tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6264960444179496742024-03-06T12:58:50.873+11:00There is no place like 127.0.0.1Musings of an IT workaholicFelix Burkhardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09399141730969360190noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-626496044417949674.post-35517724662840097252013-08-31T11:42:00.000+10:002013-08-31T11:42:42.176+10:00<h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; position: relative;">
<br />Cleaning up disk space on a SBS 2008 (or 2011) Server</h3>
This is a follow up posting to my popular blog entry on <a href="http://felixyon.blogspot.com.au/2010/06/shrinking-sharepoint-config-db-log-file.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">reducing the Sharepoint DB log files</a>, posted back in 2010.<br />
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When we deployed SBS 2008 servers back in 2008 and the following years, Microsoft told us to size the system (C:) drives to 60GB. All deployed there would typically be about 20GB of disk space left. However the WinSXS folders have over the years grown and now occupy at least 15GB of disk space, leaving apprx 5GB to play with. So tuning and conserving disk space on a SBS 2008 server has become a (not so) favourite maintenance task on our early SBS servers.<br />
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Here are a few tips and links to clean-up tasks we perform.<br />
<br />
The SBS team has released their own blog post that is fairly comprehensive, see '<a href="http://recovering-disk-space-on-the-c-drive-in-small-business-server-2008.aspx/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Recovering disk space on the c drive in SBS 2008</a>'.<br />
<br />
If your site uses Sharepoint extensively, make sure you check out '<a href="http://sharepointtips2012.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/huge-msscrawlurllog-table.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Reduce a huge Sharepoint MSSCrawlURLLog table in the WSS_Search database</a>', by Charles De Guchteneere.<br />
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Next up is the SBS Monitoring database, which is again a fix by the SBS team, see '<br />
<a href="http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2011/08/22/how-to-recreate-the-sbsmonitoring-database.aspx" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">How to Recreate the SBSMonitoring Database</a>'.<br />
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While there, stop the Windows Small Business service, then navigate to the<br />
C:\Program Files\Windows Small Business Server\Logs\MonitoringServiceLogs<br />
folder. You will note two large log files:<br />
ConfigurationHelper_Policy.log<br />
DataServiceComponents.log<br />
Rename them to .bak and create two empty log files with the same name. Once the service has been resatrted and you don't think you need the contents of the files need to be checked, you delete them. Bang, often 1GB of disk space freed!<br />
<br />Felix Burkhardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09399141730969360190noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-626496044417949674.post-8198663860605102922013-06-21T21:54:00.000+10:002013-06-21T21:54:19.662+10:00A request to allocate an ephemeral port number from the global UDP port space has failedHad a really weird problem with one of our clients today. They have a Win 2012 Server (Hyper-V host) with 4 VMs. One VM is the DC, the other 3 have a Line Of Business (LOB) apps with SQL server instances. All was working fine but some of the automatic background processes on one of the LOBs were unable to access the Internet. Internally client PCs were able to connect to the LOBs MS-SQL DB without any issues.<br />
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When we checked this server via the Hyper-V console session, we noted that the DNS IPs in the network adapter had gone. I re-added the DCs (its also the DNS) IP, but this did not resolve the issue. I was unable to access the server over the network (RDP) or access other PCs from within the server's console. Yet the users were happily using the LOB and associated database!<br />
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A quick reboot would probably resolve the issue, but this was out of questions as users were seeing clients and needed their LOB application. Eventually I found this warning in the event log:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ8hRZlvzTl3fWPYpgG0u9nFmEo10v45S8iP_5dc-FAQ1b8nhoZeaSDkajI6EhrmvRp4I2OEqXQtNRiDaDL-r7A_IjX3YQYLO3ooa0lbdHVmz3jL9q5K0YGbJonJVZj2rJXNYnriwMxoMt/s1600/BlogNetstat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ8hRZlvzTl3fWPYpgG0u9nFmEo10v45S8iP_5dc-FAQ1b8nhoZeaSDkajI6EhrmvRp4I2OEqXQtNRiDaDL-r7A_IjX3YQYLO3ooa0lbdHVmz3jL9q5K0YGbJonJVZj2rJXNYnriwMxoMt/s320/BlogNetstat.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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After using a bit of Google foo, we came up with some answers, thanks to all the posters! This gave us the most background info:<br />
