MPECS Inc. Blog

RDP: Set up a Monitor Span for Non-Windows 7 Enterprise/Ultimate End Points

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder SBS MVP) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 19:56:00 +0000

In order to get true multi-monitor client connections going both ends need to be Windows 7 Enterprise and/or Ultimate. Or, when connecting to Remote Desktop Services the client needs to be one of those client OSs.

To get around that for all other client OSs we can do the following:

Set up an SSL VPN connection (or PPTP).

Disable the Use Remote Gateway setting for IPv4 and IPv6.

Start –> type: MSTSC [Enter]

Machine.Domain.Local
Full Screen
Redirect needed resources.
Do not change Gateway settings from default.

Save As onto the desktop.
Right click RDP file and Open With…

C:\Windows\notepad.exe

Add the following line to the RDP file:

span monitors:i:1

Save the RDP file.
Open the VPN connection.
Double click on the RDP Desktop file.
Log on to the desktop machine.

Users will need to get used to all dialogue boxes saddling the two monitors since that is where the “middle” of the spanned setup is.

The local monitor pair must be side-by-side and the same resolution.

We tested running the RDP file with a Remote Desktop Gateway setting and it seemed to only connect one monitor.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Symantec EndPoint Protection CleanWipe Tool: Stuck at Gathering Required Information

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder SBS MVP) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 18:15:00 +0000

We were working with a particularly problematic Symantec EndPoint Protection endpoint that always caused the user’s account to lock out when they came back into the office with their laptop.

The lockout would happen only after they had plugged into another network to gain access to the Internet. With the v11.x client we removed the Administrator Scan in the SEP Console on the management server and the problem went away.

But, once we replaced the backend and the client on this machine the lockout behaviour came back. Removing the Administrator Scan from the management console did not remove the lockout behaviour in this version as it had for v11.x.

So, we opened a case with Symantec and obtained a copy of the CleanWipe utility.

Once we ran the utility we said Yes to all of the options and then waited, and waited, and waited. The last warning indicated 30 minutes or more to run the registry clean-up be we were not getting anywhere after 2 hours.

In the end we needed to use Task Manager to kill ccSvcHst.exe process and then rename it in Windows Explorer as in the snip above. The CleanWipe process continued on from there by requesting a restart.

The whole process took 3 reboots to complete.

Once done we were able to install the SEP v12.x client.

Now, hopefully whatever was causing the lockout problem will be gone.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Fujitsu ScanSnap N1800: User Log On Error Via Active Directory

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder SBS MVP) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 23:07:00 +0000

We are in the process of setting up a new ScanSnap N1800 network scanner.

There were a few things that we needed to take note of when we were setting up the unit to scan on an SBS network.

Active Directory

Out of the box the unit starts with a series of questions including a username and password to log onto Active Directory. But, the questions do not ask for an LDAP server setting.

We ended up with a logon failure with nowhere to go but restart the machine on the unit’s control panel.

However, once we had the ScanSnap IP address set with a DHCP Reservation and the unit had the IP we were able to get to the admin page.

Once logged in we then had to download and install the Network Scanner Admin Tool.

Once installed we were able to configure the correct settings.

Note the above Search Base setting. We tried to limit things to the SBSUsers OU but all connection tests failed if we did so. So, we needed to stick to the DC=DOMAIN,DC=LOCAL setting.

When we clicked the Connect button we received:

We set up a username and password in AD and:

We then had success with the LDAP connection.

SharePoint Companyweb

Once we had our successful LDAP connection we then went to set up the scanner for a Companyweb Scans Library destination.

Now, since we used the Standard User – Restricted (blog post on setting up SBS 2011 ~ Step 26) User Role to create the ScanSnap AD user account we needed to add the user account to the base Companyweb site with Contribute permissions.

Before doing so we would receive an Access Denied message when trying to connect to the Companyweb site in the ScanSnap Network Scanner Admin Tool.

Note the URL is for the base site at: http://companyweb.

We added the requisite folders for all of SharePoint sites and libraries as required.

Network Print

From there we went on to try and connect to all of the required network printers with no success. Now, this is Windows XP Embedded so we all know how much fun it is to get a 32-bit client to connect to Windows Server 2008 R2.

