Update Group Policy Preferences IE settings to work with IE9

http://www.grouppolicy.biz/2011/03/how-to-enable-group-policy-preferences-support-for-ie9/

How to enable Group Policy Preferences support for IE9

31/03/2011, 8:49 am | by Alan Burchill 25,860 views

I have previously talked about the new Group Policy for IE9 ,however I mention that one of the issues was that there is currently no “official” support of Group Policy Preferences… Unfortunately there is still no “official” support but it is now possible if you do some really easy XML editing…
Mark Heitbrink (fellow Group Policy MVP) has published an article which explains why it does not work and explains briefly how to modify the XML file for Group Policy Preferences so it will apply setting to IE9.
Therefore taking Mark excellent information I have gone thought the process step by step below showing what I think is the easiest way to find and edit the XML file to enable GPP for IE9.


Step by Step enabling GPP for IE9 Step 1. Setup a IE8 Internet Explorer Extension setting that has the setting you want to apply to IE9. (e.g. Home Page)


Step 2. In the same Group Policy Object navigate to User Configuration > Policies > Windows Settings > Scripts (Logon/Logoff) and double click on the Logon (or logoff) option. Then click on the “Show Files” button.

Step 3. Click on “Users” in the Address bar.

Step 4. Then click on the “Preferences” and then “InternetSettings” folder and then right click on the “InternetSettings” file and click on “Edit”.

Now we are looking at the XML that is used to apply the Group Policy Preferences settings. This is where we need to change the version number to support IE9.


Tip: Enable “Word Wrap” in notepad to see the text on multiple lines.
Step 5. Change “max=9.0.0.0” to “9.1.0.0” (see below)
Before:

After:

Step 6. Save the file and you are done.
Now you can have the goodness of Group Policy Preferences with IE9, however as the article also said this is NOT supported so please test carefully.
What is also nice about this change is that it will be persistence, so if you make subsequent changes to the same setting you do not need to edit the XML again however you will need to make this change each time you make a new GPP IE Policy setting.
Source: Internet Explorer 9(IE9) Group Policy Preferences (GPP) (Via GPOGuy )

Install 855GM Series Video Driver on Windows 7 (Dell Latitude D610 Series)

Installing video drivers for Windows 7 on Dell Latitude D610 Series

This information is pulled from the website - http://www.groundstate.net/855GMWin7.html

When installing 855GM Series video driver Windows 7 reverts back to Standard VGA adapter after restart. The problem is that 855GM Series video driver is not native for Windows 7 and it will always choose Standard VGA Adapter as native video driver.


STEP 1

Make sure you unistall video drivers that do not work. If you see exclamation marks on your previous drivers in Device Manager, unistall them. Your Device Manager should say that you have Standard VGA Driver installed under Display category and exclamation mark on "video controller". Make sure you restart PC when asked.

STEP 2

We will need to edit "c:\windows\system32\drivers\vgapnp.sys" file now, but there is a problem. Windows Vista and Windows 7 will NOT allow you to edit system files even when you are the admin. Changing security attributes of that file did not work either. The file is owned by "TrustedInstaller" service. We will need to own the file and give ourselves the full control to edit it.
Click 'Start' and in 'Search' type 'cmd'. The result will show on top. Right-click on 'cmd' and choose "Run as Administrator". If your account does not have admin rights you might be prompted to enter username and password. I used account that already has administrator priviledges. You should have a command prompt with administrator priviledges.

STEP 3

Lets say my logged in username is ntsAdmin

First command you do is:

takeown /f c:\windows\system32\drivers\vgapnp.sys

This will give ownship to the current user. You should see a message saying SUCCESS etc..

Second command you do is:

cacls c:\windows\system32\drivers\vgapnp.sys /G ntsAdmin:F

There will be a confirmation message so type 'y'. This will change the security attributes to give you ONLY all the permissions for the file. If you are paranoid as me and want original permissions restored, I will show you how to restore the permissions to the previous step later on in this tutorial :). If 'cacls' command does not work you can try using 'icacls'. If you cannot edit this file try to boot to "Save Mode" and try it again (Thx to Giuseppe Chill).

STEP 4

Open c:\windows\system32\drivers\vgapnp.sys in any text editor. Just add any character to the begining of the text. Let's say we will add character x . So the text should start with xMZ and the rest of stuff. Save the file. This edit will render that file unusable.

STEP 5

In Device Manager uninstall Standard VGA Adapter. It will prompt you to restart so do it. After install you will see a message saying that certain devices did NOT installed successfuly, which is GOOD :). Go to Device Manager and you should see the exclamation point next to "video controller" and "video controller (vga compatible)". Right-click on "video controller (vga compatible)" and do update driver. Choose "Browse for the Driver" (or something like it :) ). Point to the driver directory that you downloaded and extracted (win2000). Click "OK". Wait for the driver to be installed. It might hang for a little (It will say that window is "not responding"). Do not worry as this is still installing the driver. It will prompt you to restart so do it. (If it does not prompt click anywhere and wait for message). After restart it will finish installing the driver.

Congratulations!!! You should have a working video driver!!! :)

STEP 6

Open c:\windows\system32\drivers\vgapnp.sys in any text editor. Remove the first character you put there which was x. Save the file. Your file will be usuable again :). You can stop here if you want, but if you want to restore the permissions for the file to original state go to next step.