<a href="http://blogs.technet.com/b/askds/archive/2008/10/29/port-exhaustion-and-you-or-why-the-netstat-tool-is-your-friend.aspx">http://blogs.technet.com/b/askds/archive/2008/10/29/port-exhaustion-and-you-or-why-the-netstat-tool-is-your-friend.aspx</a><br />
Clearly, one of the processes running on this server is not a good citizien! Running "netstat -anob" produced a 3.5MB file! This blog entry:<br />
<a href="http://kasperk.it/windows-server/a-request-to-allocate-an-ephemeral-port-number-from-the-global-udp-port-space-has-failed-due-to-all-such-ports-being-in-use">http://kasperk.it/windows-server/a-request-to-allocate-an-ephemeral-port-number-from-the-global-udp-port-space-has-failed-due-to-all-such-ports-being-in-use</a><br />
suggested to kill the offending process, but the svchost.exe was also running lanman Workstation, which I thought was a big risk, gen the system was still operational for the end-user.<br />
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We scheduled a suitable time to rectify the issue and I then killed the "dnscache" task. Low and behold the network sprung back to life and the system performed normally. The LOB application which I left running on 1 PC noted a sub-second interruption but recovered transparently. For good measure we restarted the system.<br />
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What is the cause of the port exhaustion? At this stage I don't know, but I will keep an eye out. The server had been running without an issue for 5 months. It was last restarted 6 days ago when I installed Windows Updates (June 2013). There is likely an issue with the update and one of the programs on the server.Felix Burkhardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09399141730969360190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-626496044417949674.post-45798213101389257932013-06-20T17:55:00.002+10:002013-06-20T17:55:32.875+10:00Quickbooks / Reckon Accounts Firewall rulesIn a previous blogpost, I discussed setting the correct firewall port rules for Quickbooks. In Australia the developer of Quickbooks has parted ways from the American mothership and the product has been re-branded Reckon Accounts. Who knows what is going to happen with the program over time.<br />
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Rather than port numbers I now use the executable names for the firewall exceptions. When it comes to annual upgrades, you just have to
change the file/folder names, rather than guessing port numbers or call their support desk.<br />
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I have developed a script that sets the
right options:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">REM Add firewall rules for Reckon Accounts 2013<br />
REM Explanations can be found at<br />
REM http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd734783(v=ws.10).aspx<br />
<br />
netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="Reckon Accounts DB Service" profile=Domain,Private dir=in action=allow program="C:\Program Files (x86)\Intuit\ReckonAccounts 2013\QBLanService.exe"<br />
netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="Reckon Accounts DB Manager" profile=Domain,Private dir=in action=allow program="C:\Program Files (x86)\Intuit\ReckonAccounts 2013\QBDBMgrN.exe"<br />
netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="Reckon Accounts DB Manager (N)" ;profile=Domain,Private dir=in action=allow program="C:\Program Files (x86)\Intuit\ReckonAccounts 2013\QBDBMgrN.exe"<br />
pause<br />
<br />
</span>
Cut and paste the above into notepad and save as a command file (.cmd), then run it and the firewall rules for the server are set!Felix Burkhardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09399141730969360190noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-626496044417949674.post-12468816719781424672013-05-29T09:20:00.001+10:002013-07-09T05:11:31.282+10:00Adding an alias in Office 365 (Wave 15, P & M plans)I recently needed to assign an email alias for a user. In Wave 14 administrators were able to set "extra" Exchange options for an Office 365 users mailbox through the standard web interface:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-vu_eu2MZ_8us98wT_4z9yuOoKceVHy3fM5KW3e399U7LP7MQmtsVm8PqElgbFdSjriR2NojvY6h6I6IJfebciYAw9btp_IB-1IPp4V2d1wwna2EKdn28oj2V3AyHJPTAiksHSoyJfz5S/s1600/BlogO3651.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-vu_eu2MZ_8us98wT_4z9yuOoKceVHy3fM5KW3e399U7LP7MQmtsVm8PqElgbFdSjriR2NojvY6h6I6IJfebciYAw9btp_IB-1IPp4V2d1wwna2EKdn28oj2V3AyHJPTAiksHSoyJfz5S/s320/BlogO3651.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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However in Wave 15 I was unable to find these settings for customers on P or M plans (right hand picture, whereas E plans (left) still have the option:<br />
