Brad Marsh’s Weblog

So on your outlook 2003 your getting an ole registration error occurred. Well don’t stress, its an easy fix.

Close outlook 2003

Open start > Run > type:

regsvr32 %windir%\system32\ole32.dll

No open Outlook and try again…

Still not working?

then give this ago

Open Outlook again

• click on the Send/Receive pull / Drop-down menu ( this is the same button which gives the error message, the pull down is located on the right side, its an arrow)
• Choose Send/Receive Settings
• Uncheck “Make This Folder Available Offline”
• Now re-check “Make This Folder Available Offline” again

Done!

Twitter This

Usuario: Password:

Microsoft were nice enough to give us a feature within SQL 2005 which would allow us to grant a user permission to do a SQL trace using Profiler, without having to give them SQL SYSADMIN access… which is GOD access… that’s a big no no.

For SQL 2005 / 2008 users use the below

SQL user Example:

GRANT ALTER TRACE TO [UserNameHere];

AD user Example:

GRANT ALTER TRACE TO [domain\Myaccount];

For the SQL 2000 users sorry you still have to use sysadmin access but I did come across a nifty trick that may do the job.

“write a batch file that calls Profiler from the command line as follows:

profiler /Sserver /Uuser /Ppassword /Tx

Then I bought a batch file compiler (do a google search and lots come
up, most around $30) and compiled the batchfile in to an executable.
Now I just distribute the executable.”

Read the article here

Twitter This

Usuario: Password:

You might get the below event error if Database mirroring fails, or the auto failover for some reason does not work.

This below error will be found only on the witness server.

Event Type:    Error
Event Source:    MSSQL$SQLEXPRESS / MSSQLSERVER
Event Category:    (2)
Event ID:    1479
Date:        21/08/2009
Time:        4:29:18 PM
User:        N/A
Description:
The mirroring connection to "TCP://xxxxx.domain.com.au:5022" has timed out for database "YourDatabaseName" after 10 seconds without a response.  Check the service and network connections.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

You can easily increase the time of the time out of the mirror timeouts.

ALTER DATABASE yourdatabase SET PARTNER TIMEOUT 30

This will increase you database time out to 30 seconds.

Twitter This

Usuario: Password:

With 2003 Exchange purging users was super simple through the GUI, you simply ran your clean up agent after deleting the mailbox and then you saw the disconnected mailbox then right click and purge, it was effortless. 2007 is certainly not effortless but its not all that hard either, you just have to start using more PowerShell, which is not such a bad thing, so here is how:

Step 1

First thing is first, Find the mailbox you wish to delete within the console, once you have located the account right click and choose remove, be warned this will also remove the AD account associated with the mailbox if you only want to remove the mailbox then choose disable.

Ok so you have now disconnected the mailbox you can no longer see this in the mailbox list, and there is a good chance you cant see it in the disconnected Mailbox just yet either.

Step 2

Open PowerShell and run this

get-mailboxdatabase

This command will show you your database name, copy the database name and then issue the below command, replacing the MailboxDatabaseHere with your database name

Step 3

Clean-Mailboxdatabase "MailboxDatabaseHere"

This clean-Mailbox database is the same as the clean up agent that was found in 2003’s GUI, once you have successfully ran this command go back to the GUI and see if you can see the mailbox you removed in the ‘Disconnected Mailbox’, once you can see it you will be able to delete the mailbox if not see step 5.

Step 4

If you are unlucky and you cant yet see it then hit refresh in the right pane…. Still cant see it ok, open PowerShell once again and run the below command:

Get-MailboxStatistics | Sort-Object DisplayName -Descending | ft DisplayName,@{label="TotalItemSize(KB)";expression={$_.TotalItemSize.V alue.ToKB()}},ItemCount

This will return a list of all mailboxes in alphabetic order

With this list locate the mailbox you have just removed, and take note of the ‘DisplayName’

Step 5

Now that we can see the mailbox here we need can then purge the mailbox do this by running the below command be sure to change ‘MailboxDatabaseHere’ to your Exchange database and also change the ‘DisplayName’ to your account name, found using the above script.

