FYI door-to-door salespeople: don't post your commission rates on the product page with all the prices.
Last 5 bookmarks:Reference to Available PowerShell Cmdlets
Microsoft Courier's Swipes, Snips and Scribbles: The Leaked Interface
How to manually clean up a broken Silverlight installation
Disk2vhd
Disk2vhd is a utility that creates VHD (Virtual Hard Disk - Microsoft’s Virtual Machine disk format) versions of physical disks for use in Microsoft Virtual PC or Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines (VMs).
Everyone Should Be Skeptical About Cloud Service Providers
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Local host file not resolving correctly
22 December 2009 | windows | No Comments
We recently re-built a machine with a fresh copy of Windows that had issues resolving names listed in the local host file. All of the entries matched the ones that were on PCs that were able to resolve them. We made sure that the file had no extension listed, and it didn’t. We even copied over a file from a machine that worked thinking something may have happened to the file itself. However, nothing we did worked.
After some searching around, I came across an entry that stated that the Network Service account needs rights to the host file. I verified that the DNS service running on the machine was indeed the Network Service account (which it was), and gave the account rights to the file.
Once I made the change, the entries inside the host file started resolving properly.
Bookmarks for 12/9/09
- Save a ton of money in your electric bill with VMWare DPM (Distributed Power Management)
- Microsoft’s Hyper-V R2 vs. VMware’s vSphere: A feature comparison
- “VMware Data Center in a Box” using VMware Player
- Hyper-V Monitor Gadget for Windows Sidebar
- MessageOps Exchange Online Monitor (Beta) – “…allows you to monitor the health of the Microsoft Exchange Online environment and the availability of your organization’s mailboxes…”
- Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool 2.1
- FixWin – “FixWin is a small portable application, distributed as freeware, to repair and fix common Windows annoyances & issues.”
- Effects of excessive mailbox size and storage on Outlook performance
- Windows Server 2008 R2 Feature Components Poster
- Windows Server 2008: Planning for Active Directory Forest Recovery
- Upgrading Active Directory Domains to Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 AD DS Domains
Bookmarks for 12/1/09
- Setup previously failed while performing the action "Install". You cannot resume setup by performing the action "BuildToBuildUpgrade" – Tips for upgrading your Exchange 2007 cluster to SP2.
- Microsoft Site Recovery Solution – A few white papers and webcasts on how to utilize virtualization for your disaster recovery needs.
- Microsoft BPOS end-user experience – “This article contains screenshots and descriptions of the end-user experience when using BPOS at this point in time (November 2009).”
- Outlook Social Connector
- Vyatta Virtual Router on Hyper-V – This is great if you run a “lab” environment that doesn’t connect to your network, and you don’t want to install RRAS on your servers.
- Hey, Scripting Guy! What’s the Deal with the Dash in Cmdlet Names?
- Geeks rule! – Good post with links to some of the offerings that Microsoft has to offer such as E-Learning videos, labs and beta download.
- The Microsoft Desktop Optimisation Pack: Video Overviews
- So Then What is App-V?
- Windows SBS 2008 Hands-On-Labs available for download from MS Connect – You’ll need Hyper-V to run these labs.
- Exchange TechCenter announced
Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook
30 November 2009 | outlook | No Comments
A great way to start a Monday morning after a break is to not be able to check your email. I fired up Outlook, and got the error “Cannot start Microsoft Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook window.” (see below)
After some searching around, I came across a solution that fixed the problem.
I ran the following command in a Run box:
Outlook.exe /resetnavpane
Once I ran that command, Outlook opened with an error informing me that the data file for my mailbox wasn’t closed properly (see below). After it ran its check, Outlook opened fine.
Bookmarks for 11/18/09
- TechNet Webcast: Microsoft Virtualization Best Practices for SQL Server – The webcast was on Nov. 4th, but you can still download it.
- TechNet Webcast: Microsoft Virtualization Best Practices for Exchange Server – The webcast was on Nov. 4th, but you can still download it.
- Installing Exchange 2010 Pre-requisites For Windows 2008 SP2
- New Windows 7 Application Compatibility List for IT Professionals – It now contains over 5,500 applications for both 32- and 64-bit versions of Windows 7. Download the spreadsheet here.
- What is Windows Azure? (video) (via Microsoft Nyhetsblogg)
- BitLocker to Go Reader – now available for download – Download it here.
- Office 2010 Beta – It will be publicly available today, but it’s available on TechNet now.
- Big Improvements to Virtualization in Windows Server 2008 R2
- Exchange Server 2007 Management Tools (32-Bit) – Download it here.