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<img border="0" height="143" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYSTsXQRG4IkQZ_2hr6jfxho_Ydd7EkYen89FXZSZS8eBvzzvwX6wyuPDGqhebfjMHRJlhyphenhyphenNsQgKQc2jZcCjGKZCM2cEp_O0-AR9BZOokONDEJaLsz2EcFjqyUm-AvxUXleN6H4e4zCdRz/s320/BlogO3653.jpg" width="315" />
<img border="0" height="143" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6oAiTS6vl_w6UPPgvJCaBm1BOFgFPxD7KEcvZj06wwvqqOApHxU2rUE8G1Cljgb84H2rBykf4j-zocfXpsAf6VkK1PkeKziG0gZGFYKgz7oMstyhpPd7Bj1mhv3igwwO2b0A4CRrMVHhv/s1600/BlogO3654.jpg" width="119" /></div>
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After a bit of Google searching I found a neat trick, how you get the Wave 15 interface to display the "Exchange Control Panel" (ECP). Simply logon to Office 365 as the user who's mailbox needs further options set. Then change the URL from<br />
https://pod12345.outlook.com/blah/blah?blah&blah....<br />
to<br />
https://pod12345.outlook.com/ecp<br />
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Voila! Now you have access to the extra Exchange options!</div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8itRRM0LBGAfgGVcimKe37Jb1WiT_UR7s36tRiNwpH27t1uOCJL2hlDxuNCm1u-RUSacb-aAzDSam-zIqtwDeNQ-kVYRQIsn4Dv9-DYr5_PWYbEIXN21ZSZJ17_FBl875s_asnZYT7GCp/s1600/BlogO3652.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8itRRM0LBGAfgGVcimKe37Jb1WiT_UR7s36tRiNwpH27t1uOCJL2hlDxuNCm1u-RUSacb-aAzDSam-zIqtwDeNQ-kVYRQIsn4Dv9-DYr5_PWYbEIXN21ZSZJ17_FBl875s_asnZYT7GCp/s320/BlogO3652.jpg" width="212" /></a>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnsODMRtPE4isYMWlbOZhIXhipkT1NEWhZo9X0go8o8lmy0OMOZNr_oZnSRrdGy3VF8NS9KWzTZJNtIzg3zA_6uC_0CNsgCZs9gQx9YiMohd-Ew39hj5dwDwKhVfnIDb2OnlO4xYc9BCl9/s1600/BlogO3655.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnsODMRtPE4isYMWlbOZhIXhipkT1NEWhZo9X0go8o8lmy0OMOZNr_oZnSRrdGy3VF8NS9KWzTZJNtIzg3zA_6uC_0CNsgCZs9gQx9YiMohd-Ew39hj5dwDwKhVfnIDb2OnlO4xYc9BCl9/s320/BlogO3655.jpg" width="314" /></a><br />
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<b>Update - July 2013</b><br />
Due to the dynamic nature of Office 365, things change... The above option and trick is no longer available for end users. However, administrators can now once again add additional email addresses for users. Simply select/edit the user account, then use the edit 'email addresses' link!!Felix Burkhardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09399141730969360190noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-626496044417949674.post-30954882394771218602013-03-14T15:39:00.001+11:002013-03-14T15:41:44.567+11:00Mysterious cab files fill-up temp folderOur Labtech RMM recently spit out a warning that a client's 2008R2 server had their disk space filling up fast (Note they are not a premium customer):<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW7rP0ZeW8Q5J_GKpHWQv8VhA2_S2fwrUgZ7OOe2OffPowR_refPQXTq90xmwqUlXqbuG1XUuLt4PavZPNzPoNMIUejEZmOA8Mk6uXqbqzHE0b5P-nMGztBpwH9dn2YRjGH1Grepd9FxBW/s1600/NEPDiskFull.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW7rP0ZeW8Q5J_GKpHWQv8VhA2_S2fwrUgZ7OOe2OffPowR_refPQXTq90xmwqUlXqbuG1XUuLt4PavZPNzPoNMIUejEZmOA8Mk6uXqbqzHE0b5P-nMGztBpwH9dn2YRjGH1Grepd9FxBW/s320/NEPDiskFull.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Upon closer inspection I found that every hour an unknow process would attempt to write a .cab file of approx 60MB to the Windows temp folder. Checking with Process Explorer I found that it was makecab.exe writing these files. Makecab was invoked by services.exe, so that was a bit of a dead end. I looked through the list of Windows scheduled tasks, but did not find anything that was supposedly run every hour.<br />
