STOP c00002a (fatal system error)

This is most likely caused by a bad GINA-dll messing up the winlogon.exe.
To fix this; simply boot to safe-mode, open regedit and drill down to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CurrentVersion\Winlogon and note the value of "GinaDLL".
In my case the GINA were pssogina.dll, the PointSec Single Sign On component. The STOP-message appeared after updating Thinkpad Access Connections to 4.41 and selecting to install the Access Connections-GINA.
I booted to safe-mode, ran regedit.exe and altered GinaDLL to "msgina.dll". The following boot loaded XP successfully, now with the default GINA.

Funny ads

Windows of Choice: A parody of Christopher Walken in Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice":

IBM also have their share of funny ads, have a look at these: http://youtube.com/watch?v=rmxPfZtV6w0 http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/iseries/resources/iamtheman.html

DHCP Snap-in failed to initialize

After removing an unused reservation i started getting a "Snap-in failed to initialize" error in dhcpmgmt.msc. Googling around led me to KB902954 (You may receive a "Snap-in Failed to Initialize" error message when you try to view DHCP scope reservations on a Windows Server 2003-based DHCP server http://support.microsoft.com/kb/902954).
The KB states that this error may occur if you have a DHCP-scope with exactly 87 reservations. That was my case exactly, 87 reservations sharp. You now have two options: call MS PSS to get a hold of the hotfix, or use black magic to remove or add a reservation to evade the 87-reservations-blues.

I ended up using black magic (enter netsh), adding a "bogus" reservation with the command

C:\>netsh
netsh>dhcp server 192.168.4.8
netsh dhcp server>scope 192.168.4.0
Changed the current scope context to 192.168.4.0 scope.
netsh dhcp server scope>add reservedip 192.168.5.223 0001e697fa31
Command completed successfully.

Now the number of reservations in this scope exceeds 87 and dhcpmgmt.msc works like a charm! Anyone care to elaborate of why 87 reservations makes the DHCP Management Console go haywire?

This issue seems to be resolved in Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 beta (2786).

Allez Oup!

Yup