We called into support after we could not get anywhere with it and they suggested updating the unit to the most current version.

Fujitsu ScanSnap Support Site

We chose the N1800 from the drop down list and:

We downloaded the software update, extracted it by running the EXE, and uploaded it using the Admin Tool:

Time update started: 1300Hrs

Update progress at 1313Hrs:

The device rebooted at 1327Hrs
We were able to log back into the device at 1338Hrs

Once the update was complete we were able to log back into the scanner’s Admin Tool. The update did not resolve our problem with being able to print however. This is more than likely to do with our inability to get the 32-bit NTPrint.INF to install correctly when setting up 32-bit drivers in SBS 2011’s Print Management.

For now, scan to print is not a critical feature, so we will leave it until we can work on the NTPrint.INF install on SBS 2011.

Conclusion

What we do have now is the ability to create live text PDFs that can be fully indexed by the SharePoint site that the scanner will be sending the output files to.

And so far, the scanner has done its job precisely as expected.

For anyone looking to archive all pieces of paper used throughout their business this scanner is an excellent product to have around. No third party products are required beyond the scanner itself for OCR to PDF capabilities.

The scanner does full duplex scans in a single pass so there is no need to muck about with the paper jams that can be common on scanners that pull the piece of paper back into the ADF for that second side.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

How to Swap the mSATA SSD or RAM on a Toshiba Portege

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder SBS MVP) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:50:00 +0000

There are a couple of gotchas when it comes to removing the bottom panel on the Toshiba Portege Ultrabook.

Under the centre bumper is found a T8 Tamper-Proof Torx screw.
The microphone and earphone jacks pin the cover in place on that side.

Once all of the screws have been removed including the tamper-proof centre screw one needs to make sure that the SD slot is empty.

Then, based on the image above gently grasp the two _opposite_ corners to the mic/ear jacks (right top and bottom) and pull up much like the cover of a book pivoting on the mic/ear side.

Once the cover is a couple of centimetres up (~1.5”) we can then slip the cover out and off over the mic/ear jacks.

When it comes to re-installing the back cover run through the opposite steps however one needs to be mindful of the VGA port as it has a slot on either side that the cover needs to nestle into.

Set the cover in place over the mic/ear jacks first and then guide it into place around the VGA port. It should essentially settle into its rightful spot with a little assistance from there.

NOTE: At no time is there any need to use force when working the back cover off or on. When removed or installed correctly the panel will essentially sit in place with no more effort than to guide it off or on.

Also, be mindful that making any changes to the default unit can and may void the Toshiba warranty.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Online Banking “Security”

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder SBS MVP) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:25:00 +0000

We are a bit puzzled at why our online banking services are not as secure, at least in our opinion, as we think they should be.

We just finished configuring a new online account at Scotiabank that is based here in Canada.

This is their suggested online password recommendation:

And, one we have finished our sign-up process we see:

But, Scotiabank, if security is important then why are we not allowed to use a pass phrase _with_ special characters?

Not only that, why are the number fields already populated in the online sign-in page?

The “Online Security Guarantee” is kind of cute. :)

“We will fully reimburse you . . . provided that you have met your security responsibilities.”

Okay, so we click the Safe Computing Practices link to find out what our responsibilities are and:

We pretty much follow all of the above with the exception of number 2. We have encountered enough problems with Trusteer’s Rapport Security Software (one example we have blogged) that we will not be trusting any of our systems to their software.

Now, one plus on Scotiabank’s side is that their online portal’s password request actually _is_ case sensitive. We work with other banks that do not pay attention to case in the password field.

Conclusion

Now, obviously the above critique is based on _our_ experience working in I.T. and all of the good, bad, and ugly that we encounter in the way of security situations.

The reality is that the banks have a business decision to make when it comes to reaching the average user.

Thus, in the end we have a good understanding of the _why_ the banks are closer to the lowest common denominator when it comes to online “security”.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Product Review: Update – 120GB OCZ Nocti Died :(

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder SBS MVP) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 20:06:00 +0000

Go figure, our first OCZ mSATA product, the 120GB Nocti that went into our new Toshiba Portege Z830 Ultrabook died sometime during the night.