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I tried to rename the cab files created, adding a .cab extension, but they turned out corrupt. I then used Sysinternals ProcessExplorer to find the source of the cab file, which was tricky, as it would only take a few minutes to actually create the file. The indication was that the source of the cab file (eg the file being compressed) was from the c:\windows\logs\cbs folder.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgymRCXKdDY_SSj1OUo2w1uq1dG7GXRczzF-6B29qaEw-Y-Q6eNFWuD9xpEPGYwJaPxQInykzL0bailVBuNjAcq60kwh491mz2agLjwfa1FSC5kgVgO6WulT66SKeKOZyHyEKo3t3NZ75Fv/s1600/NEPWinCbsLog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgymRCXKdDY_SSj1OUo2w1uq1dG7GXRczzF-6B29qaEw-Y-Q6eNFWuD9xpEPGYwJaPxQInykzL0bailVBuNjAcq60kwh491mz2agLjwfa1FSC5kgVgO6WulT66SKeKOZyHyEKo3t3NZ75Fv/s320/NEPWinCbsLog.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I learned a bit more about <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/cc185681(v=vs.85).aspx">Windows Resource Protection (WRP)</a>, which stops programs overwriting essential system files. It keeps its log files in this folder. The SFC.exe program writes the details of each verification operation and of each repair operation to the CBS.log file. The CBS.persist.log is generated when the CBS gets to be around 50Mb in size. CBS.log is copied to cbs.persist.log and a new cbs.log file is started. A bit of Google foo and we determine that the cbs logs would only be useful for serious troubleshooting issues. If the system is running fine, we can delete this file. SFC.exe will create a new one, next time it is run.
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So why do we have this mysterious process writing a file here?? It appears that on this server the SFC archive process has not been running for a long tome. On the 9th Feb the system was restarted and the log got recycled. Due to the long period of not being archived the log file grew to 4GB in size. Now the fun begins: Every hour, the archive process tries to create a new .cab file. I now speculate that the file size is larger than what is supported and the process fails, hence resulting in a partial .cab file that sits in the temp folder, rather than a complete .cab file in the CBS log folder.<br />
I have deleted the offending .cab file and most of the other ones too, just keeping a few recent ones in case we need them. No more mysteries!<br />
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<br />Felix Burkhardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09399141730969360190noreply@blogger.com33tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-626496044417949674.post-68274232396328705942012-01-22T14:47:00.006+11:002012-01-22T16:39:35.469+11:00Migrating to Exchange 2010I recently performed an Exchange 2010 migration from a different domain running Exchange 2007. The whole migration worked much smoother than I expected... Here is an account of what I did.<br /><br />Some user's at the client had large Exchange mailboxes with > 4 GB data. I installed a 30 day trial copy of <a href="http://www.backupassist.com/">Backup Assist</a> (BA), my favourite SMB backup solution on the source server. Part of the BA suite is an Exchange mailbox backup. I first made sure that the program is working okay, as there are always a few hurdles to overcome with setting up the right Exchange permissions for the user account that performs the backup.<br /><br />On the days before the migration I performed a "manual" mailbox backup with the destination grouping method set to "yearly backup". This option exports all the user's mailbox contents to a number of .pst files, separated into folders for each calendar year.<br /><br />I then created a batch file that renamed these files, appending the year and moving them to the users's home share on the new server. The most current year (2011) I kept for migration to the new Exchange server. On the night of the server migration, I ran the standard BA mailbox backup that archived all emails to the 2012-Q1 folder and transferred this folder to the new server.<br /><br />I now had to import the user's last two (2011 and 2012) .pst files into the new Exchange 2010 server. This server was installed with SP1 and patched with the latest roll-up. All user's were then setup and email flow tested. After the change-over emails were already being received by the new server. Exchange offers the new "New-MailboxImportRequest" command that make merging the contents of a .pst file into a mailbox a smooth process.