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Author Archive for KW – Page 35

ADSI Edit Missing Sections

by KW · Comments (0)
Jul 04 2012

The good news: the wizards that are built into the Microsoft SBS server product are so good that I rarely have a need to use any of the regular utilities (command-line or GUI) that comes with the Microsoft server products.

The bad news: when I do need to use one of those utilties, I always feel like I’m using it for the first time.

ADSI Edit is one of those utilities. I recently needed to run it on an SBS 2008 server for an Exchange issue I was working on. After starting it up (Start –> Run –> Adsiedit.msc) and using the defaults for the “Connect to:” , something looked wrong. That’s when I realized that the Schema and Configuration sections were not displaying. And it was the Configuration section that I needed.

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Of course, the answer was simple — once I found the answer!

I just needed to go back and select Connect to –> Schema, and then Connect to –> Configuration.

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Comments (0)
Categories : Exchange, SBS, Windows

Windows Update Error 800B0001

by KW · Comments (0)
Jul 01 2012

At an SBS 2011 site, workstations were recently updated with the latest Windows Update Agent (version 7.6.7600.256). When I attempted to run Windows Update from the workstations, it generated the following error message: Code 800B0001 windows Update encountered an unknown error

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This error occurred on Windows 7 SP1 workstations both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. I tried following the posted suggestion to run the System Update Readiness tool as well as suggested “Fixit” solution, but that did not resolve the situation.

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Note that the error with windows Update would only occur when trying to connect to the SBS/WSUS server. WU would work if I selected the “check online for updates from Microsoft”.

It turns out that the SBS/WSUS server needs to be updated as well. The solution is to download and install KB 2720211 on the SBS server.

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No reboot is required, and no services need to be restarted. After installing the patch, workstations successfully connected to the SBS/WSUS server.

Comments (0)
Categories : SBS, WSUS

Office 365 First Birthday!

by KW · Comments (0)
Jun 29 2012

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Office 365, Microsoft’s subscription-based solution for hosted email and office productivity tools celebrated it’s official Office 365 First Birthday on June 28, 2012. However, Office 365 is just the latest iteration of hosted services from Microsoft.

As far back as 2003 Microsoft was exploring the opportunities for hosted Exchange. By 2007 they had started rolling out hosted Exchange, and in late 2008 they officially announced BPOS.

I have several customers that have already transitioned to Office 365, or are exploring this as a viable alternative to an on-premise Exchange.

Happy birthday, Office 365!

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

Managing for Success 2012

by KW · Comments (0)
Jun 29 2012

I worked with Karl Palachuk two weeks ago at Microsoft’s TechEd technology conference in Orlando. He and I were both facilitators at TechEd’s Birds of a Feather sessions during the week.

This past week (Jun 26-28) Karl did something very interesting – he put together a three day, 18 hour online conference titled “Managing for Success 2012”. I was very impressed with the speakers chosen, the range and depth of information presented, the professionalism with each presentation, and most importantly – the fact that they stayed on time!

Kudos to Karl for a job well done!

SMB Online Conference

Comments (0)
Categories : Conferences, SBS, SMB
Tags : ,

Verizon Fios Quantum Upgrade

by KW · Comments (0)
Jun 29 2012

Verizon recently rolled out Fios Quantum here in the Tampa Bay area. I went to their web site this week just to check out their prices. Guess what? I was surprised to find out that I could upgrade from my current 35/35 plan to 75/35 at no additional cost! What’s not to like about that?

So I did, and here are my first results this morning.

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It was all done over the Internet and the change happened magically during the night. Now, where’s that movie I’ve been wanting to download?

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Comments (0)
Categories : News
Tags : , ,

Reindex WSUS DB?

by KW · Comments (0)
Jun 26 2012

If you read the Summary Notes associated with the WSUS Update KB 2720211, you will see that it recommends using the WSUS Cleanup Wizard and to re-index the WSUS DB.

Running the WSUS Cleanup wizard is something that I do with all my SBS servers — either manually, or via a scheduled task (see Eriq Neale’s blog post on this subject).

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However, I was unaware of any need to re-index the WSUS database.

I asked some of my fellow SBS MVPs to see if this is something they do, and several responded that they, too, were not aware of any need to re-index the WSUS database, and had never run it.

The steps to re-index the WSUS DB can be found in this Technet article.

YMMV!

Comments (0)
Categories : SBS, WSUS

Be Careful with WSUS Updates!

by KW · Comments (0)
Jun 25 2012

Updating SBS servers used to be a fairly simple and straightforward thing, especially as it comes with WSUS (Windows Serve Update Services).

