Apparently having a corrupted installer metabase can raise havoc with installing Microsoft software. This example relates to my attempt today to install my new laptop with all the relevant development tools to do my job, particularly MSXML6, and SQL Server 2005 management tools and references. However, the install continuously failed with the following error message, “The system administrator has set policies to prevent this installation”. Apparently, event though I’m a local administrator, I don’t have permissions to install this particular software. Funny, I swore I was a local administrator. Nonetheless, I spend an hour or so disabling antivirus, firewalls, and even logging in safe mode, to no avail.

So the fix to bypass this error, download and install the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility and remove all instances of the failed install attempts of MSXML and SQL Server components.

Viola, problem solved.

I was browsing tech articles today and ran across this comparison of Red Hat, Canonical [Ubuntu], and Windows. Now, before I begin on this brief but ever so relevant diatribe, let me preface my rant with the fact that I have been a regular user of various Linux flavors (Mandrake, Red Hat, Ubuntu, SUSE, Fedora, etc.) since the late 1990’s, so though I am not a system administrator, I have a fair amount of Linux administration experience.

Over the past few years, when approached with the question of which OS one should run on their corporate network, I unwaveringly respond, “Windows XP” [of course]. The principle argument being that most small businesses cannot afford a full-time system administrator to administer a non-Windows network. It is nice to now have some numbers to support my argument. Keep in mind, I do not state one way or the other which OS is more secure, reliable, or robust. I only mention this for the simple fact that running a Windows based network, over the long run, will almost always be more affordable.

Compete solely on price, no thanks

Tonight, I arrived home hoping to jump right in to my “moonlighting” gig only to discover that an issue with my computer from this morning had persisted. For some reason, something, some application was causing a consistent amount of traffic (not large amounts of it mind you) across my local Ethernet connection. Fortunately for me, I am somewhat tech savvy and thus commenced troubleshooting to discover the source rogue application.

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