Foobar Ramblings

Installing IIS 5.1 Windows XP Professional SP2

A  relatively simple thing you'd think... but MS manages to shaft you when attempting this after installing SP2.  After trying Add/Remove Software -> Add Remove Windows Components and checking IIS, it then looks in the C:\Inet386 folder and complains it can't find numerous files and asks me to insert my XP CD. Bit of a bugger as I have no CD only a recovery partition with XP installed that is hidden in Windows, yay! So first downloaded an image of XP Professional SP2 of bittorrent. Then followed these steps.

• Mount XP Pro SP2 image (I used Virtual Dameon tool) or burn image to CD
• Open dos prompt and run the following command to repair windows security database: esentutl /p C:\Windows\security|Database\secedit.sdb
• Then from the XP Pro SP2 cd run install windows components, then point at the i386 folder within the CD and IIS should install successfully.
• After IIS install , I start the Default website but no reponse when i browse http://localhost
• This is solved when I quit Skype which was using port 80 (found this can be turned of in Skype's connection preferences)
• Tried again to browse http://localhost and get a messgage saying COM Surogate process shutsdown unexpectedly.
• This was solved by Control Panel - System - Advanced - Performance - Settings - Data Execution Protection - tick checkbox for COM Surrogate.
• Third time lucky? Tried again http://localhost but got the error Either module could not be found or Access denied not autorised to view this resource
• This was solved by going into IIS (inetmgr from cmd prompt)  then right clicking Web Sites - Properties - Directory Secuirty - Anonmymous Access authentication controls - Edit - tick Anonmymous Access checkbox, type account access for anonymous access as nav and password tick integrated windows authentication checkbox. Apply for all child nodes.
• Success! Pages load on IIS 5.1 at last .. screen shot below.

Useful Dos Commands

I'm sure I'll keep adding to these....

• attrib -r /S /D : used to remove read only attributes within the folder for all files and  sub folders, usefull when when localising directory from source control)
•   esentutl /p [database_name] : used to repair the security database in C:\windows\security\database\secedit.sdb (even after running esentutl /g [database_name] and getting no errors)
• tree > folder_structure.doc: used to output a visual directory structure into a word file (open with MS DOS encoding) , useful when you want to add a directory structure to documentation without screenshots.
• move *2006.xls c:\2006Reports\: used to shift all those 2006 spreadsheets and into a neater folder structure without load'sa mouse clicks.
• fc /l c:\test.txt c:\test.doc: used for file comparsions (/l flag for ASCII) between two files, good when looking for relatively small differences between 2 files.

[DOS tip]: drag the folder or file into DOS cmd window to save yourself typing it in.

Starting Out

Well here it is ...another sh*t apple falls not far off the sh*t tree, and a new blog is born!

The main reason I started this is to have a central place where I can store my ideas and thoughts from work, without storing them in gmails to myself which can be a bugger to retrieve later, to find that gem of knowledge that saved my a$$ but a few months ago!

Also the URL http://naveen.typepad.com was still available for my blog .. [cue smiley].