Print Heads

This week I have been seeing a lot of printers with print head problems, which requires replacing the print head unit.

This can take awhile depending on the printer, but don’t let the physical size of the printer fool you. So far the printers that have taken the longest to swap out have been the smallest ones!

I have had to strip them down to almost bare bones to get to the print head, which is buried under boards, wires, and plastics.

The process of changing the head itself is not hard once you are in; it’s a simple matter of unplugging some hoses and swapping the unit (but remember the rubber pad and the metal clip).

It is a good way to learn where it all goes,.  When it is done, you feel like you have accomplished something good and it is always nice when you do not have any screws left over.

Kristen Hewes - Hardware Technician

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System Recovery

Full system recovery of a systems operating system should be last option if you would like to to fix a broken copy of windows.  If you would like to keep your data and you happen to have the media your computer came with or just a windows disk lying around. I would suggest taking a stab at running windows recovery mode. Start by using windows system recovery from your OS media disk. When booting from your windows disk you should see the option to repair your PC.  Once in the command prompt, try to run a chkdsk /p or chkdsk /r. This may save you some time by just replacing bad windows files that get corrupt from time to time.

Dennis Foote - Systems Engineer 

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The Importance of Maintenance Kits

It is important to install maintenance kits in LaserJet Printers, when the message shows up on the printers’ operator panels.  I have worked with customers over the years that decide to only have the fuser assembly replaced or none of the parts replaced and then have the maintenance page count register cleared.  It is true that in many cases all of the parts that are replaced with a maintenance kit have not started to fail and it is cheaper to just replace the fuser or no parts at all in the short term.  But, in the long run it will cost you more.  

OEM engineering departments have determined the optimum life expectancy of the parts in a maintenance kit.   When a kit is not replaced at once,  the separate parts will most likely all fail over a couple to a few months later.  This results in a few service calls with labor charges and having to pay for eventually all of the parts that come in a maintenance kit separately at a higher cost than the cost of the complete set.  The best course of action when the LaserJet Printer Operator Panel states that it is time for maintenance is to have a call logged for your printer to have the entire kit replaced. Again, in the long run it will cost you the least! Most all LaserJet Printer Maintenance Kit display trigger times are 150,000 to 325,000 pages of print at 4% to 5% fill.

Joe Churma - Printer Technician

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Helpful Free Tools

Over the past few years, there have been a couple of reliable, handy and FREE tools that I wouldn’t leave the office without. I thought I would share a few of them.

SpecOps Remote Gpupdate

This software adds a set of tools to the Active Directory Users and Computers console that allows administrators to selectively perform remote Group Policy updates as well as restart and shutdown commands. This is very useful when deploying critical GPO’s across the domain.

AnalogX Port Mapper

Port mapper allows you to map any port on one computer to any port on another computer. It also lets you filter the incoming IP address for enhanced security. One great use for this program is assigning remote desktop ports without the need to change the RDP port in the Windows registry.

Malwarebytes

This is by far the most consistent anti-spyware software that I have ever used. The interface is very simple and the technology behind its detection and removal process is top notch. These guys seem to stay on top of their game in the spyware removal world.

EZ GPO

Using this custom GPO and software provided by Energy Star gives administrators the ability to centrally manage power settings on Windows XP and Windows 2000 operating systems. This is something that Microsoft did not develop for the Windows 2003 platform. You can deploy this FREE tool and save your company some serious coin on the power bill by ensuring that computers are set into standby when not in use.

Angry IP Scanner

IPScan is an awesome and simple network scanning utility. This is a great security tool because you can use it as port scanner as well as an IP scanner. It’s great for finding available IP addresses and tracking down nodes on the network. The output can be exported to an Excel document which also makes it useful for network audits.  

Adam Jones - Systems Engineer

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Is a Server Right for Your Network?

Recently, Terminal.com conducted a company-wide audit of a new client who has multiple offices around New England.  Surprisingly, this client does not have a central server, despite their size and multiple locations.  It's common to see peer-to-peer (serverless) setups with smaller offices (typically less than 5 computers), but very unusual to find in larger companies, especially ones with multiple locations.