Remove-Mailbox -Database "MailboxDatabaseHere" –StoreMailboxIdentity DisplayName -confirm:$true

That’s it your mailbox is no longer you have successfully purged it, not so hard after all.

Twitter This

Usuario: Password:

1. Compatibility

The slow uptake or even non existent uptake of the VISTA operating system was due to incompatibility of drivers and applications, now that VISTA has been around for a while, and all major vendors now fully support Vista / 2008 server, being that windows 7 shares quite a bit of VISTA codebase in terms of drivers support.

Windows 7 also seems to have a very prominent place in the WWW, with major vendors jumping on board the beta band wagon, releasing pre driver support, Microsoft also already  offering upgrade paths, in association with all major PC vendors, such as Dell, HP, Asus the list goes on.

With that said its seems with the release of VISTA and the long public beta releases of windows 7, may of payed off with, thus compatibility between devices is a thing of the past.

2.  Legacy support

While this comes under compatibility I think this needs a specific mention, as I think this is one of the most compelling selling points from a SMB perspective. Its the ‘windows 7 XP mode’

what this is, is essentially a Virtual PC (VPC), but wait before you stop reading its a whole lot more than just a VPC… While they now support USB within the VPC, which is a vey nice addition. The VPC fully integrates with the guest OS, what this means is if you install an application within XP VPC,  it will appear within the windows 7 start menu, meaning you can launch the application from your primary machine without having to interact with the VPC at all.

Why is this such a big deal, and why should this help the SMB market take to windows 7 as there next OS?

Simple windows Vista no longer supports 16 bit applications, as it does not have a 16bit sub system like XP does. With the XP mode 16 bit is supported, therefore for all those SMB’s that have so many of those legacy systems that are 16bit based that couldn’t go to VISTA because of this reason, but yet IT managers, CTO’s and CEO’s  didn’t want to spend the money to re-develop a 32bit version, when they have a perfectly good working application.

With XP mode 16 bit is very plausible that you can run your 16bit apps directly from windows 7!

        3.  Efficiency

With the overhaul of the task bar (referred to as the superbar), jump lists, ‘Aero shake’ to quickly minimize all apps apart from the shaken app, and the massive additions of shortcut keys that interact with windows 7  (many can be found in my previous blog post) All of these significantly increase the speed of which a user can work, while some seem very gimmicky like the Aero shake, it actually serves a  unique and quick outcome.

The other side to efficiency of windows 7 is not just in the shortcuts and the new features but yet the OS it self has significantly improved on boot and shutdown times, It’s processing of newer applications on modern hardware is superior over XP, where windows 7 uses the processor and memory more efficiently.  Also for mobile users battery life is increased, it is said they they have reduced the power draw by up to 15%, and other tweaks for notebook users.

Last one is not for everyone but the fact that windows 7 allows Muti-touch, this can significantly speed up the processes of how quickly you can access your apps and files.

Twitter This

Usuario: Password:

Ok So I have installed windows 7 (7100) on my little EeePC 900, the EeePC has 2 gigs of RAM and a small 1.6 Atom, with this small combo 7 smashes the pre-installed XP.
Boot time is better by about 5 seconds and general performance to open applications and general processing is just far better, while it uses substantially more memory than XP, but lets face it all new entry level PC’s have 2 gigs of RAM these days.

But with saying that I would blame a lot of the memory usage on the rotten IE8 that is bundled with windows 7, I have many complaints about this browser, so rather than complain I am finding I am using Chrome more regularly, faster better on the memory and processor. MS if you read this use the KISS principle (Keep it simple stupid) Google has done this very well for years.

Anyways lets get to the shortcuts and handy little functions that windows 7 has added!