We had set up Windows 7 Enterprise, all of our apps, and domain configurations a few days prior.

The Ultrabook was staying at a client site since we were going to be back early the following morning.

The last thing to be done on that Ultrabook prior to leaving was to initiate a BitLocker encryption of the entire drive.

Sometime during that process the drive outright died.

The RMA process on OCZ’s Web Site requires us to create a ticket before making any efforts to get in touch.

NOTE: If advanced swap is going to be a part of the RMA process make sure to put that in the ticket’s notes _first_ or things just do not go too well.

Intel, Kingston, and Crucial have one up on OCZ: Real people on this continent (almost for Intel) that answer the phone.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Moving from Unmanaged or Nonexistent SEP Management Server to a New Management Server

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder SBS MVP) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:10:00 +0000

We have a whole bunch of clients to change over to a new management server for Symantec EndPoint Protection version 12. The previous server was offline so no work could be done to allow changes.

Between the above articles we were able to piece together what we needed to do:

Export a new Sylink.XML file from the new SEP Management server.
Rename the exported XML file to Sylink.XML
Stop SEP on the client we need to change.
Copy the new Sylink.XML file over the existing file(s)
Start SEP on the client.
Open the client console.
Click Help then Troubleshooting.
The Management tab should reflect the new server’s IP as should the Connection Status tab.

Note that on Windows XP the Sylink.XML file is buried

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\…

We just saved ourselves a huge amount of time.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Coffee Reading: Storm Clouds on the Horizon

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder SBS MVP) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:36:00 +0000

The “Cloud” is the really big push happening right now where vendors are essentially looking to wrest control of the traditional client from frontline IT support companies and/or in-house IT departments.

Okay, so the above statement is a little pessimistic but talking to so many IT providers the above is definitely a predominant theme.

The following CloudBeat article is an excellent synopsis of a few of the downsides to dropping IT services into the Cloud and something that _all_ business owners need to be aware of:

CloudBeat: The downside of cloud computing: 4 reasons to think twice

The 4 reasons are items that we may have had nagging at the back of our minds but were unable to express quite as clear as this article does.

Business owner is no longer in control.
Business owner and their business is not the most important part of anything.
The business owner and their business can have any colour they want as long as it’s black.
The business still needs in-house hardware and an in-house IT staff.

The shocking realization when it comes to point 4 when it comes to Office 365 is that there are _huge_ requirements for in-house infrastructure for larger organizations that want to maintain user account synchronization between the organization and Microsoft’s service.

For us small guys keeping track of things manually may not be too painful, but once an organization gets beyond the 75-100 user mark some serious decisions need to be made.

As with any service that one is looking at it is important to know the Terms & Conditions for that server and if there are any Prerequisites so one does not get surprised by anything when it comes to project implementation time.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Toshiba Portege Z830-00P: Some mSATA SSD Testing to Come

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder SBS MVP) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 21:18:00 +0000

We are just in the process of reloading Windows 7 Enterprise x64 on a newly received Toshiba Portege Z830-00P Ultrabook onto the 128GB Toshiba SSD that comes with.

When we did so we formatted a partition at a little over 70GB so that once all drivers are loaded and the Ultrabook is ready for bear we will image that partition using ShadowProtect.

We will then restore that partition to the 120GB OCZ Nocti mSATA SSD that showed up at our shop and eventually to an Intel 80GB 310 series mSATA SSD that should arrive here via Intel Demo sometime in the next couple of weeks.

We purchased the OCZ Nocti outright because we are pretty sure that the OCZ will far out-perform the Toshiba SSD that comes with the Portege.

Once we have the performance numbers we will publish them here. For now we will use the default WinSAT utility built into Windows to get an idea of the numbers just as we have done for previous systems that we tested.

The packaging for the OCZ:

The Canadian and US quarters are about the same size. As we can see, these drives are _small_ in size.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Product Review: Update on the Zalman ZM-VE300 USB 3 Drive Enclosure–This one is a sure win!