STEP 7

Right-click on any other file in the c:\windows\system32\drivers. Choose "Properties". Go to "Security" tab. Now compare that security tab with the security tab of c:\windows\system32\drivers\vgapnp.sys. Just make sure the security tabs of those two files look the same (all tabs and advanced options). In order to add "TrustedInstaller" it is not the same as regular usernames because it is a service.
You will need to type "NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller" (without quotes) when adding it to own the file and to have all permissions. Once you done editing you can delete your account from c:\windows\system32\drivers\vgapnp.sys, because it was not there from the beginning. We took control over and the previous commands added it by default.    

Setting a program to run in compatibility mode via the registry (can be applied via gpo)

Create the entry in:
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers

Type:  REG_SZ
Name:  Full path of application including extension
Data:  See table below


For each application there are three settings that can be applied. The compatibility mode, (Display) Settings and the Privilege Level. One or multiple values can be set (separated by a space).


Compatibility Modes

Value	Description
WIN95	Windows 95
WIN98	Windows 98
WIN4SP5	Windows NT 4.0 SP5
WIN2000	Windows 2000
WINXPSP2	Windows XP SP2
WINXPSP3	Windows XP SP3
VISTARTM	Vista
VISTASP1	Vista SP1
VISTASP2	Vista SP2
WIN7RTM	Windows 7
WINSRV03SP1	Windows Server 2003 SP1
WINSRV08SP1	Windows Server 2008 SP1

Display Settings

Value	Description
DISABLETHEMES	Disable Visual Themes
640X480	Run in 640 x 480 screen resolution
HIGHDPIAWARE	Disable display scaling on high DPI settings
256COLOR	Run in 256 colors
DISABLEDWM	Disable Desktop Composition

Privilege Level

Value	Description
RUNASADMIN	Run program as an administrator

Redeploy software to individual machines

In the past, after a piece of software had been deployed to a computer, it was not possible to a pain to re-deploy that software to an individual computer.  With Specops, it is now possible easier.  Instructions for Specops is under section A, instructions for legacy group policy software deployment is in section B.

A:
Before forcing the re-installation of the software, it is recommended that you remove the software from the computer, either through add/remove (if possible) or the Windows Software Cleanup Utility.

After the software is removed, run regedit and go out to:  (see figure 1 below)
HKLM\Software\SpecopsSoft\Specops Deploy\Client Side Extension

Find any references to your software under both Managed Deployments and Orphaned Deployments and delete those references (see figure 2 below)

After the references are deleted, do a gpupdate /force (if the software is one that is set to be able to install while logged on) or restart the computer.  The software should re-install at this point.

Figure 1

Figure 2
(note that you have to look in each folder to find the reference to which piece of software is being pushed out)

B:

This information is copied from http://www.techbunny.com/2010/03/reapplying-software-assignment-gpo-to.html  on 2/7/2012

There is a place in the registry where a machine tracks all the software policies that have been applied – HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Group Policy\AppMgmt.
You need to delete information from two different locations. First, the values for the software package under the AppMgmt key. The values are all in a GUID format, but you can find out the GUID of your application by looking for the Product code in the GPO intself. Find that in "Computer Configuration - Policies - Software Settings - Assigned Applications - (product name) - Deployment Information."

After you delete the proper entry under AppMgmt, find the corresponding application within the AppMgmt tree. This one is easier to find because the application name is listed as one of the values. (The product ID value will also match the GUID you deleted in the first step.) Delete the whole key.


Once the keys are removed, run gupdate \force and then reboot. The software application GPO will apply again.

Adding a website to a RSS feed

I've found it really helpful to use RSS feeds on the favorites bars in IE and Firefox.  RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, are web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works, such as blog entries or news headlines, in a standard format that is updated in real time.

The steps to add a site in each browser is a little different.

First browse to the page that you want to do a RSS feed to, in whichever browser you want to use.  If the page has a RSS feed, you'll see the icon.  Follow the instructions for the appropriate browser at this point.

IE 8 toolbar (the RSS feed is highlighted in the image) -- If there is no feed for that page, it'll be grayed out

IE:  Click on the RSS feed on the toolbar (highlighted in the image above).  This will open a new page.  Click on the link "Subscribe to this feed" that is located towards the top of the page.  Check the box "Add to Favorites Bar" in the window that pops up and click on Subscribe.  This places the live feed in the Favorites bar of IE.

Firefox 3.5 address bar (the RSS feed is located at the end of the address bar) -- If there is no feed for that page, the icon will not show up

Firefox:  Click on the RSS feed in the address bar.  This will bring up a subscription window.  Select "Bookmarks Toolbar" from the drop down box and click on Subscribe.  This places the live feed in the Bookmarks toolbar of Firefox.

IT Application (Teacher desktop, SPEEDe 2, etc...) won't load

This is concerning current generation IT applications such as Teacher Desktop or SPEEDe 2 (one wrote in .Net) that won't load.

Try deleting the folder 2.0 which is located under C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Apps\

After you delete the folder, start the program back up and it should work correctly now.

Computer not pulling down software policies

If you ever have a situation where you are not getting software to pull down, there are a couple things you can try.

First, check and make sure that the SpecOps CSE is installed and is the correct version.  As of today, March 3rd 2010, the version is 4.2.1217.1

Second, check the log which is located at 'c:\Windows\debug\usermode\SpecopsDeployDeployments.log'

There is also an issue with the software where, if the target criteria within the software package settings has an issue (pointing towards an invalid OU is where I have seen the issue), that can also prevent software from pulling down.

That's all for my first entry of Tech Tips