My practice when installing SBS is to disable WSUS from automatically installing any updates. That allows me to decide which updates should be installed, and when. More importantly, it allows me to skip certain updates.

I have also made it a habit to install any .Net updates separately from all other updates. And if there are more than one .Net update to be installed, I install them one at a time. I have since extended that to other server apps managed by WSUS, such as Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint.

But what do you do if there is an update to WSUS itself, and that update breaks WSUS?

That’s exactly what happened when KB 2720211 was released earlier this month (June 8th, 2012). Soon afterwards, we started getting reports of this  patch failing to install, leaving WSUS in a broken state.

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Microsoft released a blog post on June 20th addressing common issues with installing KB 2720211 and how to fix them. Please read the post closely, and especially heed the advice to perform basic health checks of your WSUS server, such as running the WSUS Cleanup Wizard!

This reinforces the need to remind yourself of your process as to how you install patches. Mine include:

  • Make sure you have a good backup of your server before proceeding
  • If possible, reboot the server before installing major updates, such as service packs or rollups
  • There’s no reason to be the first kid on the block to install certain updates. I regularly will wait a week or two after major updates or patches have been released, and monitor the SBS Official Blog site and the Microsoft SBS Forum to see if any issues have been tracked.
  • Install security patches first.
  • Install server apps, such as .Net, Exchange, Sharepoint, SQL, WSUS separately from all other updates, and install such updates one at a time.
  • When all updates have been applied, I reboot the server and then check the event logs for any issues.
Comments (0)
Categories : News, SBS

HP MicroServer AddIn Cards

by KW · Comments (0)
Jun 23 2012

The HP MicroServer is a great little unit to use for development/testing purposes. I have one on my workbench with 8gb of memory with Hyper-V. It allows to test out new versions of Workstation software, WHS, SBS and Multipoint.

Note that the HP MicroServer comes with built-in Raid-0/Raid-1 support.

The server has slots for two half-size cards.

The inner slot (the one closer to the on-board NIC) can only be used for the HP MicroServer Remote Access Card (RAC), which is sort of like a basic version of the HP ILO card for servers, and provides remote (virtual) KVM.

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The second slot (the one closer to the outer edge of the box) can be used for other purposes, such as a low profile PCIe X16 Graphic Add-in card.

Comments (0)
Categories : Servers, WHS
Tags :

Erroneous BPA EWS Warning for SBS 2011

by KW · Comments (0)
Jun 22 2012

If you are running a SBS 2011 server, after upgrading Best Practices Analyzer (BPA) with UR3,  you may see the following warning message:

The /EWS virtual directories maxRequestLength doesn’t match the get-transportconfig MaxSendSize

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This warning is NOT applicable to SBS 2011, and should be ignored!

To ignore this warning and prevent it from showing up again in the future, simply click on the “Exclude this Result” button that is displayed in the BPA for this warning.

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However, if you have already performed the resolution steps as recommended in the BPA, just repeat the steps and reset the maxRequestLength to 2097151 (which is 2GB).

For more information, please read the associated blog post on this subject at Microsoft’s Windows Server Essentials and Small Business Server Blog.

Comments (0)
Categories : SBS
Tags :

Customize SBS Alerts

by KW · Comments (0)
Jun 22 2012

The engineers from the SBS support team developed a nifty little tool called SBSAlertsCleanup that allows you to manage and filter unwanted event alerts for the SBS 2008/SBS 2011 monitoring reports. More information and a link to download the utility is available on the SBS Official Blog site.

Just a few additional comments and an example on using the utility.

After downloading and unzipping the utility, the instructions tell you to unblock the file. If you’re like me, I wasn’t sure what they were talking about. It’s as simple as right-clicking on the file ‘SBSAlertsCleanup.ps1’, then click Properties, and then click Unblock down in the lower right corner of the Properties box.

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To startup Powershell, you will need to open up the Command prompt window using ‘Run as’ an administrator. After the command prompt window opens, simply type Powershell and press enter.

You will then install the utility from the Powershell prompt. Use the CD command to change to the directory where you unzipped the utility, and then run the following command: .\sbsalertscleanup.ps1 –action install

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To see what events are already excluded, type: .\sbscleanupwizard.ps1 –action listexclusions

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To add an event to be excluded, you will first obtain a list of current reported events, identify the associated ID for the event you wish to excluded, and then exclude it.

To see a current list of all events, type: .\sbscleanupwizard.ps1 –action listevents

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To exclude a specific event, type: .\sbscleanupwizard.ps1 –action addexclusion –id XXXXX
(where XXXXX is the numeric ID associated with the event you wish to exclude)

Comments (0)
Categories : SBS
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