Servers can serve many purposes, but the primary, and often unappreciated, purpose of a server is centralization of management.  Adding a server to your network means each computer on the network defers to the server for important decisions, such as who to let log into network resources, who to let access what data, maintaining up-to-date virus protection across the network, what data to backup and how often, and many others.  Without a server, each of these types of decisions are left to the discretion of the individual computers, meaning IT staff has to spend more time configuring each machine and needs to be particularly careful of details; missing one computer or introducing one error can result in someone gaining access to something they shouldn't, or prevent people from accessing important resources necessary to do their jobs.

Oftentimes, smaller companies are reluctant to invest in a server, expecting the costs and maintenance to be too high.  But the return on the investment for a server is almost always excellent.  The centralization of common network tasks cuts down on IT costs immediately, while making employees more productive every day.  Servers also help create peace of mind by centralizing security and control, which is required by many security laws and compliancies, such as CRM 201 17:00.

Don't let your company struggle needlessly with a peer-to-peer network.  The longer you wait, the more frustration you'll face and the tougher it will be to convert.  If you think your company may be ready for a server, Contact Us today, and a Terminal.com engineer will be happy to review your needs and recommend the best options for your business.

Brian St. Marie - Sr. Systems Engineer

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Researching can be fun!

This week I had some hands-on-time with a printer. The printer was having some issues that I was tasked with solving. The system was crashing on startup, or shutting itself off after a few minutes.

The problem turned out to be the formatter board which we changed for a new one. But that was not the end of the story, the board died again, so it was research time.

After some internet searching I found out that it is a known problem for this type of printer, it seems that the scanner bed is the root of the problem.

It ended with changing the scanner assembly, and the formatter board again.

I learned a valuable lesson from this little printer, do the research! It is not always feasible to research every little detail of a problem, but in a case like this it feels good to know that with that little bit of time I have learned the next time I see one of these printers with this kind of issue, I can fix it from the root cause.

Kristen Hewes - Hardware Technician

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Rootkit Detection

I was recently working on a server with a nasty virus infection that we determined to be a rootkit. A rootkit, in short, is software that is intended to cloak or hide another malicious software package, process or activity on a computer.  They can operate on the user level by deploying a DLL which allows it to execute inside of a target process. They can also operate at the Kernel level by installing themselves as a device driver which allows them to function on the same security level as the OS. Rootkits are able to avoid detection by inserting code into core components of the operating system and running within a trusted process or driver which returns an “all good here” response to antivirus and antispyware scanning software. In our situation the rootkit was effectively disabling the antivirus software, erasing the Windows event logs and unregistering the Microsoft Management Console! Not very stealthy but quite effective!

Since normal virus removal techniques weren’t going to do the trick we had to deploy several rootkit detection utilities. The two that proved to be the most useful were RootRepeal and GMER because they were able to detect presence of a Master Boot Record infection as well as several SSDT hooks and a bogus driver. I was able to remove the malicious hooks and the driver with a few clicks but cleaning the MBR was going to require a bit more work. Both of these tools boast the ability to fix the MBR but my comfort lies in the Windows recovery console for such a task. In fact, RootRepeal itself suggested running fixmbr instead of using the utility provided. Once I fired up the RC and executed the fixmbr command I was confident that the rootkit was removed and now it became a matter of cleaning up with the usual suspects such as Malwarebytes and CCleaner.  

A rootkit infection can be a real hassle but if you are able to identify its presence there are some great tools out there to help you regain control of your computer. If you suspect a rootkit or any virus infection on your PC feel free to Contact a TES support representative and we would be glad to help!

Adam Jones - Systems Engineer

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Shortcut Commands

Shortcut commands can be an easy way to get what you want when you want it when using Windows operating systems without all the clicking and menus. This week, I came across some that I knew I learned somewhere along the way but I had forgotten about. So in my quest to make my life easier, I again found a great cheat sheet with a list of commands that I used to use and had forgotten about along the way. Here is a short, but great list of most commonly used commands that may help you.

