| Sys Admin Extraordinaire |

2018-09-05 Initial Post

SEE will not work on certain models of computers that have Intel Rapid Storage (sometimes spelled Restore) Technology set to RAID. You must change that to AHCI prior to installing the OS. After the OS is installed, you may install SEE and start encryption. If you try to encrypt while the system is still set to RAID, encryption will not begin - it just won't work and there's no obvious error message.

From my understanding, the issue is because the pre-boot OS used by SEE does not have the drivers to access the Intel RAID volumes. Even Windows PE 10 does not have the drivers so I had to download the drivers for the laptops listed below and run drvload.exe to install them on the fly after booting up to WinPE (e.g. drvload.exe iaAHCIC.inf).

• Dell XPS 13 9360
• Dell XPS 13 9365
• Dell Precision 7730

Also, in Windows 10, BitLocker may be enabled and need to be activated, then the drive must be decrypted before SEE will work properly. If the Windows 10 image was just loaded, it will take a while for the drive to finish encrypting with BitLocker - let it complete, then activate BitLocker (this basically involves saving the encryption key) and then decrypt the drive. Once the drive is completely BitLocker decrypted, you may install SEE and encrypt with it.

Some Symantec KBs for reference:

Systems unable to boot properly after Encrypting disk with Symantec Drive Encryption when BIOS set to RAID On

https://support.symantec.com/en_US/article.TECH233048.html

Best Practices: Symantec Endpoint Encryption and Symantec Drive Encryption

https://support.symantec.com/en_US/article.TECH149543.html

2013-05-19 Updated

2012-01-01 Initial Post

Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 (x86 and x64)

I started using this a few months ago and it works really well. When I was using XP, I had made up my own backup batch file using XCopy and other commands. That batch file didn't work well with Windows 7, so that's when I started using Windows 7 Backup. And I'm glad I did. Sometimes things don't work and then I find something better, like when my old printer broke and I ended up getting a Canon PIXMA MX350  wireless all-one-device which has worked out so much better. (more…)

2012-08-15 Updated

2011-06-16 Initial Post

Exchange Server 2010 SP1

I contacted MS support the other week to verify if a paging/page file is still necessary in Exchange 2010, given the fact that Exchange 2010 is 64-bit and can utilize well over 4 GB RAM/memory. This was the response:

This question is frequently asked, and my answer is yes, we do need the paging file, and the size of the paging file should be the size of the physical RAM + 10MB.

The article Exchange 2010 System Requirements at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa996719.aspx was referenced. The Hardware section states this: The page file size minimum and maximum must be set to physical RAM plus 10  MB.

So for 64 GB, it would be 65546 (65536 MB + 10 MB).

2012-06-20 Updated

2010-12-22 Initial Post

I've never had a chance to work with any version of VMware at work. My last company was so far behind in its IT strategy that even in late 2009 it had absolutely no virtualization strategy at all. I did manage to set up one Hyper-V server for them so that one department could use it for software testing. Where I work now, they do use VMware, but they don't use them on any of the messaging servers that I support. So once again, I have no chance to work with VMware. (more…)

2012-06-16 Updated

2012-01-06 Initial Post

NOTE: This was NOT tested on x64 / 64-bit systems.

I recently loaded Windows 7 Ultimate x86 SP1 on a Dell Dimension 3100/E310 and it did not properly detect the graphics card. Dell has no Windows 7 drivers for this graphics card. The system runs Windows 7 fine even though it only has 1.25 GB RAM so the only thing holding it back was the lack of a graphics driver which resulted in crappy screen resolution. (more…)