<br /><br />When I used the command from a PS command prompt, I encountered an issue with the permission:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >The term ‘New-MailboxImportRequest’ is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file</span><br /><br />It turns out that by default no account has the right to run this PS cmdlet. To enable it you need to assign a new role to a specific group. I added the rights for the domain admins by using this command:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >New-ManagementRoleAssignment -Name “Import Export PST” -SecurityGroup “Domain Administrators” -Role “Mailbox Import Export”</span><br /><br />Now we were ready to begin the actual import/merge of the user's .pst files:<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">New-MailboxImportRequest -Mailbox </span></span><username><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"> -FilePath \\server\d$\Users\Mailbackup\2011\user</span></span><username><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">.pst</span></span><br /><br />This command was followed by a second set for all the 2012 email .pst files. I created another "batch" file, except this one was full of the above Powershell commands. Once I started this Powershell script the merge process took a good 1-2 hours. Along the way you can check progress by accessing the import queue using<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >Get-MailboxImportRequest</span><br /><br />or to get more details<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >Get-MailboxImportRequest -Status Failed | Get-MailboxImportRequestStatistics -IncludeReport | Format-List > c:\netadmin\pstimport.txt</span><br /><br />I encountered a few errors that were detailed by the above command. They all related to an issue with the mailbox message size:<br /></username></username><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >Message (size 15.71 MB (16,474,863 bytes)) exceeds the maximum allowed size for<br />submission to the target mailbox. You can increase this limit by using the Set-Mailbox cmdlet in the Exchange Management Shell.<br />Error details: MapiExceptionMaxSubmissionExceeded: Unable to save changes. (hr=0x80004005, ec=1242)</span><br /><br />I fixed this on the affected user's account by going to the user's mailbox properties:<br /><ol><li>Go to mail flow settings, then set Message Size Restriction properties and set both Sending and Receive message size to a high value, say 50Mb.<br /></li><li>Re-run the failed "MailboxImportRequest" again, it should now be successful.</li><li>Reverse the user's message size restriction back to its default value.</li></ol><p></p>Sure there would have been a PS script option to perform his, but for those few users affected, the Set-Mailbox options looked to overwhelming!<br /><br />Overall I have found this approach to be much easier than trying to move mailbox databases from one domain to another. The other advantage is that user's mailboxes are archived and pruned. If the user needs an old .pst file, they can attached it themselves to their Outlook.<br /><br />Reference: <a href="http://www.msexchange.org/articles_tutorials/exchange-server-2010/management-administration/look-import-export-mailbox-improvements-exchange-2010-service-pack-1-part2.html">MS Exchange .org article</a>Felix Burkhardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09399141730969360190noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-626496044417949674.post-68253316778353290982011-11-09T22:15:00.003+11:002011-11-09T22:18:23.236+11:00I have been a member on Experts Exchange for some time. Today they announced a major facelift of their site. Check it out by clicking here:<div><a href="http://beta.experts-exchange.com/" title="New Experts Exchange (v 10.0" style="font-family: monospace; font-size: 13px; text-align: -webkit-auto; white-space: pre; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; display: inline !important; width: 150px; height: 155px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "> <img src="http://c746246.r46.cf2.rackcdn.com/eebeta-badge-medium.png" alt="Medium Experts Exchange VIP Badge" style="border:0;" width="150" height="155" /> </a></div><div><pre style="text-align: -webkit-auto; "><a href="http://beta.experts-exchange.com/" title="New Experts Exchange (v 10.0" style="border:0;display:block;width:150px;height:155px;padding:0;margin:0;"><br /></a></pre></div>Felix Burkhardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09399141730969360190noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-626496044417949674.post-14662833246206956592011-06-28T23:50:00.004+10:002011-06-29T00:50:18.788+10:00Exchange 2010 Mailbox RecoveryOoh what a pain.... when you don't know how to do this. Today I learned the hard way!<br /><br />Today I had to use Exchange recovery on an SBS 2011 server. It started with the client requesting that the user account be renamed from username "Fred" to a role based name "Pleb". For some starnge reason the user was no longer able to log on after I had renamed the account, so I simply deleted "Pleb" and recreated the accout from scratch. The user then demanded his email back and I thought, easy, just reconnected form the "Disconnected Mailbox" folder in the EMC. Hmm - long face, there was no such folder. It appears that if you create a new account with the same name that an existing account had, the disconnected mailbox is not reccyled or being left - no SBS deletes it. Have to try this on a real Exchange server to check the outcome. Anyway, I was facing a rstore from backup - my first foray into Exchange 2010 recovery!