CTRL+C (Copy)

CTRL+X (Cut)  

CTRL+V (Paste)

CTRL+Z (Undo)

F2 key (Rename the selected item)

CTRL+A (Select all)

ALT+TAB (Switch between the open items)

CTRL+Shift+Tab (Move backward through the tabs)

Win (Display or hide the Start menu)

Win+D (Display the desktop)

Win+E (Open My Computer)

Win+F (Search for a file or a folder)

Dennis Foote - Systems Engineer

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Multi-function printers vs. Single-use machines

Multi-Function Printers (MFP) or All-In-One Printers are much different than having a Laser Printer, Fax Machine, Copier and Scanner. I have seen many companies decide to purchase a MFP that would only cost as much as the Laser Printer that the company would have normally purchased. The company then believes that they are saving a great deal, but in reality they will be pushing the MFP much too hard with work and will end up with a lot more down time as a result of needing repairs. The best option for companies that are thinking about purchasing MFPs is to add up the cost of all of the equipment that would be replaced with the MFP and purchase one that is at least 2/3^rd the cost of the equipment being replaced. This will result in less loss of time for repairs on the MFP. There is an old business maxim that time is money!

Joe Churma - Printer Technician

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Passwords

Today's blog is about passwords.

Passwords are an important part of computer work, your password, the client's password, and the security of both.  As we all know, protecting important information is critical, whether it is your own bank information, or a client's private files.

Passwords are a funny thing, we see them as a pain a lot of the time, having to type them in when we boot up or to unlock a system. But a good password is vital to keeping your information safe.  Always try to use a password of 8 characters and to include a capital letter, a number, and a special character.

You have to remember the password, but it must be balanced for security.  Not remembering a password can cause a headache if you get to a job and can't log in, especially when you get locked out, and the administrators are not at the site you are working at.

So all in all, keep your passwords safe and sound, but remember what they are! 

Kristen Hewes - Hardware Technician

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Windows System Restore

Windows restore points can save you some big time headaches. Case in point, I received an urgent message from a client expressing that their system was “fried” and “it doesn’t look good!” The error was “Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt \Windows\System32\CONFIG\SYSTEM”. While this error is quite scary, it can be relatively easy to recover from if you have a valid restore point.

When Windows creates a restore point it is making a backup of your system files and registry which can aid you in undoing any system changes, software installations or updates that may have damaged Windows. There were several much needed changes to System Restore that were introduced with Windows Vista and were carried over into Windows 7. These changes allowed the process to be much more successful than in previous versions because of the use of block level shadow copies to create the restore points as opposed to using a file filter that monitored for changes and copied them to the restore point folder before they could be overwritten. Another nice change was to allow you to restore your computer using the System Recovery Options menu in case you have trouble booting into Windows.

Assuming that you are running XP like in the example above and you don’t have the luxury of using the SRO menu, you can still recover from your registry corruption issue using system restore recovery points. You will need to the help of a third party boot disk such as ERD Commander, UBCD or similar that will allow you to browse the windows partition on your hard drive. Next, you will need to navigate to the hidden “System Volume Information” folder in the root directory which contain your restore points in folders named _restore {XXXXX…}. Pick the most recent restore point by the date that it was modified and navigate to RP1\Snapshot. Inside of this folder you will find your registry backups by the names of _Registry_Machine_System for instance. Copy this file and navigate to the Windows\System32\Config folder, rename the existing file “SYSTEM” to “SYSTEM.old”, paste the previously copied file into this folder and rename it to SYSTEM.  Once completed, reboot your computer. You should now have a bootable Windows XP computer. You should always perform a full system restore to the most recent restore point just in case there are any inconsistencies in the other registry hives etc.

Microsoft has also released the KB article KB307545 that outlines this fix using the command based Windows Recovery Console in case you do not have access to a third party boot disk.

Remember to keep an eye on your System Restore settings! It will really come in handy the next time you install that unsigned driver or catch some nasty malware!

