Jon Prall's blog

Rock Band - Will it ever stop?

Rock Band and Guitar Hero I, 80's, II, and III have completely sucked me in.  I like to bounce back and forth between the two games, but I have a secret love for GH III as a better game.  There are a lot of variables in being a good game.  Rock Band is really fun, and awesome with lots of people, but GH III still just put together really well.  Rock Band has one thing going for though and that's new content.  As I write it's a 129 songs of which I have 125 taken care of on expert.  Great new song called Shockware by Black Tide is currently holding my attention.  Here are some shots.  First one is Green Grass - a song that for a very long time now has kept me at the same exact percentage number of being complete.  It's really dirving me nuts.  I feel like if I figure this song out, no other song will be hard.  Second shot - uh, yeah, my living room.   No real explanation needed here, I have issues.  Last is just a little proof of me putting my time into this and taking it seriously.  ;-)  Oh yeah, my avatar - I look just like that.

85 GrnGrass

Sickness

121 of 123

Oh yeah, I remember doing stuff like this...

So I happen to be a big fan of Heroes after my wife gave me the now defunct HD-DVD Season One box set.  Season 2 is not out yet on (HD)DVD.  But, I found out that netflix was simply streaming season two and I got sucked in for 11 episodes, otherwise known as "My Sunday".  Aimee was actually being productive and taking care of things which left the kids to either be asked to do some chores with mom or hang out with me being a slug.  Well you know how kids are.  They don't do 'slug'.  So this first shot is Jennifer, my youngest, telling me that she is in a boat, fishing.  By the time I got my camera to take a shot the fishing pole had turned into a mustache.  Pretty classic.

Fishing in a boa

 

Of course having 2 laundry baskets meant Jennifer had options.  She told me she was caught in a net this time (somehow turned into the fish she was trying to catch earlier).  I told her, "Sorry Honey, you look like a hermit crab to me."  She thought that was pretty funny and ran with that idea for a few.

Hermit Crab

It was nice to remember some of the silly stuff like this I/we did as kids.  I used to play fort a lot with couch pillows, tables, chairs, blankets, and anything else I could grab.  Dad always enjoyed that mess.  ;-)

If it quacks like a router...

I've been struggling lately with what is supposed to be quite a simple task:

 

1) Build a Windows (in this case 2008) Primary Domain Controller

2) Build a Windows (in this case 2008) Routing and Remote Access Server

 

Starting from scratch with fresh installs, no problem.  I tackle the PDC with ease.  It's happy and letting people and things join the domain at will.

The PDC was supposed to be the harder of these two tasks.

NOT

4 Days - beginning to end I tried to make a working RRAS Server.  I tried 2008 with many configurations, everything from vanilla configurations, like it should be, to outlandish ones in hopes of something working.

What's the problem?  Well, simply put - When one is working with a router, one should be safe to assume said router will actually route packets between two seperate networks.  Silly me!  All these years working with normal routers and I have to stumble on a router that doesn't forward packets.

Here's the rub - I back down to Windows 2003 and set up  RRAS, with of course, the same problem.  The crazy thing is there are two screens (which I'll post sometime) for configuration of the RRAS server.  The first one asks quite simply "Router?" with a checkbox.  I click the box.  Then inside the IP Protocol there is another screen with another question of "IP Router".  Since I'm not playing with banyan vines I click the check box next to IP Router.

That's two out two check boxes that quite simply ask if it should be a router, with a unanimous vote by me for Yes! Be a Router!

It told me to pound sand, just as the 2008 server did and just as my Windows 2003 Server at home did.  What the hey?

So I finally cave.  I'm a registered microsoft partner and have been for many years.  I've never used the support that comes with the program and I figure - ok, why the hell not use it for once.  So I call them.  I happened to be at home sick and working on my 2003 server at home.  They asked who's server I was working on, said my own. They said "Sorry we can't help you because it is your server."  I scrambled and said I had two other servers at 'my customer's' site and they have the same problem.  Nice Save.  Got me through.

I worked with a pretty cool tech from MS - normally they charge 260 a call so that'll pay for some educated support staff.

We work through it for a while, we do all the normal diagnosis, and he gets to the point where he sounds like he's a little out of ideas.  He asks me if he can put me on hold for a while.  I said no problem take your time.

He comes back and says "Please open regedit"  I said "No Problem" because I simply had no more will power to fight anything at this point.

He then says to go to  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE then SYSTEM then CurrentControlSet then Services then Tcpip then Parameters.

Yeah, we're pretty 'in there'

He asks "Do you see a ipenablerouter entry?"  I do indeed see a DWORD for ipenablerouter.  I then look over to the right and in utter disbelief I see a big fat zero instead of a one.  He tells me to change it to one (I had already figured that out) and to restart the Routing and Remote Access Service.  Yup - works like magic, of course.

I could have been more grumpy but I was just so happy to have this problem behind me.  Next to see if that fixes it on 2008 as well, but I have 2003 as a viable backup. 

Just a little FYI if someone else is struggling with Windows Server 2003 Routing and Remote Access Server or RRAS and needs help, use regedit to enable ipenablerouter=1