … well in reality, nothing good will ever come of it because in all likelihood the program that caused the error is not a Microsoft product. And why would Microsoft change their software to fix someone else’s problem. If it is a Microsoft application that crashes, it’s still highly unlikely that they will use this information to fix any problems. After all nothing is ever Microsoft’s fault. And can you imagine the amount of data that would be transmitted from all over the world from every PC connected to the internet when an application fails for any reason at all?

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Email is almost a necessity nowadays. Very few companies and business can survive without this form of communication whether it is emailing a simple message, travel itinerary, purchase confirmation, forgotten passwords or a whole gamut of other things. If email consisted of only text messages and no file attachments it would be virtually harmless. The thing that makes email dangerous are those file attachments and the recipients not understanding the consequences of double-clicking an executable file.

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Every once in awhile, it’s nice to capture an image of something on your computer screen, save it as a file and email it off to someone. I frequently have my mom do this when trying to figure out a particular error she is receiving on her computer. When the error appears on her screen, I have her take a screen print, save it as a file and send it to me via email so I can take a look.

The great thing about this capability is anyone that has Windows XP can do it. All you have to do is press Alt+Print Screen (the Print Screen button is usually just to the right of the F12 button on a standard keyboard). Strangely, you won’t get any indication that anything has happened when you do this.

But the image has temporarily been stored on a virtual clipboard. Now we just need to paste that image into a program and save it as a file.

There are many applications out there one can use to paste the image into, but I just tell my mom to use Paint. It’s a simple little image editing program that comes with Windows XP and it’s perfect for this sort of thing. To open Paint, click Start => All Programs => Accessories => Paint. Next, select the Edit option at the top and click on Paste (or ALT-V will paste the image as well). You should now see the image you captured. To save the file, click File => Save As … and in the drop-down menu that says “Save As Type”, choose JPEG. Pick any file name you want and click the Save button.

I don’t like things installed or running on my computer if I don’t use them or they are not needed. You just never know what it’s recording, remembering and sending out to the rest of the world.

One such thing I’ve encountered was an icon within my Network Connections in Windows XP home edition. It was titled Local Area Connection on Linux and strangely, I couldn’t delete it or disable it! After Googling around, I found out it can actually mess up your broadband connection or at least make it less efficient. So I wanted to get rid of it, which turned out to be a bit non-intuitive but nonetheless, easy and harmless.

1. Start => Control Panel => Add or Remove Programs
2. On the left, click “Add/Remove Windows Components”
3. Scroll down to Networking Components and select it (don’t uncheck it)
4. Click the Details button in the lower right corner
5. Un-check the “Internet Gateway Device Discovery and Control Client
6. Click OK

The computer will then need to be rebooted for the changes to take affect. Once rebooted, the “feature” will be removed.