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder SBS MVP) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:47:00 +0000

We did our initial review of the Zalman ZM-VE300 USB 3 enclosure here:

MPECS Inc. Blog: Product Review: Zalman ZM-VE300 USB 3 2.5” Drive Enclosure with ISO Mount Capability A+

Now that we have had a chance to work with the unit we are really impressed with its ability to facilitate booting from “optical disk” via internally mounted ISO or to boot from the drive itself.

When the enclosure is in Dual Mode meaning both the mounted ISO and the hard drive storage are presented to the BIOS we are able to boot from either via Boot Menu.

What this means is that we can boot the Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 DVD so to speak and have the necessary RAID drivers on the USB hard drive.

Given that we have installed an 80GB Intel X25-M SSD in this enclosure we have enough room for all of the OS ISOs we require plus all of the current server, workstation, and desktop hardware drivers needed.

In the near future we will be slipstreaming the Renesas Electronics USB 3.0 controller driver into our desktop OS WIM files so that we can use the USB 3 interfaces on the desktops we build to speed things up even further.

This product is a clear win for us.

Even if we were building a lot of desktops or workstations, servers are our mainstay, having a number of these units around will make getting that OEM, Retail, or Volume License version of a Windows 7 OS, or even Windows XP Professional, installed in _very_ short order.

We will be ordering a few more of these enclosures along with some Intel 320 Series 80GB and 160GB SSDs to install in them to make the best possible combination.

Happy Friday everyone and thanks for reading! :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

HP LaserJet P1606dn Continually Printing

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder SBS MVP) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:21:00 +0000

We had a problem where an HP LaserJet P1606dn kept spitting page after page of the same Test Print page without stop.

We managed to find the solution to the problem:

HP Support Document: HP LaserJet Pro P1102w and P1606dn Printers - Product Continuously Prints the Same Print Job After it is Installed on a Network

We disabled Bidirectional print support and power cycled the printer. It finally stopped spitting out the same print test page.

If that did not work we would have downloaded the latest driver package from HP’s Web site as well as a firmware update (this printer is relatively new so firmware is up to date) if required.

HP LaserJet P1606 Driver Download Page (long HP URL … may work today but …)

For now we have a printer that is doing what it is supposed to be doing for this small equipment rentals office.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Product Review: Zalman ZM-VE300 USB 3 2.5” Drive Enclosure with ISO Mount Capability A+

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder SBS MVP) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:57:00 +0000

As a system builder any tool that can make our life easier is very welcome.

Enter the Zalman ZM-VE300 2.5” Enclosure that we dropped an 80GB X25-M Intel SSD into:

The unit can run as an externally attached hard disk, an externally attached optical drive, or both.

As a test we copied a number of our key ISO files into the _ISO folder that we created on the newly formatted SSD. We then tried to thumb our way through the menu to mount an ISO to present to the OS that the enclosure was connected to with no joy.

Zalman Support: Firmware Download Page for ZM-VE300

As of this writing the firmware available for download was R831.

Once we updated the firmware we were able to see the ISO files via the thumb wheel based menu.

While we keep the download names from Microsoft’s MVLS and TechNet sites the same so that there is no confusion once copied to the Zalman it is a good idea to rename them to make menu navigation easier to work through.

We set the ZM-VE300 in Optical Drive Mode only and mounted the Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 ISO. We then detached the drive from the workstation where we had copied the ISOs from.

Once we plugged the unit into the Intel Server System R1304BTLSHBN 1U we were going to test boot it on the ISO was no longer mounted.

So, we mounted the Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 ISO again and proceeded to boot the server. We hit F6 for Boot Menu, chose the Zalman, and were greeted with the Windows Server installation environment shortly thereafter.

We will continue to test the Zalman on other system builds that we do to see if we run into any issues especially on the desktop side of things, but for now this enclosure looks like a sure winner to replacing many of the USB flash drives that we have picked up over the last few years (OCZ ATV Turbo and now Kingston DTR500 series).

BTW, we also formatted the drive NTFS and set it to Active so that we can boot from the hard drive if there was need to.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Belkin 7 Port USB 2.0 Ultra Slim Hub – Great for Charging and Multiple USB Devices

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder SBS MVP) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:18:00 +0000

Trying to find a device to charge more than one device at a time can be challenging at best.

