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Windows 7 – Slow Logon

Windows 7 is undoubtedly Microsoft’s best desktop operating system to date, a much needed boost following the somewhat disappointing release of the Vista OS.

A common problem with Windows 7, recently picked up by Acorn’s Hertfordshire IT consultants, is that after joining it to a domain logons suddenly become painfully slow.  There are a number of suggested fixes out there, most noteably that of setting the desktop background as an image rather than a solid colour (a bug noted in a Microsoft forum post).

However, in this article we examin another cause of the “slow logon” problem which centres around DNS.  If the Domain Controller for the domain to which the Windows 7 PC is joined is multi-homed (that is joined to more than one network) , then Windows 7 clients may experience issues with slow logins which are not experienced with XP or Vista clients.  On the Windows 7 client if you run nslookup and try to resolve domain.local or whatever your local FQDN is you may see more than one entry returned.  In this situation a slow logon may result.  The same can occur if there are additional bogus DNS entries, perhaps carried over from a SBS Swing mirgration or virtualisation project.  Simply deleting these bogus entries in the DNS for the domain will resolve the slow logon issue.  For multi-homed domain controllers, more drastic action may be required, but the situation can at least be allieviated in the short term by using a local hosts file to resolve the FQDN for the domain to the correct, single IP address.

In short, we can see that Windows 7 handles DNS in a very different way to previous Microsoft desktop operating sytems and care must be taken to ensure that the domain environment is configured correctly.

The Importance of Data Backups for Your Business

Background

In a perfect world we would never be concerned about our computers failing, nor would we have to worry about natural disaster, physical theft or human error.  Our business critical data would never be at risk from any of these factors and we could sleep easy at night, taking comfort from this knowledge.

Sadly we do not live in this utopian world, and we therefore need to take steps to ensure that valuable information such as business contacts, emails, text documents, presentations, contracts and accounts, all of which form the lifeblood of our businesses, are properly protected.

What Can Possibly Go Wrong?

Unfortunately for many businesses, it’s not until something does go wrong that the importance of a solid backup system is realised.  A few possible scenarios for data loss include:

Natural Disaster

Admittedly this is not an every day event, but the companies affected by the Buncefield oil disaster would now all agree as to the importance of a reliable data backup system.

Physical Theft

Without a dependable off site backup solution in place, should your computers be stolen, your data would be taken as well with no means of recovery.

Hardware Failure

All computers and their components are eventually subject to failure.  We can’t predict when, but sooner or later every business will be faced with a dead computer, or major failure of some kind.  The largest threat during a failure is that there will be some form of data corruption or total loss, and in many cases this can be irrecoverable.

Human Error

Computers are only as reliable as their operators.  Important files can be deleted in error, or amendments can be made to data only to realise later down the line that the original data is once again required.

What Can You Do?

There are a multitude of data backup solutions on the market today, and it can be a little overwhelming when trying to select a potential product.  Acorn Networks specialise in providing tailored backup solutions to businesses across Hertfordshire.  We aren’t tied to a single product, but instead carefully assess individual needs, and put together a suitable solution which meets both requirements and budget.

Sleep Easy…

Why not arrange a meeting with one of our data backup specialists who can put together the perfect backup solution for your business and put your mind at ease, knowing that whatever happens your data will always be safe.

Exchange Store Fragmentation

In a previous post we spoke about increasing the size of an SBS Exchange mail store with a registy change.  The problem with an Exchange mail store is that once it reaches its maximum size, even if data is removed from it the store cannot shrink back down again without manual intervention.  If a store has reached the 75GB limit, and data has been removed to free up space, it is highly recommended that an offline defragmentation is performed in order to restore some performance to the Exchange system.  A common reason to perform an offline defrag is when a large number of users have been removed from the system.  Follow the instructions in the following Exchange support link.  There are other tools which can perform a similar function without using the command line, such as Perfect Disk.

Internet Explorer

Earlier this month, Microsoft announced yet another bug in Internet Explorer affecting versions 6 and 7 which could potentially allow attackers to gain full control over an unsuspecting user’s machine.  This bug is particularly serious and as yet Microsoft have not released a fix.  Upgrading to IE 8 however, solves the problem.  This is a classic example of why you should make sure your IT support company keeps all of your Windows devices up to date with the latest Service Packs and patches.  The vast majority of attacks, be it through hacking or malicious code, can be avoided by keeping Windows systems up to date – a simple measure to implement and one which could save your business hours if not days in downtime.

Swimming Laptop

When a glass of liquid is spilled over a laptop or into a computer, the first thing you should do is pull out the power lead and remove the battery.  The liquid itself is unlikely to harm the machine, it’s only when there is power running through it and the liquid causes a short circuit between internal components that damage will occur.  If you act quickly and remove all power sources, the machine can usually be carefully dried out and restored to working order.  If you can remove other components such as the keyboard, hard drive, RAM etc. this will aid the drying process.  Once the majority of the liquid has been removed, leave the components in a warm place for a day or two before powering the machine up again.  If all else fails then speak to your IT support company about data recovery services.

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