WeekEnd Feature: What a niggling week!

by Ian Thompson, CCSP Staff Editor
March 13, 2004

You know the story - things are going well, stuff seems to be working fine and then something monumentally crap happens. Well, that's not exactly been my week, but it's not far wrong. And I wouldn't mind if any of it was my fault - at least I could hold my hands up and say Fair enough. I promised you some of these kinds of articles, so here goes…

Hang on while I adjust my chair.

Are you sitting comfortably, children? Then I'll begin…

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived an evil ogre who held the entire population of the world at bay. He wasn't the sort of ogre you'd imagine - all warts, horns, no hair and a huge club. Oh no - he was a subtle ogre who worked his evil deeds through the hoards of underling minions that he held most tightly in his sway. His was a game of frustration; of empty promises, disappointment and false hope of better things. He may have got a kick from the tide of woe and strife he wrought, but who knows? He probably didn't give it a second thought.

His minions drove the population in an endless cycle of improvement, offering trinkets and baubles as an inducement to keep getting the next version of almost everything they found useful. The population had once thought that they had the measure of the fiend; they mistakenly thought that they had understood the boundaries that seemed to divide where the ogre stepped and where they could guarantee he wouldn't.

Then Microsoft went and bought into NBC, smart-phones, prestigious universities and even kitchen appliances.
Oh nuts - I gave the game away there didn't I?


Well, you had us for a minute, but we did wonder where it was heading…

Sorry about that - even I was getting a bit dizzy with it all.

Any way, this week's experiences seem to spring directly from my observations last week - you know, about how hardware upgrades seem to go fine, but the software lets it down. Look back if you can't remember it.

We've recently installed the Software Updates Service on our network, which seems to function well, as far as it goes. However, it has cost me at least a day in the last week (over a couple of late nights and spare time between lessons) - and that's not including the time spent beforehand setting it up and so on, which I didn't do, but the log files show it to have been not exactly problem-free.

This wonder of innovations allows the servers to download all updates from selected groups from Microsoft's Windows Update service, which are then stored in a central folder awaiting approval. Once approved, the SUS rolls them out to the relevant PCs, each according to their type. And Admin saw that it was good, and rested.

But not for too long. Because after about a week, the central server stopped getting updates, only logging failed attempt after failed attempt when accessing MS. Then the various servers (Mostly Server 2003, with a couple at Windows 2000 Server) all stopped showing the Accept and Don't Accept buttons on the Approval dialogue - any changes made, or new files added to the list, could not be approved and therefore the system was kind of stuck in one place. Gradually, the little 'Automatic Updates' icon in the system tray became a rare sight. Still, at least the kids weren't left wondering why it took ages for the logon box to appear, or why the PC asked to restart after 10 minutes.


SUS it out.........

To cap it all, it really screwed up the Win2k sp2 installations we had around the place. In the true spirit of Ain't broke so don't fix it, we had set up sp2 as our mainstay, only going to sp3 if there were compatibility issues. Therefore, when half the PCs at school suddenly failed to start up following the first SUS update session, we had a problem.

It turns out that SUS version 1 really cannot be used on Win2k sp2 (which would also exclude any still on the earlier two incarnations). One of the first tasks it did was to install all the IE6 patches and then take the PCs up to sp4. Most of them coped admirably, but one particular batch of about 100 PCs needed a completely new image building, plus a time-consuming roll out during normal working time. We normally save such fun and frivolity until a break in the normal proceedings - something other staff would claim to call a 'holiday', but not a thing I've seen a lot of in the last year.
(Slight pause) - - Okay, so I hear no violins…

The bandwidth hit has been just about acceptable, diverting the bulk of it to the imaging process so as not to end up taking all day on one PC. The problem is; there were other unforeseen problems…


Not Only, but Also.