- Exchange 2010 Installation Prep work
- Exchange in the cloud or on the ground?
- Windows 7 DirectAccess Explained
Bookmarks for 11/14/09
- Multihomed DCs with DNS, RRAS, and/or PPPoE adapters – Explains in depth why you shouldn’t use multihomed domain controllers.
- Google Gives You More Storage for Less, but Still No GDrive – You can now get up to a 16TB mailbox.
- Exporting and Importing Mailboxes with Exchange Server 2010 – They’ve added a way to import/export mailboxes from the GUI.
- Hyper-V WMI: Creating/Applying/Deleting Virtual Machine Snapshots – A good explanation on how snapshots work with Hyper-V.
- Exchange 2010 Mailbox Server Role Requirements Calculator
- Hyper-V Routing without a Router VM
- Office 2010 Beta website is live – But you can’t download it yet.
Bookmarks for 11/11/09
- Displaying Exchange 2007 public folders in SharePoint
- VMFS Metadata size? – A formula on how to calculate the amount of disk space the metadata will consume.
- Microsoft Azure: Security in the Cloud
- First iPhone worm rickrolls jailbroken phones – I’m surprised it took this long for someone to create one.
- Cloning Hyper-V Virtual Machines the Right Way (Part 1 & Part 2)
- The Server Virtualization host; not a pimped file and print server – He lists considerations to take into account when designing your virtual environment.
- Exchange Server 2010 RTM bits Public – Download it here.
- Disk2vhd – A utility that helps create a VHD version of your physical disk while the disk is online. You can even create a VHD on the volume that is being converted.
11/05 → Microsoft has decided to offer support for Exchange 2007 running on Server 2008 R2 after customers gave some feedback. They are going to release an update early next year.
Distribution Group Management in Exchange 2007
5 November 2009 | exchange 2007 | No Comments
Managing a distribution group in Exchange 2007 works little differently than it did in Exchange 2003. In Exchange 2003, you could select a user to manage a distribution group, and select the option so that they could update the members in the list. (see image below)
In Exchange 2007, you have the ability to select a manager to manage the members of the list as well. However, the manager has no rights to add/remove members from the list. (see image below)
In order to grant this permission to the user, you have to run the following command from the Exchange Management Shell:
Add-ADPermission -Identity:'Group Display Name’ -User:domain\username -AccessRights ReadProperty, WriteProperty -Properties 'Member'
Make sure you have the appropriate permissions before you run that command, or it will error out. According to the Technet article, you will need the following permissions to run the command successfully:
1) Exchange Recipient Administrator role.
2) Account Operator role for the applicable Active Directory containers.
11/03 → Microsoft Cuts E-Mail Price, a Bid to Ward Off Google. It seems that Microsoft it getting aggressive with their pricing to compete with Google. Of course, they say it has nothing to do with Google.
10/28 → Los Angeles adopts Google e-mail system for 30,000 city employees. I recently switched my email to Google Apps and have been pretty pleased with it so far. This along with Google Sync made it easy for me to sync my contacts, calendar and email in near real-time. However, I’m not 100% convinced that the “cloud” is ready to use especially with the downtime that Google has had recently.
Error logging in to Outlook Web Access (OWA) on Exchange 2007
28 October 2009 | exchange 2007 | No Comments
When we had completed our migration from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007, there were a couple of users that informed us that their Outlook Web Access wasn’t working anymore. The error they received was:
A problem occurred while trying to use your mailbox. Please contact technical support for your organization.
