Archives

Site Status

This site is no longer actively maintained. Blog posts (2008-2017) are for historical search purposes. Thanks!

Archive for June 2015

Update on Essentials O365 Wizard Issue

by KW · Comments (0)
Jun 30 2015

Earlier I posted about a situation where the O365 Integration Wizard that is built into the 2012 R2 Essentials Server would fail when trying to set it up the first time.

https://kwsupport.com/2015/05/2012-r2-essentials-fails-to-integrate-with-o365/

Today, the Windows Essentials and SBS support team posted a revised blog saying that the problem with the PCNS.zip file had been resolved.

image

http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2015/05/29/windows-server-2012-essentials-r2-essentials-may-fail-to-integrate-with-microsoft-office-365.aspx

The revision eliminates the need to download the correct PCNS.zip file. Apparently there’s no hotfix or update to be downloaded. They fixed it on their end so that when you run the O365 wizard it will download the correct zip file.

Comments (0)
Categories : Essentials, Office 365
Tags : ,

How to Configure a Custom Domain Suffix when Installing Windows 2012 R2 Essentials

by KW · Comments (0)
Jun 27 2015

For as long as I can remember, Microsoft’s Small Business Server (SBS) and Essentials Server would default to using .local for the internal domain suffix during installation. So, if your company name was Contoso, it would create Contoso.local as your internal domain.

And for me, using .local worked great all these years. The customer would still use .com (such as Contoso.com) for their public web site and for their email address. Contoso.local was strictly for internal DNS purposes.

But SSL Certificate authorities have announced that they will not issue new UCC/SAN SSL certificates that contain non-public local Intranet domain suffixes (such as .local) or IP addresses.

See detail announcements from these vendors: GoDaddy   DigiCert  

So … the question was raised recently within my Microsoft MVP group: how does one install Windows Server 2012R2 Essentials with a custom internal domain suffix, since by default Essentials uses .local?

My good MVP friend, Robert Pearman, took the time to post a solution today on his blog site. He gives step by step instructions, along with screen shots:

http://titlerequired.com/2015/06/27/install-windows-server-essentials-with-a-custom-domain-suffix/

Here is a quick summary of the steps:

  • Perform the pre-install of Essentials 2012 R2
  • When the Essentials Configuration Wizard (ECW) starts up, click CANCEL.
  • From System Properties, change the name of your server
  • Now add Active Directory Domain Services as a server role (Systems Manager > Manage > Add Roles and Features) and use all the defaults.
  • Then run the Post Deployment task and promote the server to a domain controller.
    • Select to create a new forest and enter your root domain name.
    • Note: many now suggest using a subdomain of your public domain name. So if your public domain is Contoso.com, you might use Corp.Contoso.com)
    • After the pre-requisite check, use the defaults to complete the install of the server role.
    • After the server has rebooted, login as the domain admin, and the ECW will start up again.
Comments (0)
Categories : Essentials, News, SBS, Servers, SMB
Tags :

Remote command line to delete subfolders

by KW · Comments (0)
Jun 27 2015

This is a follow up to my post regarding 44,175 folders being created in a temp folder due to a bad definition file from Vipre/MAV.

The system in question had frozen up, and after we rebooted the server, I was not able to login using my normal remote control software (TeamViewer). But I was able to access the system from a remote command prompt.

That’s how I discovered the 44,175 folders. The question was: how do I delete all those sub folders?

A quick web search uncovered a usable solution, and after a test to verify it would work, I was ready to delete all those folders.

Here’s the command I used (obviously, enter the appropriate parent directory):

for /D %p in (c:\users\don\appdata\local\temp\*.*) do rmdir “%p” /s /q

image

Comments (0)
Categories : Malware, Tools
Tags :

Quickbooks dbdata11.dll and Vipre/MAV

by KW · Comments (0)
Jun 26 2015

Friday morning (6-26-2015) I started receiving calls from several of my customers saying that they could not run Quickbooks, and that they were getting an alert that the file “dbdata11.dll” has been quarantined.

image

With the help of other members of The ASCII Group, we quickly determined that it was a false positive due to a bad definition file update from Vipre (or the RMM version called MAV).

Soon after, MAXFocus (previously GFI) sent out a service status alert of the issue, and that it had been resolved with definition version 41468 and above. It was recommended to add the file (dbdata11.dll) to the Vipre/MAV exception list, before updating systems with the newer definition file.

Note: make an exception only for the file, and not the folder and file, as the folder name is randomly generated by QuickBooks.

That should have been it. Right? … Wrong!

I received a call from one of my users saying that one of their systems with QuickBooks installed on it had locked up. At about the same time they reported this issue, I received an email alert from the RMM service I use saying that the C: drive of this system had dropped to below 20% free space.

Once we got the system rebooted, I logged in and discovered that there 44,175 folder taking up nearly 62GB of disk space. The location of these folders were in C:\Users\QBDataServiceUser22\appdata\local\temp. Each of these folders contained a single file: dbdata11.dll.

It turns out that every time Vipre/MAV quarantined this file, QuickBooks created a new temp folder with the same file!

So once I had the A/V definition file updated, and we rebooted the system, I went in and safely deleted all 44,175 folders! 

What a fun way to spend a Friday!

Comments (0)
Categories : Malware, News, QuickBooks, Security
Tags : , , ,

Single stray .avhd Hyper-V snapshot file exists

by KW · Comments (0)
Jun 08 2015

I have a client with a Windows 2008R2 Hyper-V parent, and guest VMs. I was preparing to upgrade their Altaro Hyper-V software from version 4 to version 5, when I discovered that there was a single, stray snapshot file (.avhd) for one of the guest VMs. The strange thing is that the Hyper-V console was not showing that any snapshots exist or had been created for this VM.

I did some poking around, and buried in this Microsoft forum post was a response from Pablo which worked perfectly for me. His response is dated January 28, 2014.

Here are the steps he recommended and that I performed (again this was on a 2008 R2 Hyper-V server):

  • Shutdown the VM in question
  • On the right frame of the Hyper-V click on Snapshot and create a new snapshot. You can confirm this by going to the folder where the .avhd file exists, and you should now see a second .avhd file.
  • Return to the Hyper-V console, and from the middle frame, right click on the snapshot and select to delete the snapshot.
  • Over on the right frame you will see a message that a merge is in process.
  • Once the merge is completed, both .avhd files had been automatically removed from the folder location.
Comments (0)
Categories : Backup, Hyper-V, Servers
Tags : ,

Disable Get Windows 10 popup

by KW · Comments (0)
Jun 02 2015

Microsoft is preparing for the release of Windows 10 on July 29th, and is pushing out an update (KB3035583) which will allow you to register for the free download. It seems to me, not only is this an easy way for Microsoft to broadcast that Windows 10 is coming, but it can provide them with some statistical data on how many people may want to get Windows 10 when it is released, and what kind of systems they are using.

However, if you are just totally annoyed with the prompt, or you do not want to register for Windows 10, or you’re just not interested … you can uninstall KB3035583. Here’s how:

  • Open up Windows Update (Control Panel > System and Security . windows Update)
  • Click on View Update History
  • Click on Installed Updates
  • In the Search box on the top right, type: kb3035583
  • Click on the KB3035583 entry to select it and uninstall it.
  • You will need to reboot your computer when finished

After your system has rebooted, you will need to block/hide KB3035583 from re-installing.

  • Go back to Windows Update
  • Review the list of pending updates
  • right click on KB3035583 and select to Hide this update
Comments (0)
Categories : News, Windows
Tags : ,

Categories