Adam Jones - Systems Engineer

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Preventing Computer Thermal Issues

This week, I had a client that was having random shutdowns.   I first thought that it might be the hard drive or the system board.  After noticing that the fan was not spinning, I knew it was probably a thermal issue. Thermal issues can cause a slew of problems.  These can range from computers and notebooks unable to start to failed hard drives and even worse - a burnt CPU.

How do you take care of your computer and have it maintain a normal temperature?  First, it is important to keep it in an open, well-ventilated area.  Enclosed areas are traps for dust and lint.  The grime will eventually make its way into the machine and wreak havoc on your fans and internal parts. To make things worse, there is always humidity.  Sometimes, I will even see dust buildup become moist over time and cause shorts on a computer’s internal parts, such as hard drives and added video cards. Keeping the computer away from a window may save you from this.

Cleaning a computer is important.  Notebooks are much harder to clean and for the most part should be kept in the open and on a clean surface like a desk or a table. Computers are can be forgotten about when it comes to cleaning around a tight cabinet or on the floor next to a desk. Because a desktop can be opened and cleaned from the inside, it should be done once every 4 months or so. All desktops can be opened from a side panel and cleaned out with a can of air fairly easy.  A vacuum can be very dangerous so I don’t recommend using one for static electricity purposes. A can of air will cost you about $4.00 and can be found most places you find office supplies.  

Dennis Foote- Systems Engineer

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Standards for the Protection of Personal Information

Many people may be familiar with 201 CMR 17.00: Standards for the Protection of Personal Information of Residents of the Commonwealth, the Massachusetts data privacy law which went into effect March 1st, 2010; all companies which work with the personal information of Massachusetts residents were required to be fully compliant by this date.  Unfortunately, for many small and medium businesses, understanding and implementing this law has been a rather difficult and confusing process.  Many businesses may not even realize the law applies to them.  The law applies to any company which stores or uses personal information of a Massachusetts resident, which is defined as follows:

"...a Massachusetts resident's first name and last name or first initial and last name in combination with any one or more of the following data elements that relate to such resident: (a) Social Security number; (b) driver's license number or state-issued identification card number; or (c) financial account number, or credit or debit card number, with or without any required security code, access code, personal identification number or password, that would permit access to a resident’s financial account..."

Luckily, Terminal.com has done quite a bit of auditing and compliance reviewing for clients in regards to this new law, helping them to recognize where their processes need to change and ensuring they become compliant.  This week, I helped a CPA firm implement all the changes recommended by their Terminal.com security audit.

In particular, the law requires individual employees each have personal network accounts with complex passwords and that user rights be restricted to information strictly necessary for them to complete their jobs.  In addition, data encryption is necessary for any portable devices or storage which may move around or out of the office.  Likewise, access to any personal client data, physical or electronic, must be protected whenever not in use by an authorized employee.  These are just a few examples of the requirements of the new law.

While the law can be quite a hurdle for many businesses, it isn't as strict as many other laws or guidelines, such as HIPAA or PCI.  Nonetheless, the requirements should be taken seriously; if the personal information of your clients is ever compromised, you could be held legally responsible for that breach, unless you can show a reasonable effort to comply with 201 CMR 17.00.

If you're unsure if you're compliant, be sure to review the 201 CMR 17.00 Compliance Checklist and verify you can answer yes to all the questions.  If you cannot, or are unsure, feel free to Contact Us and a Terminal.com engineer will be happy to help you review your current network and ensure your company is compliant.  

Brian St. Marie – Sr. Systems Engineer

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Console Hacking

I wanted to take a sidetrack today into hacking, not of computers, but of consoles. The big news this week is that the Sony Playstation 3 was laid bare, with its root key revealed to the world.

Legitimate games and discs run on a system because they provide a signature to the encryption system which recognizes them as authentic software.  The algorithm revealed bypasses all of that.  Console hacking has been around for a long time; the Sega Dreamcast was the first big target for it and the original xbox was also heavily hacked.