This is especially true if one has an iPad as it requires a little over 2 Amps in order for it to charge.

When looking for a charger with USB ports or any other device that has USB ports on it the current that the power brick/adapter provides as well as the current that can be delivered at each USB port is important.

While in Las Vegas this last week setting up a network for The Mob Museum it became readily apparent that there was a need for more USB ports but also some additional power to keep everything running and/or charged.

Enter in the Belkin Ultra Slim 7 port USB hub (F4U039).

The adapter supplies 3.5A-3.8A of current to the USB hub. So, there is certainly enough current to work with most devices.

We had an external 500GB 7200 RPM Seagate drive in a NexStar 2.5” enclosure via eSATA plus USB for power, the Toshiba 13” USB monitor, and then occasionally the HTC HD7 hooked in with no power supply issues.

Another advantage to the hub is that it is quite small. So there is no sacrifice in desk space other than the mess of cables that are a part of this kind of portable setup.

With no iPad or iPhone in our repertoire it is obviously not possible for us to test this out yet. We will see about doing so when on-site where many of our clients have these devices available for a test.

In our opinion having one of these with the laptop or Ultrabook is definitely a great idea.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Setting Remote PC Access Permissions for users in SBS 2011 Essentials

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder SBS MVP) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:10:00 +0000

There certainly are some differences between the two SBS versions.

To give users permissions for PC access via the Remote Web Access portal we need to check the PCs in the user’s properties:

The only items to be found under the PC’s properties has to do with the client backup feature.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

And now for something completely different: A Geek CPU moment.

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder SBS MVP) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:51:00 +0000

Mmmm … Dual Intel Hex Core Goodness:

This is a Dell R510 2U with dual Intel Xeon E5645 hex core CPUs and 96GB of RAM to run a new American client’s virtualized SBS 2011, RDS, SQL, and other server systems.

With this setup we can run a full 4 vCPUs in our VMs with no worries about performance issues. And so far the setup has been humming along.

We had a major choke with the iDRAC 6 Enterprise that locked us out of the IP KVM Console _and_ the local console. We hit the power button and the server eventually gracefully powered down, pulled the plug, and everything came back good. So, we changed the “Don’t show console activity” setting back to BOTH to allow the local console and the iDRAC IP KVM console to show the same thing . . . just in case.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming! ;)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Fonality–Setting up Windows Server/SBS DHCP After the Fact

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder SBS MVP) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:03:00 +0000

We ran the SBS 2011 install via Answer File for this new network setup that we are working on.

They already had a peer to peer setup in place with SonicWall devices serving DHCP and acting as edge.

Two Fonality servers were set up in redundant mode.

So, prior to running the SBS OS install we deleted the SonicWall DHCP subnet scope to make sure we had SBS based DHCP this morning.

Well, no go.

We had the SBS is Installed Successfully green check mark but no system had an IP address.

Checking in the SBS Native Tools console we saw that DHCP had no scope.

We ran the Internet Address Wizard and:

The SBS wizard found a DHCP server at the Fonality’s primary server IP. We logged into the admin site with no DHCP Server options anywhere to be found.

In the end we needed to call them to have them log in via their own backend management and turn the DHCP services off for both the primary and secondary servers.

Moral of the story: If there are any third party devices and/or services in place before, or coming in afterwards, verify with the vendors whether anything in them will conflict with a Windows Domain/DNS/DHCP setup and have their “This is how you set things up on a Windows Domain/DNS/DHCP based network” documentation at hand.

The Fonality and other systems on this particular network require DHCP scope options along with custom DNS Forwarders for the phone “domain” among other things.

Got coffee? ;)

UPDATE: Fonality’s Support Site for DHCP and DNS setup on a Windows Network

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Dell Open Manage Download Link and Default Admin Username and Password

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder SBS MVP) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 01:20:00 +0000

We are trying to download the most up to date version of Dell’s Open Manage Server Admin product:

Best Possible Link: Dell Server Drivers and Downloads page

When we click on the link for the download: OM-SrvAdmin-Dell-Web-WIN-6.5.0-2247_A01.exe (151MB) we get:

We try both HTTP and File Transfer Manager and both fail.