• My absolute favourite function has to be the if you have multiple screen configurations, you can click on a maximise screen and drag it to your other screens. Previously we had to resize / minimize and then move the open window to a new screen and then maximize… very annoying.
• Next is the many many windows short cut keys, also work with multiple monitors or even single display :
  • Windows key + Left: docks current window to the left side of the screen.
  • Windows key + Right: docks current window to the right side of the screen.
  • Windows key + Up: maximizes and/or restores foreground window.
  • Windows key + Down: minimizes active window.
• Previously running an app in administrator was a right click, and then run as admin , while that still exists there is a quicker better way of doing this with keys: It’s now as easy as holding CTRL + SHIFT when you open the application.
• Another one for those with multiple monitors: Windows + SHIFT + Left (or Right) will shift a window from monitor to monitor.

Some handy things windows 7 includes:

• Windows 7 now includes Gabriola. This is an elaborate display typeface that takes advantage of OpenType layout to create a variety of stylistic sets.
• Windows 7 now burns ISO files themselves instead of making us install unwanted third-party apps.
• In the case that something happens to your system, you can make yourself a system repair disc. Just search “system repair disc” in the start menu.
• For the advanced users finally a desktop OS that gives us the ability to setup software RAID, one of my favs!
• Advance defrag for windows 7, read more here : http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/01/25/disk-defragmentation-background-and-engineering-the-windows-7-improvements.aspx
• Multi-Threaded File copy, this is by use of the command line robocoy which is included within windows 7, this is something I personally use on a constant basis, and is very powerful, if you haven’t used this before you are missing out!
• UAC is substantially improved, where there is no need to turn this off any more, it only disturbs you on install of applications. this is something I turned of on VISTA as soon as I could, but one windows 7 I Have found that its something that’s not annoying and have left it on its default setting. Its also now provides us with a toggle bar where we can increase or decrease the default UAC settings.
• A new calculator- about time it only took about 10 years!
• Owh yeah an codec’s to play AVI Divx and other regularly used formats FINNALY!!!!!!!
• And the whole OS is touch friendly!

Another feature I will be talking about in more depth is the default install XP with program  integration as a virtual machine. I will be blogging about business reasons as to why corporate should go the distance and  install windows 7.

there is so much more they have done windows 7 is really all that and a bag of chips, its got my 2 thumbs up, I just hope they don’t bloat the final release with unnecessary junk

Twitter This

Usuario: Password:

If you are getting an activation error on your 2008 server something like:

“Key management services (KMS) host could not be located in domain name system (DNS), please have your system administrator verify that a KMS is published in DNS.”

Don’t stress it is the same problem / error that I blogged about earlier with VISTA activation problems, just using a different error message.

Here is the blog post for the Vista activation fix, it also works for 2008 server.

Twitter This

Usuario: Password:

Internet Information Services (IIS) have some interesting new features in Windows Server 2008 R2, which justifies the new version number, i.e. IIS 7.5. Most noteworthy  is that you can now run ASP.Net applications on Server Core. Of course, it will reduce security if you install .NET on Server Core, but IIS without .NET doesn’t make much sense either. The performance-related improvements are not very exciting in my opinion. However, support for 256 logical processor cores makes Windows an interesting server OS for cloud computing.

Internet Information Services 7.5 (IIS)

• PowerShell provider for IIS 7 has more than 50 new cmdlets
• Administration Pack extensions: Database Manager (SQL Server management within IIS Manager), Configuration Editor (generate scripts with a GUI to automate administrative tasks), IIS Reports, Request Filtering (HTTP filtering, URL rewriting, etc.)
• One-click publishing in Visual Studio 10
• Web Deployment Tool (formerly MS Deploy): Deployment, management, and migration of Web applications, sites, and entire servers
• Configuration Tracing: track configuration changes to IIS and applications
• New performance counters
• .NET support for Server Core
• WebDav integration (was available before as a separate extension)
• URLScan 3.0 integration: restricts the types of HTTP requests (was available before as a separate extension)
• FTP server services: integrated in the IIS administration interface; new .NET XML-based *.config format; virtual host names for FTP sites; improved logging
• Integrated extensions: new kind of extensions that appear to be an integral part of IIS