After expanding the error message, it showed the following:
Request
Request
Url: http://[owa servername]:80/owa/lang.owa
User host address: [user ip]Exception
Exception type: Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Storage.StoragePermanentException
Exception message: There was a problem accessing Active Directory.Call stack
Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Storage.ExchangePrincipal.Save()
Microsoft.Exchange.Clients.Owa.Core.RequestDispatcher.DispatchLanguagePostLocally(OwaContext owaContext, OwaIdentity logonIdentity, CultureInfo culture, String timeZoneKeyName, Boolean isOptimized)
Microsoft.Exchange.Clients.Owa.Core.RequestDispatcher.DispatchLanguagePostRequest(OwaContext owaContext)
Microsoft.Exchange.Clients.Owa.Core.RequestDispatcher.PrepareRequestWithoutSession(OwaContext owaContext, UserContextCookie userContextCookie)
Microsoft.Exchange.Clients.Owa.Core.RequestDispatcher.InternalDispatchRequest(OwaContext owaContext)
Microsoft.Exchange.Clients.Owa.Core.RequestDispatcher.DispatchRequest(OwaContext owaContext)
System.Web.HttpApplication.SyncEventExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute()
System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously)Inner Exception
Exception type: Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Directory.ADOperationException
Exception message: Active Directory operation failed on [active directory servername]. This error is not retriable. Additional information: Insufficient access rights to perform the operation. Active directory response: 00002098: SecErr: DSID-03150A45, problem 4003 (INSUFF_ACCESS_RIGHTS), data 0Call stack
Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Directory.ADSession.AnalyzeDirectoryError(PooledLdapConnection connection, DirectoryRequest request, DirectoryException de, Int32 totalRetries, Int32 retriesOnServer)
Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Directory.ADSession.ExecuteModificationRequest(ADRawEntry entry, DirectoryRequest request, ADObjectId originalId)
Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Directory.ADSession.Save(ADObject instanceToSave, IEnumerable`1 properties)
Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Storage.ExchangePrincipal.Save()Inner Exception
Exception type: System.DirectoryServices.Protocols.DirectoryOperationException
Exception message: The user has insufficient access rights.Call stack
System.DirectoryServices.Protocols.LdapConnection.ConstructResponse(Int32 messageId, LdapOperation operation, ResultAll resultType, TimeSpan requestTimeOut, Boolean exceptionOnTimeOut)
System.DirectoryServices.Protocols.LdapConnection.SendRequest(DirectoryRequest request, TimeSpan requestTimeout)
Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Directory.PooledLdapConnection.SendRequest(DirectoryRequest request, LdapOperation ldapOperation)
Microsoft.Exchange.Data.Directory.ADSession.ExecuteModificationRequest(ADRawEntry entry, DirectoryRequest request, ADObjectId originalId)
After searching around the web, I found a few posts that referenced this error. The users account needed to have the inheritable permissions option checked for their account.
To perform this,
1. Open Active Directory Users and Computers (ADUC).
2. Locate the user account and view the properties for the account.
3. Select the Security tab. NOTE: If you don’t see the security tab, you will have to enable Advance Features from the View menu.
4. Select the Advanced button.
5. Check the option box for “Allow inheritable permissions from the parent to propagate to this object…”
6. Click Apply and then OK to close out the properties for the user account.
Once this option is selected, the user was able to log in to OWA successfully.
10/27 → The Master List of New Windows 7 Shortcuts. There are a few more in the comments too.
10/22 → 7 deployment tools for Windows 7.
10/22 → Microsoft Press is offering an eBook with selected chapters from the Windows 7 Resource Kit for free. The topics discussed are “deployment platforms, planning, testing application compatibility and more.”
10/18 → Verizon’s anti-iPhone gets its first commercial: ‘Droid Does’. I guess this means that Verizon has no interest in getting the iPhone on its network despite all the rumors.
10/18 → Native boot from VHD on a Windows XP computer. I figured it would be a matter of time before someone found a way to make this possible. And now it is.
Configuring Server 2008 on HP EVA
15 October 2009 | server 2008 | No Comments
While we were installing SQL 2008 on our Server 2008 cluster, we received the following error during the validation steps:
Failed at Validate SCSI-3 Persistent Reservation
After searching around, I came across a few posts which led me to this pdf from HP – Implementing Microsoft Windows Server 2008 on HP ProLiant servers. On page 17, it states the following:
Configuring EVA host connections
Make sure the Windows LH Host mode is enabled for each node on the Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) through command view. Depending on what command view you have installed, if in the drop-down there is no “Microsoft Windows LH” then choose custom and type in the custom type field the following HEX number 00000004198009A8 (Figure 1). If the wrong connection type is configured, you cannot share the disks between the cluster nodes and the cluster check will fail with a non-SCSI-3 compliant message.
The image below, taken from that document, shows where to enter that value if you aren’t familiar with Command View.
Since we had an EVA with a slightly older firmware, we selected the custom field, entered the value in, and everything installed successfully.
10/13 → Brand new Exchange 2010 Virtual Labs. They have one on transitioning from Exchange 2007 to 2010.
Conan interviews the real Ajay Bhatt
(via Mashable)
10/11 → T-Mobile, Danger lose Sidekick customer data due to server failure. Rumor on the street is that a SAN upgrade gone awry caused the data loss. And it seems that there were no backups of the data. (via TechCrunch)
10/06 → Exchange Server 2007 won’t run on next Windows Server. This includes Server 2008 R2. I wonder how many customers are going to be thrilled with this news.