After asking some fellow MVPs and our client contacting their Dell rep we came up with:

USA: Dell FTP Site

ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/secure/sysman/
EXE files here.

Dell General FTP Site

ftp://ftp.dell.com/secure/sysman/
EXE and ISO files

NOTE: The default username and password for the Dell Open Manage product is the username and password used to log onto the server.

Hat Tip: Fellow MVP Merv Porter

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Stuck at Configuring Windows updates – Do not turn off your computer. Try This First Before Anything Else

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder SBS MVP) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:20:00 +0000

Lately when setting up a new server or updating a production server that has been up for a few months we have been seeing the following:

Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise

Configuring Windows updates
32% complete
Do not turn off your computer.

What we have discovered is that after waiting five minutes we can CTRL+ALT+DLT and the log on screen will show up. Sometimes it may take 10, 20, or even 30 minutes or more before we see the log on screen but it does eventually come up.

For whatever reason though the server can be left all to itself in the above state and stay there until we hit the keys.

This is our first step now before running into the update recovery steps that may be required if this does not work.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

First Look at Dell’s iDRAC 6 Enterprise – Full KVM Over IP

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder SBS MVP) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:43:00 +0000

We are working with a new Dell R510 2U server that will be used as a host for a virtualized SBS 2011, Remote Desktop Services, SQL, and other services.

We first log into the iDRAC console via the server’s POST sequence at the console. We have initially set up the iDRAC to pull an IP from the local DHCP server until we are ready to set it up with a public IP and DNS A record.

We then set up the username and password for the iDRAC.

Once done we rebooted the system and verified that it was pulling an IP from DHCP which it was. In our Web browser we were greeted with:

Once we were logged in we were able to view all of the

When we tried to launch the KVM over IP console we received the following:

As many ways as we tried we could not get the native ActiveX to work so we flipped the setting over to Java:

We were then good to go with the Java version spooling up:

Note that the file is transferring to the local client via HTTPS.

Once the transfer was complete we had console access to the newly powered up server:

We were then good to go with flattening the default RAID 5 arrays that Dell dropped onto the H700 RAID controller to set up our RAID 10 array and run with it.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Some thoughts on a Hyper-V Mini-Cluster

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder SBS MVP) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:20:00 +0000

While working on a FreeBSD grid system many years ago we came across the following that we used as a model for our own designs:

Mini-ITX.com: The “Mini-Cluster”

Mr. Gardner built a beautiful machine from the ground up.

The project we were working on at the time was scrapped due to a number of external factors.

However, the knowledge we gained in trying to create a grid based on FreeBSD helped to gain a grasp on how we were to go about building a Hyper-V cluster a number of years back when documentation was sadly lacking.

And that brings us to the point of this blog post:

Intel’s new Intel Server Board S1200KP in Mini-ITX form factor.

And, while searching for a quality image of the board we hit this gem:

DV Industrial Computer LTD: DC91 19” Rackmount Cluster/16 Nodes

That is a really neat looking box and fits right in with some of the directions we were looking at. One catch though is that the box is made in the Ukraine! :(

It looks as though they really ran the gamut as far as the setup for a Mini-ITX based solution. Management and redundancy is built right in. Kewl!

In the end we may look at a low power cluster configuration for folks wanting some redundancy at an ultra-low entry price point. How that materializes is yet to be seen.

Born to tinker. ;)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Less for More?

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder SBS MVP) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 23:49:00 +0000

We are going to pick on Tim Hortons a little here.

If it were not for the fact that those two cans were sitting side-by-side on the same shelf and that something was being put on them we would have remained oblivious to the fact that there was a distinct size difference between them.

In fact, we would have gone on happily paying more (increase was ~$2.00 per tin for that coffee) without even paying close attention to the size reduction _during_ that increase.

So, we have a smaller tin that we are paying more for.

Now, given the fact that Tim Hortons coffee is a staple in our day-to-day diet we will not be jumping ship anytime soon.

