Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Apple Care – Part 4 – back for more repairs (ALS broken)

by Michael Sheehan on October 17, 2006

in Apple, General, Hardware

Well, I must say that I have been getting to know Apple Care a bit more that I really would have wanted to. Where I last left off, Apple had totally “styled me out” by fixing my case with new parts…however, it looks like they forgot to connect the Ambient Light Sensor (ALS) when they put it all together.

For those who don’t know about the ALS, it basically allows certain Powerbooks to have a back light keyboard light up under dark environments (e.g., typing in bed when you are supposed to be sleeping – grin – ). Normally, there is a setting on the Keyboard System Preferences that allows you to tell the machine to control the keyboard lighting. Mine was missing. So, I did some pretty diligent troubleshooting before calling up Apple Care again. Once again, searching through support threads on the web, I did the following:

  • - Created a new admin user. Checked the Keyboard preferences –> No setting
  • - Deleted the com.apple.bezelservices.plist from myusername/Library/Preferences (for admin and normal user) as well as from computer/Library/Preferences and rebooted. Checked Keyboard preferences –> No setting
  • - Installed an app called Lab Tick which is supposed to allow you to manual control the ALS through a top panel dropdown menu. By running that app, I got the message “Failed to find backlit keyboard. Your Macintosh does not seem to have a backlit keyboard”

After all of that, I was pretty much convinced that they neglected to hook up the ALS when they put the case back together. With this knowledge, I figured that I would call Apple again and get it all fixed for one last time. After being on hold and speaking to various reps (one who ran through a barrage of scripts that I knew wouldn’t help including resetting Power Settings at boot and zapping PRam), I was transferred to a specialist who was very nice and basically said that they would ship me out a new repair box. So, the process begins again…

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Windows Update Error 80245003 – Windows Update won’t run on Vista RC2

by Michael Sheehan on October 17, 2006

in Fix It, General, Microsoft, Software

Updated on 06.25.07: I have added some more detailed steps based on feedback I received. See end of post for further details.

I’m playing around with Windows Vista on a test box that I have. So far, it’s looking like a fairly nice upgrade to XP. It doesn’t feel like a complete overhaul (which, from my understanding, it somewhat is since many items have been reworked from the ground up). I’ve gone through the various cycles and now have found myself at RC2 (running the Windows Ultimate version).

I have installed this using VMware as well, testing integration with an Active Directory domain. For the most part, joining the domain and hooking in Office 2007 beta worked fine (including and extremely easy integration of Outlook into my corp account). However, a few months ago, after attaching to an Active Directory domain that had a server that managed Critical Updates from a centralized point, I lost the ability to do Windows Updates. It turns out that the server that managed Critical Updates needed to be patched to allow Vista to connect. After reading the documentation, I found that the upgrade process was a bit sketchy, so I took a different route and just detatched from the Active Directory domain. Then I was able to run updates without any problems.

But I’m getting a bit sidetracked. My latest install on my test box was with RC2. After installing, I found that I could not connect to Windows Updates. I was getting an Update Error of 80245003. After digging around, I found a very helpful thread that resolve my issue immediately. It looks like I had some corruption in the update directory (or something similar). The stepts to resolve were very easy:

  1. Disable the Windows Update Service (Settings > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services). Just stop the service.
  2. Navigate to: C:/Windows/ (or whereever you Windows system is)
  3. Find the folder named: “SoftwareDistribution”
  4. Rename that folder to something like “SoftwareDistribution.old”
  5. Create a new folder called “SoftwareDistribution”
  6. Go back to your Services panel and start the Windows Update service
  7. Rerun Windows Update

[click to continue…]

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