Webos doctor doesn't recognize my PRE

Today I took out of retirement my HP/Palm Pre 2 phone.

I always liked this OS!

Bad surprise, the phone doesn't boot anymore, I get the blue HP/Palm logo pulsing and nothing ever happens. It doesn't even shut down.

I read it's a common problem and reinstalling webos with WebOs Doctor should solve the problem.
after working out java security options to finally run the WebOs Doctor, this one would fail to discover my phone.

I try the boot in recovery mode:
- take out the battery
- plug the USB cable
- wait 10 seconds
- push the volume up rocker while inserting the battery

same failure


You will find detailed instructions there http://www.webos-internals.org/wiki/How_To_Recover

In case of failure, it tells you try at least 10 times, before moving out to the un-recommended "Last_Resort_Emergency_BootLoader_Recovery"

and here's the procedure that worked to put my HP Pre 2 in the so wanted recovery mode.

- disconnect USB cable
- make sure the phone is off, (take out the battery if needed, then put it back)
- press the volume up rocker
- insert the USB cable

My PRE instantly showed the big USB logo, windows detected and installed the "bootie", WebOS Doctor finally saw the device and allowed me to restore it!


Hope this help!

Check or Turn Off Windows UAC (User Account Control)

Windows User Account Control or UAC is another Windows feature that may cause any non-Microsoft application to malfunction.

Deciding whether the security benefit is worth the trouble is your choice.

Here's my preferred way of verifying it:

1- Open Regedit on the machine
2- check the registry key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\EnableLUA 
(REG_DWORD) if the key is missing or its value is 0, then it's disabled, any other value (like 1) then it's enabled


The way to do it from the UI is as follow:

From your "Start Menu"
Launch the "Control Panel"
Select "User Accounts"
Then "Change User Account Control Settings"

reboot your computer after any change!

How to really disable DEP (Data Execution Prevention) / BCDEdit

Windows DEP or Data Execution Prevention is often blocking you or your application from working properly.

If you explore Windows configuration and Help, you will find

My computer
  -> Right click
     -> Properties
         -> Advanced System Settings
            -> Performance Settings
               -> Data Execution Prevention

You can set a few options on or off, but this is rarely enough.

In order to REALLY disable DEP, you need to tell Windows at boot time.

For Windows 2003 or Windows XP
You need to go to

My computer
  -> Right click
     -> Properties
         -> Advanced System Settings
            -> Startup and Recovery Settings 

and edit your boot.ini from there
and add the parameter /NoExecute=AlwaysOff


For Windows Vista or Windows 7
There is a command line tool to do so, make sure to launch your command prompt "As Administrator" and run the command

BCDEdit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOff

You can also see all your boot options with

BCDEdit /enum

you will something similar to
Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier              {bootmgr}
device                  partition=C:
description             Windows Boot Manager
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {globalsettings}
default                 {current}
resumeobject            {5a9684f2-9ec0-11e1-a7c3-00137290c993}
displayorder            {current}
toolsdisplayorder       {memdiag}
timeout                 5

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {current}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description             Windows 7
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence        {5a9684f6-9ec0-11e1-a7c3-00137290c993}
recoveryenabled         Yes
osdevice                partition=C:
systemroot              \Windows
resumeobject            {5a9684f2-9ec0-11e1-a7c3-00137290c993}
nx                      AlwaysOff


Don't forget, this is a boot option, so you do need to reboot for Windows to take it into account.

Failed updating configuration file

Sometimes you install applications or services that creates their own service account to run under. Unfortunately since the installer or configuration itself creates the service account, this also means that you ran the installer under a different account and thus the service account is not the owner of its own folder structure where the binaries resides.

In a secure environment, think with Windows UAC (User Access Control) turned on the application or service might fail to update its own configuration files and send you errors

"Failed updating the server config file."
"Service user does not exist."
"Permission denied"

In this case it would often help to set the owner of the installation directory to be the service account under which the application run.
If you know the exact file that the service needs to update you can change only this file, if not you can change for the entire directory.

To do so: 

Right click on the folder -> Properties -> Security -> Advanced Security Settings -> Owner -> Edit -> select your service account user and check  also ‘Replace owner on subcontainers’, OK OK OK OK 

How to set Proxy settings for SYSTEM account? / BITSAdmin tool

Earlier (dec 2010) I was posting about how to set the proxy settings for a SYSTEM account using manual registry modifications.

There is actually a much easier way to do this using the BITSAdmin tool from Windows.

This tool allows you to change the proxy settings for

• LOCALSYSTEM
• NETWORKSERVICE
• LOCALSERVICE

Quick examples:

Static proxy for LOCALSYSTEM:
bitsadmin /util /setieproxy localsystem MANUAL_PROXY http://myproxy.mydomain.com:8080

Static proxy for NETWORKSERVICE that bypasses local addresses:
bitsadmin /util /setieproxy networkservice MANUAL_PROXY http://my.proxy.com "<local>"

Set a proxy.pac for LOCALSERVICE:
bitsadmin /util /setieproxy localservice AUTOSCRIPT http://myproxy.mydomain.com/proxy.pac.js

Remove all proxy settings for LOCALSYSTEM:
bitsadmin /util /setieproxy localsystem RESET

full details are on MSDN Library

Unstable Wifi Connection issues

It's not the first time and not the last time, but way too often Wifi connections are unstable. Of course plugging a good old RJ45 works like a bliss.

This time I'm using a Belkin F7D1301 v1 Router and all the computers in the household experience a dropped connection every 2 to 4 hours. It can take up to 30 min to be able to reconnect, and it seems bringing the laptop closer to the router helps reconnecting faster!

Interferences?

I upgraded the router's firmware, and great result: no more disconnection, I even download way faster (but there is no evidence this is related).

After a week of enjoying stable connections, the dropped connections are back, every 5 to 10 minutes this time!

Few hours later, a power outage might have brought me the answer. Indeed the power outage might indicate that before that, the power line was not working properly. Variations in the power the router's gets could create variations in the wifi signal and so the dropped connections. After the outage was over, the wifi connections were stable again.

It is probably a good idea to put your router behind a UPS device (or uninterruptible power supply), this will provide safe and stable current and will give you a stable wifi signal.

After exporting a VM, the bridged network doesn't work

I encountered this problem today.

I exported a VM version 7 from ESX server 4.x to a VmWare Server 2.0.2

The VM's network card is setup as Bridged network, so I should get an IP address from my LAN's DHCP. However, the only IP addresses I can get are 192.168.1.x.

The bridged network obviously doesn't work.

I read that for the bridged network to work, you need VmWare Tools.

VmWare tools is indeed installed and running properly according to the VM and also according to VM Server itself.

I try launching a VmWare tools repair from Vm Server, this one tells me the version installed is more recent than the one we're trying to use.
This is because Vm Server is not updated for few years already, and obviously it does not use the same VmWare tools as an ESX server.

Solution:
- uninstall the existing VmWare tools
- reboot
- install the VmWare tools from the Vm Server
- reboot