However, it will give us cause for pause in that we may look at alternatives a little more closely such as some of the so-called Fair Trade coffees. We have a bag of Columbian and a bag of Zambian (iirc the African country’s name and spelling right) coffee that is very rich in flavour.

Technology

When it comes to technology we pay particular attention to all of the various product manufacturers and their products.

We are always particularly mindful of the following:

Is there a good compatibility list for the manufacturer’s products?

No one can beat Intel’s Server Configurator for server building.

Does the manufacturer have good post-sales support?
Is there an 800 number, or even direct dial, to talk to real people that _know_ the product?

Some manufacturers obfuscate the whole process with their voice prompts after calling in.

Is the RMA process simple or a rat’s nest to get through?

Ever try to RMA an Asus product? We gave up.
Kingston and Crucial both are fantastic to deal with.
Intel has an Advanced Warranty Replacement program that is second to none.

Does the product have good documentation?

Most manufacturers fall short in this category as hard as some of them try.

In all of the products we work with we also need to keep in mind that the more time we waste on shoddy post-sales support with manufacturers that it costs us big-time. That in turn costs our clients in lost production time if things go down.

Some of you from Canada may remember IPC and Bondwell PCs back when. Their systems were hundreds of dollars less than the competing Tier 1 or our own quality component built systems.

The IT business owner I was working with decided to dive right into them. In the end it cost us a huge amount in lost time replacing cheap flaky components that it became readily apparent that IPC and Bondwell PCs were not the way to go.

Because of this experience we here at MPECS Inc. have not delved into any entry-level or consumer grade components and systems. It is our preference to stick with the higher end Chevy/VW and Cadillac/BMW series of systems, servers, and software products.

Though, the following video aught to make clear where our preference lies for both the solutions we deliver and the automobile product we prefer. :)

Cadillac CTS-V Supercharged

And, just in case there is _any_ ambiguity:

My favourite Cadillac Commercial of all time!

BTW, just like the Linux versus Windows, Hyper-V versus VMWare, AMD versus Intel, and so on one can get quite “religious” about one’s preference in finer automobiles. ;)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Phone 7 Update to 7.10.8107.79 Now Here

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder SBS MVP) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:11:00 +0000

After plugging the HD7 in the following window came up:

The keyboard issue has been seen off and on over the last month. The voicemail issue was indicated as being fixed with the last update so we shall see if it happens this time around.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Server Core–How to Properly Move the Swap File

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder SBS MVP) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:53:00 +0000

We have posted on this subject before though the pieces of the puzzle were a bit incoherent due to the comments providing the proper methodology and eventually a link to Sander Berkouwer’s blog post with up to date information.

As is indicated in the second blog post’s comments we find the following methodology:

Create the dedicated partition after the OS partition using DiskPart.

We install Server Core to a 50GB partition and FULL to a 75GB partition.
We use RAM * 2.5 as a rule.
For larger GB where only the Hyper-V Role is running then RAM * 1.
We assign the letter S:

wmic computersystem where name=”MyCoreServer” set AutomaticManagedPagefile=False
wmic.exe pagefileset create name="S:\pagefile.sys"
wmic.exe pagefileset where name="S:\\pagefile.sys" set InitialSize=12288,MaximumSize=32768

Note the double slash in the file path.

wmic.exe pagefileset where name="C:\\pagefile.sys" delete
shutdown –r –t 0 –f

As per Sander we can check the registry for the settings as well:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

Some additional reading:

Sander Berkouwer’s Blog: Page files in Server Core

Sander’s blog has been a constant source of _great_ information for all things Server Core and Hyper-V among others.
Sander Berkouwer’s Twitter Feed

Microsoft Support: KB979386: You receive an error message after you put the page file on another drive other than the drive C in a guest operating system.

A VM’s Swap File cannot be placed on a VHD that is attached to the VM via Hyper-V SCSI bus.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Thomson Reuters PPC Reference Library Network Install Documentation

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder SBS MVP) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 23:29:00 +0000

The links within the PPC Reference Library installer are broken so we were not able to figure out what we needed to do to install the product for network use.

A search turned up the following support page we need to get to.