Why hack a game console you ask?

Well, the hackers themselves are adamant it is not about piracy, but about the rush of hacking a product.  In the case of the PS3, it is to get back something they lost.  The PS3 used to run otherOS, which allowed people to install other OS’s like Linux or FreeBSD on them. Sony then removed this with the PS3 Slim and through software updates for the older models.

Well, now they can get it back.

The other big part of hacking these consoles is the piracy aspect: people like free stuff and they don’t always care who it hurts.  I spent many years in the gaming industry and know how hard developers work and the blood and sweat that goes into it.  Yes, the big gaming companies post massive sales for games and seem to make a lot of money.  But, the smaller guys get buy on the products they sell, and we could lose lots of the inventive smaller indie companies from piracy.

The hackers of the PS3 say that Sony cannot fix this hack, but that remains to be seen.

Kristen Hewes - Hardware Technician

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Factory Versus Remanufactured Toner Cartridges

Remanufactured toner cartridges, which are less expensive than Laser Printer Company manufactured (or factory) toner cartridges, are for the most part only drilled and filled. A drilled and filled toner cartridge is a toner cartridge that has had a hole drilled in it to insert more toner into the toner compartment and a 2^nd hole drilled in it to remove any waste toner from the waste toner compartment.  Then these drill holes are sealed. These toner cartridges are usually not rebuilt or remanufactured.

When using these remanufactured toner cartridges if you keep track of how often you replace them you will find that you are using 3 to 2 or 2 to 1 compared to how many factory toner cartridges you use. Since these remanufactured toner cartridges for the most part are not rebuilt you have worn image drums, bushings and seals. The worn image drums will in many cases cause image quality problems with your laser printer printouts. You may also experience toner cartridges leaking toner from worn bushings and seals.

The above problems can also generate service calls on your laser printers incurring more expense and lost business time. Most modern toner cartridges also include the image drum and the developer for the laser printer, with some just being the developer with a separate image drum unit. The image drum and the developer are the heart of the laser printers printing system and you should use new or guaranteed rebuilt ones for your laser printers!

If you are using remanufactured toner cartridges look at the image drum of the cartridge before you first use it and if you see scrapes on the drum you know it has not been rebuilt. Another way you can tell if the toner cartridge has been rebuilt is to install it in the laser printer for a short period of time then remove it and look closely for any toner spills around either end of the toner cartridge, if you see any you know the bushings and seals have not been replaced. There are also cleaning blades or cleaning rollers for the image drums and if they have not been replaced it will also cause image quality problems on your printouts.

Your best bet is to use your Laser Printer Company’s manufactured toner cartridges which in the long run will cost you the least with less down time to your laser printer. But if you are going to use remanufactured or drill and filled toner cartridges check them out as I have stated above until you find a remanufactured toner cartridge company that actually rebuilds the cartridges.  There are a few that really do rebuild them, but they will be the most expensive remanufactured cartridges. The best is still the Laser Printer Companies’ manufactured toner cartridges!

Joe Churma – Printer Technician

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Deploying Applications Using Group Policy

Automation is on the mind of every IT admin. It makes our jobs easier and our end users happy. One extremely useful form of automation on a network is the ability to deploy software packages using Group Policy.

Recently a customer came to us with a request to push Adobe Flash Player to all of their end user’s workstations. This particular software package is perfect for installing through GPO because it is available in a Windows Installer format (which is required for publishing in a GPO) and it is a quick installation process.

The first step is to create a share on your server that contains the MSI package required for installation. Since the GPO can be linked to OUs that contain computer objects OR user objects you will need to determine the object type to receive the policy. This is important because if you decide to link this policy to a computer container, you must ensure that you configure the security tab of your shared folder to include the security group that contains the COMPUTER accounts slated for the installation. For instance, give the “Domain Computers” group Read and Execute permissions on the folder. Now that your share is properly configured you can build your GPO.

