January 12th, 2010 Category: General, VMWare
I often experienced the problem that a click on the network neighborhood in Windows needs very long. This may have several reasons. I recognized that in my case it is related with the VMWare Workstation installation.
VMWare Workstation installs two virtual network adapters, one is used for host-only networking and the other for NAT networking. This virtual adapters may cause the network neighborhood to become very slow.
To come around this annoying slow network neighborhood I know two possibilities:
- If you only use bridged networking for your virtual machines
=> disable both network adapters in the control panel
- If you use host-only or NAT for your virtual machines
=>disable the “Client for Microsoft Networks” and “File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks” protocols in the properties of the two virtual network adapters
Links
Written on January 12, 2010 | Posted in
General,
VMWare
December 13th, 2009 Category: General
If you are using the Cisco CPN Client software together with a Cisco PIX 500 Series Security Appliances you will run into trouble when you upgrade your 32bit Windows installation to a 64bit version since the Cisco CPN Client is only supported for 32bit Windows versions.
Ciscos AnyConnect VPN Client will support 64bit versions but it will not work together Cisco PIX 500 Series. Furthermore the 500 Series has reached it’s end of life date.
Searching the solution for a different solution I first came across the Shrew Soft VPN Client. It’s a free software and should be able to import Ciscos .PCF configuration files. But my .PCF file could not be imported and the client did not tell the exact problem.
After some further research I found the NCP Secure Entry Client. It’s available for Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP for 32 and 64bit. I’ve tried the evaluation version and it imported my .PCF file without any issues and also the VPN connection was immediately established. The price is about 80 EUR for a single user license.
I guess the Shrew Software VPN Client will also work together with the Cisco PIX but I did not make any further tries.
One restriction of the NCP Secure Entry Client is the missing possibility of tunneling IPSec over TCP (transparent tunneling). In certain firewall environments this may be needed. UDP Encapsulation seems to be supported but in my tests I could not get a connection. For more information refer to the knowledgebase of the NCP Secure Entry Client.
According to Cisco(Cisco VPN Client FAQ) there are no plans to provide 64-bit support for the Cisco CPN Client so the only option to get a VPN connection to your PIX is one of the mentioned third party clients mentioned above.
Another possibility is to install the Cisco CPN Client in a virtual machine but for my use case this is not a suitable possibility.
The world is not yet completely ready for 64bit – always keep that in mind 
Written on December 13, 2009 | Posted in
General
December 13th, 2009 Category: General
A simple and free tool for private usage is available from simplie Software. It lets you run short and long benchmarks of your hard discs and compare the result with other hard discs from a database.
For me it is a sufficient tool as I wanted to compare the overall performance of two different hard discs.
There is also a online shop to buy the software for commercial use.
Links
Written on December 13, 2009 | Posted in
General
August 17th, 2009 Category: General
Looking for free defragmentation tool? Then try Defraggler. I’m not sure what’s the advantage compared to the defragmentation tool from Windows, maybe there is one – who knows. Defraggler allows defrag of individual files and comes with Vista support.
Links
Screenshot
Written on August 17, 2009 | Posted in
General
June 17th, 2009 Category: Fun, General
There is a pretty cool screen saver from Microsoft TechNet (formerly Sysinternals) available, which shows a blue screen and the animated boot screen of Windows. If you want to shock your colleagues then you should get it 
Links
Written on June 17, 2009 | Posted in
Fun,
General