PPC’s Reference Library CD/DVD Support Page

The resulting page:

We can then click on the Installation Instructions link near the bottom left of the page. We tried to create a link in this post for that one but there is some sort of Session ID associated with it so things break.

After clicking on that link:

Again the links are associated with a Session ID so no quick way to the PDF documents.

After going through the documentation it was not 100% clear as far as how to get things going.

But, we ran through the process installing to a network share and then running the network client install via that share afterwards on all client systems with no problems.

Note that there are some installation codes required for the install.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Backups Should Be Bare Metal and/or Virtually Test Restored Right?

noreply@blogger.com (Philip Elder SBS MVP) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 20:44:00 +0000

We provide a service to all of our clients for a fixed monthly fee where we rotate their backups for them every two weeks for local clients or FedEx the backup drives back and forth.

Every quarter we do a full bare metal or virtualized restore of their backup. A _FULL_ restore of their server or servers onto our own systems. We are then assured that the backup technology being used is working as it should.

For image based backups like StorageCraft or Acronis products is very important to note, “Garbage in, Garbage out”.

We do this so that we know the following:

The backups are good.
We will not be stressed about the backups if things do blow up.
The backups are good.
The client will not be _as_ stressed about their data and getting their business up and running after a catastrophe.
Their backups are known good.

The above service and mantra comes via many years of experience with that experience containing some extremely bizarre failures in that time. This blog accounts some of them in more recent years.

Disaster Recovery Planning

Disaster Recovery Planning should be one of the conversation steps for new clients and a semi-frequent nag for existing clients that have not studied and implemented a disaster recovery plan for their business.

The “It won’t happen to me” attitude does not wash . . . at least not in our experience.

One of the most amazing presentations I have ever sat through was with Jeff Middleton of SBS Migration sharing his experiences trying to decision make and get ready for the oncoming Hurricane Katrina to a group of us on one of his visits.

Up here we may not face hurricanes but we certainly do have enough to consider:

Break-in with servers removed.
Disgruntled employee data destruction.
Weather related disasters.
Power related equipment failures.
Fire.

Cloud Vendors and Data Preservation

Now, it seems that larger Cloud vendors are finding out the hard way that backups need to be fully test restored in order to certify their validity:

Own Web Now: MPECS Inc. Blog: ExchangeDefender E-Mail Outage – Our Client E-mail and Some Thoughts
Tieto: The Channel Register: Flash drive meltdown fingered in Swedish IT blackout
Tieto: The Register: Titsup [sic] EMC VNX kit unleashes 5 days of chaos in Sweden - Crashed Tieto system took down bank, pharmacy, schools' website
The Alaskan Government: ZDNet: Alaska revenue dept. lost two backups of taxpayer data

Summary: Technician wiped out hard drives, backup drives and backup tapes were unreadable. After $200,000 in recovering records from paper originals, new procedures are in place

Obviously we are talking about a scale way beyond a single USB drive or High-Rely unit with a few Terabytes or 10 worth of data backing up a few standalone or clustered servers.

However, we believe that it goes without saying that at some point, preferably sooner than later, a Cloud Services Company, a larger Enterprise, or an SME/SMB company would schedule and go through a full restore of their backups to verify that things would work when needed.

With the advent of mainframe style computing, what we are now calling Cloud Computing or Cloud Services, there is a particular need to pay attention to all Cloud vendor’s SLA with particular attention on who is responsible for the data.

Microsoft O365 SLA

No clear mention of data rights and responsibilities.

Own Web Now SLA

Backups and Archives - Customer is solely responsible for all data on their servers, mailboxes, databases and other storage mediums. While Own Web Now Corp provides means and mechanisms for customers to perform backups, customers are responsible for establishing policies, monitoring backups, data restoration, and retention intervals. Customers data is customers responsibility, under no circumstance shall Own Web Now Corp provide drives or other media nor send them to a data retrieval facility.

Google Apps SLA

No mention of client/customer data.

Google Apps for Business (Online Agreement)

No mention of client/customer data.

In the end, where nothing is explicit in any agreements, the wording uses legalese, or the wording is just all-around vague it is up to us to provide a solution that protects the client’s data integrity.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.