From the Group Policy Editor, navigate to the container that holds your computer objects OU and create and link a new policy. Be sure to give this policy a meaningful name such as “Sales App Deployment” or something similarly clever. Now open your policy by choosing “Edit” and navigate to Computer Configuration > Software Settings > Software Installation. Right click in the blank space and choose New > Package. Browse to the UNC path of the network share that was created above and select your MSI package. Since we are deploying this application to computer objects you will only be given the option to “assign” the package. This means that once the policy has been updated on the target computers, the software package will be assigned (installed) on the next reboot.

If you happen to choose a user group for your deployment and you have configured the policy in the “User Configuration” section you will be presented with options to assign or publish. If you select the “publish” option, the application will be available for the users to install by going to Control Panel > Add Remove Programs in XP or Programs and Features in Windows Vista and Windows 7. Additionally, they will be given the option to install the application when opening an associated file type. If you select the “assign” option this means that the application will be installed during the next user logon process. 

I hope you will consider using Group Policy the next time you need to deploy an application across your network. It can be a real time saver!

Adam Jones - Systems Engineer

Give Us a Call 617-731-6319 and Ask a Professional IT Support Technician Any Questions You May Have!

Imaging Data to Restore Your Information

So what’s your backup plan? This week I came across a lot of imaging. You may ask yourself what imaging is and why it is useful in IT. 

Imaging is a way to save all of your data to transfer to a new hard drive or create a backup for restore reasons in case anything goes south with your computer.  It allows you to restore your information with your settings, programs, files, and folders intact. 

You may even use it and not be aware of it.  Programs like Acronis, Symantec Ghost, and Symantec System Recovery make types of files for quick data recovery. 

So which product is best for you? Symantec Ghost is a great program but is a little more expensive than Acronis.  If you are technically saavy, Ghost is great because of its many uses.  Acronis is most user-friendly and has scheduled and one-click imaging software features.   Although Symantec System Recovery is geared more towards server use and comes at a cost, its ease of use and friendly pick-through options help make life that much easier if anything does go awry with your system.  In turn, this may save you time and money on consulting fees.

Feel free to Contact Us for any assistance with your data recovery or data transfer.

Dennis Foote- Systems Engineer  

Give Us a Call 617-731-6319 and Ask a Professional IT Support Technician Any Questions You May Have!

Boston IT Security on Cleaning a System Infected with Malware

Spending most of my time working on servers, I don't often see malware issues these days.  However, I ran into quite a mess today on a client’s Terminal Services server and discovered some interesting tidbits to help get things under control.

First, a very useful and important tool for malware removal is Sysinternals Process Explorer.  This tool will let you see all running process trees on the system, so you can quickly isolate hijacked or illegitimate processes and kill them.  In particular, it will let you search for open handles to malware files which may not have .exe or .dll extensions and so may not be obviously malware files.

Unfortunately, sometimes even if you kill a process with open handles to malware files, the process will immediately restart.  A good way to get around this is to rename the root executable file used for the process.  This way, when the process tries to restart, the executable file is essentially gone and so it can't run.  You can then remove the malware files without getting a "File in use" or "Access denied" message.  Then rename the process executable back and restart it manually.

However, what do you do when the root process is a legitimate Windows process, like svchost.exe?  In that case, you have to dig a little deeper.  Windows does its best to protect system files by keeping backups in the %systemroot%\dllcache folder.  So if you need to keep a protected process from restarting, you'll have to go into the dllcache folder, rename the cached version of the executable, then rename the actual executable, and then kill the process.  When the process tries to restart, it will find the executable missing and go hunting for it in the dllcache.  Since it's also now missing from the cache, it will give up and you can now manually remove the malware files attached to the process.  However, be sure to rename both the original executable and the version in the cache when you're done or you may end up with even worse problems down the road!

If you're struggling with malware or just want to be sure you're properly protected, feel free to Contact Us today and a Terminal.com engineer will be happy to help make sure your system is running at its best.

Brian St. Marie - Sr. Systems Engineer

Give Us a Call 617-731-6319 and Ask a Professional IT Support Technician Any Questions You May Have!