Reader Challenge

[Editor's Note: Solve this month's problem and get the chance to win $100 or a copy of one of the author's books about NT. Email your solutions (don't use an attachment) to challenge@win2000mag.com. Include your full name, mailing address, and connection to the OS (e.g., administrator, user). Because of the number of entries, we can't reply to all respondents. Winners are chosen randomly from the correct entries. Look for the solution to this month's problem in the September issue.]

It's June, so my thoughts turn to warm evenings, blooming azalea bushes, and of course, TechEd. Be sure to visit the Windows 2000 Magazine booth and take the Windows 2000 Magazine quiz. It doesn't matter whether you win a prize—what counts is the fun. (Okay, the prizes do count, and winning certainly adds to the fun.)

If you can't make it to TechEd, you can have some fun right here. This month's Reader Challenge is a Windows 2000 Magazine tech show quiz. You must answer all questions correctly to win.

Problem

1. The Windows 2000 (Win2K) boot process doesn't involve which of the following programs?
   1. Ntdetect.com
   2. Winrep.exe
   3. Hal.dll
   4. NT Loader (NTLDR)
2. Which MS-DOS command does Win2K support?
   1. Assign
   2. Backup
   3. Append
   4. Deltree
3. Win2K installation files must be in which of the following locations to use Remote Installation Services (RIS)?
   1. Any logical or physical drive, except the drive that you installed RIS on
   2. A drive on a separate computer running Windows 2000 Server (Win2K Server)
   3. A folder on the same drive that is running RIS
   4. Any of the above locations

MARCH WINNERS
Congratulations to Robert B. Zane, a senior systems engineer from Dallas, and Truly Jagani, a Windows NT administrator from Norristown, Pennsylvania. Robert won first prize of $100 for the best solution to the March Reader Challenge, and Truly won second prize of a copy of Managing Windows NT Logons (O'Reilly & Associates, 2000).

Problem
Andrew works at the Help desk for a company with dedicated employees who frequently work in the office on weekends. Andrew needed someone to cover for him over the weekend and appointed Charlie, a new Help desk staff member. When Andrew returned to the Help desk on Monday morning, he found the following three notes Charlie had stuck on his door.

Andrew--Per your instructions, I installed Network Monitor. However, when I tried to use the Netmon program to perform the tasks you requested, I got an error message that said I needed administrative rights to use the program. I have administrative rights, so what's going on?

Andrew--I tried to install the new printer on the server, but when I clicked the Printer folder, it didn't open. I got an error message that said I didn't have enough storage to complete the operation. There's plenty of disk space, and I have administrative rights, so what's going on?

Andrew--Every user who has a roaming or mandatory profile got an error message that said the profile couldn't load. What's going on? I sent everyone home (including myself).

After reading Charlie's notes, Andrew left Charlie a message that said, "All complaints are related to the same problem, which I fixed in less than a minute." What easy-to-resolve problem caused all three difficulties?

Solution
Although various problems can cause each individual error, the combination of these errors points to one problem: a Registry that has reached its maximum size. To solve the problem, increase the maximum Registry size limit. Open the Control Panel System applet, select the Performance tab to view the Virtual Memory information, and click Change. At the bottom of the Virtual Memory dialog box, enter a larger value for the Maximum Registry Size. (I recommend increasing the Registry size by 20 percent.) Click OK, then close the System Properties dialog box. Restart the computer.