Service Pack 4 is now a Recommended Update, having been through the mill a few times to have had the corners knocked off it. Or more likely to have knocked the corners off all the other stuff it encounters. By now, there would be a solution for just about everything.
But not my office Minolta PagePro 1100L laser printer.

Whenever there is a problem, it takes time tracking down the source of the fault. However, thanks to SUS dumping about 25 Hot Fixes as well as sp4 onto everything, plus our roll out of Office 2003, which is gradually making its way across the site, there was a lot to sort out when my office PC started to crash with a Kmode_exception_not_handled blue screen whenever Word or Publisher was loaded. I thought it was the new version of Office, so out that went.

Unfortunately, Office XP also suffered, so I decided to make use of the Recovery Console and repair Windows.

Then, when that didn't correct things, I decided to reformat and reinstall sp2 from CD, which was automatically upgraded to sp4 when the PC rejoined the domain. After this, I applied the usual raft of system updates (IE6 sp1, Sophos, Office) before reinstating the printers. The Canon inkjet went on okay, but the laser is vital, especially now when approaching the season of reports, exams and more reports.

I resisted the temptation to throw the PC out of the window when it BSODed me during the Minolta driver installation…


Have you got the latest driver?

AAARRRGGGHH! No I haven't! Quick, go and Google for Minolta PagePro 1100L drivers Windows 2000 sp4
What's this? Nearly every link shouts that the two are very definitely incompatible. And yet the printer ships with Win2k drivers, and there are later ones available from Minolta than on the CD. But, for some reason, sp4 kills not only this, but also several (hundred) other older GDI printers. GDI, for those who are wondering, stands for Gormless Device, Innit?, meaning that most of the work is done by the driver on the PC. The printer is unable to function even as something simple like a HP II-plus, unlike my ancient Oki 600ex, which is twice as old and still going strong.

Now I really am narked. It seems that Microsoft have, in one fell swoop, cut short the working life of thousands of perfectly functional items of hardware. I could try contacting Minolta, but I notice from the experiences of those writing in the Google links that Minolta have openly stated they will not be developing newer sp4-compatible drivers for this printer. However, the solution gained by some seems curiously back-to-front in terms of pricing. Minolta, it seems, has offered some hapless 1100L owners a free upgrade to a newer 1250 model. I can't see that being cheaper than developing new drivers, but who knows what the state of finances are in Kyocera Minolta these days…


The only other solutions are:-

a. Sell the printer. Like, to whom? Nearly everyone these days is on an OS that falls foul of this GDI trick.

b. Throw it away and buy a newer one. This would be the 1250, assuming I don't want to bin the two spare toner cartridges I'd bought to last the report-writing that occurs in April - July.

c. Uninstall sp4. First, had to remember to uninstall IE6 sp1, otherwise the option to uninstall sp4 was not available. Then had to try to work out how badly affected the rest of the software would be, but in the end got fed up of seeing a Wscript.exe error calling some dll file or other.

d. Try XP instead - some users had been able to solve the issue, presumably because XP sp1 has been out longer than W2k sp4. However, it would depend on when the 1100L was made - if it was older than XP then it would probably need turning off and on again after every print job, to clear a 'cover open' warning.

I won the Minolta for writing a star letter in Computer Shopper a long while back - which makes it a bit more special to me than the average piece of office clutter. Still, since I also smashed my prized Computer Shopper mug this week, maybe it's time to move on.

I wonder if Bilbo and Shrek have shares in all these hardware companies? Microsoft probably bought into the printer market as well and decreed that a shake-up was needed.

For sale: laser printer, with toner for about 8000 pages. One careful owner. Will not work on Win2k sp4…



by Ian Thompson ComputerCops Staff Editor



Ian Thompson is a Network Manager of a 500-PC, 9-server, 1700-user school network and is an ICT teacher at a UK high school near the city of Leeds. He has written articles for the Hutchinson Encyclopedia, plus many resources in support of teaching ICT in the UK schools' National Curriculum.


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