Scalability

• Support for up to 256 logical processor cores (Windows Server 2008 supports 64 logical cores)
• Hyper-V virtual machines support up to 32 logical cores (Hyper-V 1.0 supports 4 processor cores)
• IP Stickiness: Configure the time period (weeks or months) that a connection state to a specific cluster node persists

Storage

• Performance: Reduced processor utilization for “wire speed” transmissions; improved input/output process (NTIO); up to 32 paths to a storage device are supported; improved iSCSI client; storage subsystem allows hardware vendors to optimize their storage mini-driver; better Chkdsk performance
• Availability: Failover to alternative path; configuration snapshots (ability to restore a previous configuration)
• Manageability: Automated deployment of configuration settings using Unattend.xml; improved monitoring (new performance counters, logging for storage drivers, health-based monitoring)

Above taken from http://4sysops.com/archives/windows-server-2008-r2-new-features-the-complete-list-part-3-iis-75-and-performance/

I highly recommend looking at the requesting filtering this is URLScan 3.0 built in

http://blogs.msdn.com/carlosag/archive/2008/03/24/IISAdminPackRequestFiltering.aspx

Another awesome feature is the Inbuilt IIS reporting and SQL management.

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/03/26/new-log-reporting-database-management-and-other-cool-admin-modules-for-iis-7.aspx

Twitter This

Usuario: Password:

I have used DFSR for some time now and had only great experiences with it, however it was low volumes of data, This time I was implementing this as a High availability solution for a web farm, We had about 40 gigs of data with a massive amount of files to replicate…. But the scheme of things 40 gig of data is really not that much.

Anyways cutting to the point after reading articles about the best way to proceed with a quick initial replication was said to be copy the files to the destination server, so I did this via robocopy, keeping all attributes and the permissions intact.

However contrary to popular believe this was what ultimately caused so much grief, as it started the replication off and I my event log was filling up with:

Event Type: Information
Event Source: DFSR
Event Category: None
Event ID: 4412
Date: <Date>
Time: <Time>
User: N/A
Computer: <Computer name>
Description:
The DFS Replication service detected that a file was changed on multiple servers. A conflict resolution algorithm was used to determine the winning file. The losing file was moved to the Conflict and Deleted folder.
Additional Information:
Original File Path: <File path>
New Name in Conflict Folder: <Folder name>
Replicated Folder Root: <Folder name>
File ID: <File ID>
Replicated Folder Name: <Folder name>
Replicated Folder ID: <Folder ID>
Replication Group Name: <Replication group name>
Replication Group ID: <Replication group ID>
Member ID: <Member ID>

see more about this here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/944804

After further investigation, this was because the file ID of the files on the destination server differed from the source server…. Thanks robocopy.

This was filling up my ClonflictAndDeleted folder very quickly, with a lot of what I though was unnecessary crap. Never the less I let it run for a few days and I cam back to find the below event log:

Source : DFSR

Catagory : None

Event ID : 2104

Type: Error

Description :

The DFS Replication service failed to recover from an internal database error on volume F:. Replication has been stopped for all replicated folders on this volume.

Additional Information: Error: 9203 (The database is corrupt (-1018)) Volume: DB587759-DC0B-11DC-940D-00304888DB13 Database: F:\System Volume Information\DFSR

Brilliant I had a corruption

Possible Solutions

Taken from Google Groups [1]

I recently had a spat with the "new and improved" DFSR and wanted to let everybody in on the proceedure for reseting a DFSR member.

First off, removing everything using the GUI doesn’t help when the database is corrupt. DFSR keeps the database regardless of its membership status. So if for example you had a broken DFSR server and removed it from every replication group, when you added it back you’d still be out of luck.