<br /><br />This SBS server is a VM, and backups are done on the physical server using Backup Assist. When I recovered the the Hyper-V machine, I found the partition with the mailbox data file, but this is slightly different from an actual Windows application image backup on a Exchange server.<br /><br />I restored the mailbox.edb file to a temp folder, but I had no log files. I fired up the exchange Management Shell (EMS) and ran<blockquote><span style="font-family:courier new;">Eseutil /mh "E:\Temp\db\Mailbox Database.edb"</span><br /></blockquote>This command gives you some stats on the DB, the important one being the "State". in my case it was 'Dirty Shutdown', expected but not that desirable. Note to self, need to check with backup Assist support how I can get the log files. Without log files I had to perform a hard repair using:<br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:courier new;">Eseutil /p "E:\Temp\db\Mailbox Database.edb"</span></blockquote><br />If we have had the log files, we could simple get the "E<number" and="" issue="" the="" recovery="" command=""><blockquote><span style="font-family:courier new;">Eseutil /r "E03" /l e:\temp\log /d e:\temp\db /s e:\temp\rec</span><br /></blockquote>I then repeated the <blockquote><span style="font-family:courier new;">Eseutil /mh "E:\Temp\db\Mailbox Database.edb"</span><br /></blockquote>command, which brought the database back to a state of 'Clean'. The next step now was to bring this recovery database online, using:<br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:courier new;">New-MailboxDatabase RecDB -Recovery:$true -EdbFilePath "e:\temp\db\Mailbox Database.edb" -LogFolderPath "e:\temp\log" -Server Alpha</span><br /></blockquote>This will show the database in the EMC, but it's state is still 'unmounted'. Therefore we issue the command<br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:courier new;">Mount-Database RecDB</span></blockquote>which mounts the database, followed by the command<br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:courier new;">Get-MailboxStatistics -Database RecDB</span></blockquote>which lists all mailboxes in my recovery DB. My next step took some time to research as I had two options to consider: a) export the mailbox to a PST fle or b) recover the mailbox back into a users mailbox. Option a) looked quite attractive as I would not have to fiddle with the new mailbox, but it turns out that there are quite a few pre-requisites for doing this. I therefore opted for the second solution, using a command to recover the contents of the backup/recovery database into a special folder "restore" of the user's mailbox:<br /><blockquote style="font-family: courier new;">Restore-Mailbox -Identity "Fred" -RecoveryDatabase RecDB -RecoveryMailbox "Pleb" -TargetFolder Restore<br /></blockquote>This caused a prompt to appear, asking for confirmation to import those items into the existing mailbox. Logging on as the user, I did indeed find the new "Restore" subfolder with the desired mail items inside. Phew! What remains to do do is a bit of clean up and house keeping:<br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:courier new;">Dismount-Database RecDB</span></blockquote>then follwoed by<br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:courier new;">Remove-Mailboxdatabase RecDB</span></blockquote>and finally<br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:courier new;">Delete "E:\Temp\db\Mailbox Database.edb"</span></blockquote>Happy restores!<br /><br /><br /></number">Felix Burkhardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09399141730969360190noreply@blogger.com49tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-626496044417949674.post-50545991692783863812011-05-19T04:03:00.003+10:002011-05-19T04:09:31.099+10:00SBS Monitoring with high CPU loadJust encountered an issue with an SBS 2008 server. High CPU load was caused by the SBSMonitoring SQL instance. Eventually narrow it down and applied the fix described here:<br /><br /><a href="http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/smallbusinessserver/thread/d195baac-da8b-4387-9079-c55d5e1879b4">http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/smallbusinessserver/thread/d195baac-da8b-4387-9079-c55d5e1879b4</a><br /><br />Whilst checking the event log afterwards, I also noted these information events. Another Google search promised resolution