If you attempt to create multiple sites in IIS6 that use the same SSL port (by default 443), then you will get an error message when you try to start the second one stating “IIS was unable to start the site. Another site may already be using the port you configured for this site. Please select a unused port for this site.” To setup SSL on the second site you need to either use a different port or edit the metabase directly. II6 comes with a script that will allow you to edit the metabase and add the binding for the second SSL site

The script is located in the Inetpub/AdminScripts directory and will need to be run from there in the command prompt. You will need to know the site identifier for the site you want to add the binding to. You can find this in the IIS Manager, drilling down to Web Sites, it will be in one of the columns in the right pane.

Syntax:
cscript.exe adsutil.vbs set /w3svc/<Site Identifier>/SecureBindings “:<Port>:<Host Header>”

Example:
cscript.exe adsutil.vbs set /w3svc/1/SecureBindings “:443:server.example.com”

Once you complete this you should be able to start the site in the IIS Manager.

I recently purchased an HP Mini 1035NR with Windows XP loaded on it. The first thing I needed to do was remove XP and install a better operating system. My OS of choice for the Mini was Windows 7. Being a small netbook, it doesn’t have a built-in optical drive. This wouldn’t be a problem if I had an external USB optical drive handy, but at the time I did not.

The solution is to use the built-in PXE network boot. The first thing you need to do is setup TFTPBoot on another machine. You can find the step-by-step walkthrough for doing that at Ryan T. Adams’ blog. Basically you download the TFTPBoot package from his blog and make a few settings changes. Follow his blog until step 6. A couple words of wisdom when you’re setting up TFTPBoot. You either need to connect the computer with TFTPBoot to the HP Mini 1000 with a crossover cable or if you do it through the network you will need to temporarily disable your DHCP server while you’re installing Windows 7.

You need to put the Windows 7 DVD in the computer with TFTPBoot and share the optical drive, giving everyone read access. You will also need to make sure your firewall is turned off.

Assuming you have setup TFTPBoot correctly and networked the two machines together we can continue. Startup the HP Mini 1000 and press F10 as soon as you see the option to. Inside the BIOS settings you need to go to System Configuration> Boot Options> Enable Internal Network Adapter Boot. Save the changes and reboot by pressing F10. Once the machine reboots press F12 for network boot as soon as you’re given the option. If everything is setup correctly it should boot into a Windows Vista BE environment and you will be presented with a command prompt.

Now if you were to do an ipconfig, you’re not going to get anything. The reason is because the PE environment doesn’t have the driver for the network card in the Mini 1000. First thing you will need to do is download the 32-bit Vista drive for the network card. At the time of writing this, I believe all of the HP Mini’s in the 1000 series are using the Yukon Marvell network card. If this is changed in the future you will need to download the appropriate driver and be sure to note the INF file to use with the driver loader below.  You can download the Marvell 32-bit Vista driver here. Extract the contents of the file to a marvell folder on a USB drive.

Plug the USB drive into the Mini. Assuming the Marvell directory is at the root of the USB drive, type the following: drvload d:\marvell\yk60x86.inf

You can verify that this worked by running ipconfig again. Now you need to map the shared optical drive from the TFTPBoot computer by typing the following: net use y: \\IP_TO_TFTPBOOT_PC\share_name /USER:hostname_of_tftpboot_pc\USERNAME password

Assuming the mapping worked correctly, can now run setup.exe from the Y drive and install Windows 7.

I’ve had issues with a Vista machine of mine where randomly some sites will become unavailable. The only way I could get access back to the site would be to flush the DNS cache. When I would have the issues it would typically happen fairly frequently. Taking a look at the DNS cache would indicate for the sites I couldn’t open would show they had a “Server failure of Type A”.

I did a little research on this issue and came across a knowledge base article by Microsoft. The KB article (928233) says that the issue is a result in the way Vista handles the DHCP Broadcast flag in discovery packets. XP had this disabled by default while Vista does not. If the router that you are using does not support the broadcast flag it can cause corrupt DNS cache entries on your Vista machine. The solution to the problem is to disable the broadcast flag.

To disable the flag you need to use the registry editor to make changes under this subkey, where GUID corresponds to your network card:

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\
Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\{GUID}

Create a new DWORD (32-bit) Value with the name “DhcpConnEnableBcastFlagToggle” and set it’s value to “1″.

I had driver installation issues on a recently purchased Vista Desktop (Gateway GT5656). The first issue came about when I tried to attach an external SATA Hard Drive enclosure by Antec. The add hardware wizard couldn’t find an driver automatically for the device. On top of this, Antec didn’t release a driver for this enclosure because Windows should already have the driver.

The second device I had issues with was a new HP Officejet J5740. The HP installation software (already terrible software, but that’s for another day) would install the driver, but when it would go to actually connect the device it would hang infinitely. If I tried to manually install the printer drivers from the CD, the Add Hardware wizard would report it couldn’t find any drivers that would work for the device.

After some digging on the web I came across a knowledge base article (940199) at Microsoft’s website that provided a solution for both issues. Apparently Vista can have issues repairing/replacing a damaged Infcache.1 file. At the knowledge base article they provide a hotfix for the issue.

Once I installed the hotfix the printer installed without any issues. The external hard disk enclosure also worked without any issues.