To clear it completely after the server is no longer a member of *any* dfsr replication group (i.e. remove it from all of them in the gui and wait for AD replication to propgate the changes):

1. Stop the "DFS Replication" service.

2. On the drive(s) in question, grant yourself full permission to the hidden system "System Volume Information" folder.

3. Navigate into the folder and delete (or move to be extra careful) the DFSR folder.

4. Navigate to each replication group the server was a member of and delete (or move to be extra careful) each hidden system "DfsrPrivate" folder.

5. Start the "DFS Replication" service.

You may now treat the server as a brand new member for the replication groups. Now all you need to deal with is DFSR’s sloppy initial replication routines (hint: those missing files are in the "DfsrPrivate \PreExisting" folder).

http://www.eventidwiki.com/index.php?title=Event_ID_:_2104%2C_DFSR

However this did not work the folder would not rename under 2008 even with UAC off, this did work for me though

1. Click Start, right click Command prompt and click run as administrator to open a command prompt window, then go to driverletter:\System Volume Information\dfsr prompt, type the command below to rename it:

Ren “old folder name” “new folder name”

I did this on both servers participating in the replication. further to this I deleted the folder I was replicating on the destination server, and let DFS do all off the creating.

after 2 days I had a fully functional DFSR, working the way it should!!!!!

Some commands I found useful through the process:

dfsrdiag backlog /rgname:”cluster replication” /rfname:websites /rmem:RECEVINGSERVER /smem:SENDINGSERVER >c:\backlog1.txt

You might also find the %systemVolume%windows\debug folder useful.

Good Luck.

Twitter This

Usuario: Password:

So the question on many peoples lips is it worth the upgrade???

For me the answer is YES absolutely!

While I know its still beta for many phones, I like many other WM enthusiasts have been able to get our 6.5 ROMs from http://xda-developers.com, So we have first hand experience with WM 6.5.

I have now been using WM6.5 full time now for a few months, while I see Microsoft have made some necessary changes in order to keep up with the ever so popular Iphone, some of these changes include:

• Most menus are now finger friendly for those with fatter fingers (like myself)
• Scrolling throughout the whole WM platform is now fluid like the Iphone.
• They have removed the start menu where it would drop down like the current windows platform (W7, VISTA, XP etc), where it appears in a honeycomb effect, again this if finger friendly.
• Windows Locking, they have taken a leave out of apples book here, and they now also have the slide to unlock function
• They have now incorporated widgets with this release (further blogs to come on this)
• It also appears that customisations to the phone skin / theme are easier than ever, and now your able to incorporate images within the taskbars with transparency. this give the phone a 21st century look about it!!!
• And last but not least the biggest change is the home screen, now referred to as titanium, this is one screen that allows you to manage almost everything from the one screen, The Idea is similar to HTC’s Touchflo, in a round about way.
• Battery life has been increased

they say pictures are worth a thousand words so less talk and more pics:

The honeycomb, this is modified, normally it is large only 3 Icons across	The  Slide to unlock
Titanium weather	Titanium Home
Email / SMS / MMS screen you can see a new scroll bar, and the items are MUCH larger to click on, as you can see the highlight is customisable to a degree. The scroll in here is SO much more fluid like the IPhone.	New IE, better but far from perfect, Opera is still miles ahead
	IE without all the bars, works like opera, but not nearly as smooth, also doesn’t render website correct

While I have given it praise there is still a major down side I think…

It looks and works the same way, its RAM and ROM hungry, Microsoft have only bandaid the old interface.

However combined with HTC’s great new TouchFlo 3d (TF3d)version 2 (not officially release either) it seems they have fixed pretty much every menu that is commonly used to be very finger friendly, while they did this with the basics on TF3D v1, in V2 they have gone way beyond, fixing most menus. So with TF3D2 combined with 6.5 its not at all a bad package. I will be looking forward to both TF3Dv2 and 6.5 come out of beta.

(All new devices with 6.1 shipped will be eligible for a 6.5 upgrade, older phones while you might find a copy of 6.5 on http://xda-developers.com, don’t expect it to fly, also your vendor will not support it!)

Twitter This

Usuario: Password: