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Intel Vpro

My company has been selling the Intel Vpro motherboards for the last three years. I have barely dived into how it all works, and much more importantly, utilizing this cool technology. I came across this community site tonight at Intel that just jump started me into a whole new learning path. http://communities.intel.com/docs/DOC-1171

I also came across this guide on how to setup the System Defense Utility, which seems pretty basic http://download.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/sb/d7491501.pdf and this link http://www.myitforum.com/myITWiki/Default.aspx?Page=v-Pro&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1 has a lot of great stuff on VPro as well.

February 22nd, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Comments are closed

Fix My Network wizard (FNCW) Fails to Fix the Exchange SMTP Connectors in SBS 2008

Fix My Network wizard (FNCW) Fails to Fix the Exchange SMTP Connectors in SBS 2008
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This post discusses an issue we have found with the FNCW and Exchange 2007. The symptom is that you receive the following error when running the Internet Address Management Wizard:

“The wizard cannot configure Exchange e-mail for your domain. To correct this problem, run the Fix my network task on the Connectivity subtab of the Network tab of the Windows SBS Console.”

However, when you run the FNCW to fix this issue, it fails and you receive the following error:

“The server cannot connect the SMTP connectors. Ensure that Exchange is running, and then try again.”

You will notice that none of the SMTP connectors in Exchange have been fixed as a result.

There are two possibilities that will cause this behavior:

1. The Default ServerName receive connector is missing in Exchange at the time that you run the FNCW.
2. The Default ServerName receive connector’s Authentication and Permissions Groups settings are wrong at the time that you run the FNCW.

NOTE: Replace ServerName with the hostname of your SBS 2008 server.

To resolve this issue, use the Exchange Management Console to either manually create the default receive connector or correct the authentication and permission group settings for the existing one. Afterwards, the FNCW will successfully fix your SMTP connectors.

To create a new connector:

1. In the Exchange Management Console, expand Server Configuration, Hub Transport, Receive Connectors
2. Click on New Receive Connector in the Actions pane
3. Name the receive connector default Servername where Servername is the hostname of your server.
4. For the intended use for this Receive Connector, choose Custom.
5. In both the Local and Remote Network settings windows, accept the defaults
6. Once its created, open the properties of the receive connector
7. Under the Authentication tab, enable Transport Layer Security (TLS), Basic Authentication, Offer Basic authentication only after starting TLS, Exchange Server authentication, and Integrated Windows authentication

8. Under the Permission Groups tab, enable Exchange users, Exchange servers, and Legacy Exchange Servers

9. Rerun the FNCW from the SBS Console.

When correcting the authentication and permission group settings for an existing connector, follow steps 7, 8, and 9.

February 22nd, 2009 | Category: SBS 2008 | Comments are closed

Troubleshooting Outlook 2007 Add-ins

Working in Outlook 2007 today, I was trying to troubleshoot an issue with an add-in that was causing weird issues with Outlook. I first disabled the item, and Outlook came up and said the item was causing some issues and did I want to disable it. I thought, well, yeah, I just disabled it in com Add-ins, but sure, why not do it twice.

Trying to re-enable it was another story.

I went into tools, Trust center, add-ins, and then saw the item was disabled. I went ahead and selected the go button to manage the COM Add-ins, and then selected it and hit ok… well no dice, I still couldn’t re-enable it.

After many hours of troubleshooting, I came across this article: http://www.midniteblog.com/2007/04/18/writing-an-outlook-add-in-with-c-epilogue/ which lead me in the right direction. So to fix it, open outlook, then go to help, then disabled items, and select the item and re-enable it. Exit Outlook and restart, and poof, it works!

February 22nd, 2009 | Category: Office | Comments are closed

Troubleshooting a legacy application with UAC

Today I was troubleshooting an application that would not install or work in Vista with UAC mode. I looked at MSI logs, and could not figure out why it was happening. I ended up turning off UAC and the application installed correctly and worked fine. I then wanted to know, what is UAC doing causing this issue? So I removed the application, and then turned UAC back on.

Now the fun begins. I downloaded a tool from Microsoft http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766021.aspx called the Standard User Analyzer. Using this tool, I was able to figure out why the application would not work, and further, it made corrections for me to make the application work with UAC on.

This is a great tool, not only for troubleshooting, but also for fixing the issue and not leaving UAC off.

February 22nd, 2009 | Category: Vista, Windows Server 2008 | Comments are closed

System State Backup in SBS 2008

[Today’s post comes to us courtesy of John Bay]

The normal backup that SBS 2008 creates contains all the necessary information to restore the entire server. The normal SBS backup includes the system state data. You may wish to create a system state backup of the machine before you make critical changes to the machine or active directory. The ability to take just a system state backup is not exposed in the GUI interface of backup. If you wish to take just a system state backup you must use the wbadmin.exe utility. WBadmin.exe is a command line utility. You must first open a command prompt as administrator.

The command to start a system state backup is:

Wbadmin start systemstatebackup –backuptarget:F:

Where F: is the drive where you wish to store the system state backup.

The target volume for a system state backup cannot be a source volume by default. A source volume is any volume that has a file that is included in the backup. To change that behavior, you can add the AllowSSBToAnyVolume registry entry to the server. However, there are known issues with storing a system state backup on a source volume:

  • Backups can fail. The backup can be modified during the backup process, which might cause the backup to fail.
  • It causes an inefficient use of target space. Twice the amount of space is necessary for a backup than for the original data. The volume must allocate twice the amount of space for the shadow copy process.

The path for adding the new registry entry is as follows:

HKLMSYSTEMCurrentControlSetServiceswbengineSystemStateBackupAllowSSBToAnyVolume
Type: DWORD
Value: 1

A value of 0 prevents the storing of system state backup on a source volume. A value of 1 allows the storing of system state backup on a source volume.

The backup process will create a directory on the target drive named WindowsImageBackup. This directory will contain the system state backup of the server. The system state backup of an SBS 2008 server is considerably larger than the same backup on an SBS 2003 server. The average system state backup size is around 11GB.

If you wish to restore a system state backup, you must first reboot the server into Directory Services Restore Mode (DSRM). Once in DSRM, you would open a command prompt with administrator rights and use the following commands to start the restore.

We must first determine the version of the backup that you wish to restore.

The command WBADMIN GET VERSIONS will display all the backups on the machine and the version identifier.

The output will look similar to this:

Backup time: 10/7/2008 3:33 PM
Backup target: Fixed Disk labeled D:
Version identifier: 10/07/2008-20:33
Can Recover: Application(s), System State

This backup job was completed on 10/7/2008 at 3:33pm and was saved to drive D:. The backup job has the ability to restore the system state and is version identifier 10/07/2008-20:33

Once we have located the version identifier, we can initiate the restore by using the following command:

WBADMIN START SYSTEMSTATERECOVERY -version: <version id>

Where version id is the version identifier you obtained with the Get Versions command.

For our example the command would be:

WBADMIN START SYSTEMSTATERECOVERY -version: 10/07/2008-20:33

WBADMIN will restore the system state information back to the data from the backup. Once the restore process is complete, you will have to reboot the machine into normal mode to complete the restore.

February 22nd, 2009 | Category: SBS 2008 | Comments are closed

AT&T ICS seems to not be working

Today I updated a Windows Mobile 8900 (TILT) to Windows Mobile 6.1. After doing so, I noticed that Internet Connection Sharing was gone from the menus. Not a problem though, I went to the Windows Folder using the built in File Browser and found the program. I went ahead and made a shortcut to it so I could find it easier in the future, and then clicked on it. But when it ran, it would not connect. I found that to be quite weird, so out came Google.

After doing some research, here is what I did to make it work:

Went into settings, then Connections, then Connections, Add a new mobile connection, I gave it a name and selected Cellular Line (GPRS- 3G), and then in the access point name, entered in wap.cingular , when ahead and hit next, left all the fields blank, and then finish.

Now start up ICS again, select the new connection, and then connect. Poof, it worked!

While doing some research, I was looking for a registry editor for Windows Mobile 6.1, and I found a really neat one at http://ceregeditor.mdsoft.pl/ceregedit_setup.exe – Very cool tool, and you run it from your PC so you can read the screen easily!

Also, take a look at this article for doing something even cooler, take a look at this http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=336905&highlight=Internet+Sharing+AT%26amp%3BT

February 22nd, 2009 | Category: Windows Mobile | Comments are closed
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