by using this fix:<br /><br /><a href="http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/sqldatabaseengine/thread/0b3a2163-929f-4ba6-8e74-3d683aea19f1">http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/sqldatabaseengine/thread/0b3a2163-929f-4ba6-8e74-3d683aea19f1</a>Felix Burkhardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09399141730969360190noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-626496044417949674.post-34822112020353252852010-12-17T11:42:00.002+11:002010-12-17T12:06:45.041+11:00Remote Installation ServiceToday I finally resolved a problem that bugged me for some time. A 2003 Server has been used to install Win XP to PCs on the network using the Windows Remote Installation Service (RIS). The RIS service was upgraded by Microsoft with the release of 2003 Service Pack 2 and is now called Windows Deployment Service (WDS). I recently started working through Win7 deployment scenarios. In the process I changed WDS from "legacy" mode to "mixed" mode.<br /><br />When I tried to install WinXP again via RIS, I received an error:<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">PXE-T01 error > file not found TFTP</span><br /><br />This message indicates that the client PC received at least one valid DHCP/BOOTP offer, but does not have a boot filename to download. After much head-scratching and Googling, I finally compiled the info to make it all work:<br /><br />Add these DHCP Options:<br />060 PXE Client - enter: "PXECLIENT"<br />066 Boot server host name - enter the IP of the RIS/WDS server<br />067 Bootfile name - point to: "remoteinstall\oschooser\i386\startrom.com"<br /><br />By default, DHCP option 60 is not shown on the server and needs to be added to the scope. If WDS and DHCP run on the same server, this can be done through the properties of the WDS, but since my DHCP was not I had to add it manually from a Command Prompt:<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;">1. C:\Windows\System32>netsh</span><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">2. netsh>dhcp</span><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">3. netsh dhcp>server \\server_machine_name</span><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">4. netsh dhcp>add optiondef 60 PXEClient String 0 comment=PXE support</span><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">5. netsh dhcp>set optionvalue 60 STRING PXEClient</span><br /><span style="font-family: courier new;">6. netsh dhcp>exit</span></span><br /><br />Then return to the WDS admin tool and expand it to get to the Properties dialog for the server. Click the 'Boot' tab and enter 'OSChooser\i386\startrom.com' under the x86 architecture.<br /><br />Restart both the WDS and the DHCP service and you should be able to boot from the network!Felix Burkhardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09399141730969360190noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-626496044417949674.post-57366262738921554382010-10-14T11:24:00.004+11:002010-10-14T11:34:12.832+11:00Turn off Server Licensing Trace Log filesIn an attempt to save disk space on the C: drive of an SBS 2008 server I have found this article on how to turn off trace logs for licensing. They do not occupy a huge amount of space (it was 400MB on the server I noticed), but sometimes every bit counts...<br /><br /><a href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc940957%28WS.10%29.aspx">http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc940957%28WS.10%29.aspx</a><br /><br />The article refers to the EBS product, so only the references to ServerInfrastructureLicensing are applicable to SBS 2008Felix Burkhardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09399141730969360190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-626496044417949674.post-89090082698739793072010-07-22T20:01:00.003+10:002010-07-22T20:31:53.654+10:00Moving Hyper-V VMsI had to "play" around with some Virtual Machines under Hyper-V and Server 2008 R2. I encountered a number of issues when moving and re-importing VMs.<br /><br />Typically you just use the export and import functions, but being a tech, I always curious what is happening under the bonnet.<br /><br />These articles helped me at various stages of the project:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.adopenstatic.com/cs/blogs/ken/archive/2008/01/14/15467.aspx">Moving a Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V virtual machine</a> by Ken Schaefer<br /><br /><a href="http://techblog.mirabito.net.au/?p=275">Hyper-V VM fails to start after moving the VHD files</a> by Mat Mirabito<br /><br /><a href="http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserverhyperv/thread/9f1290f4-4d91-4050-9afb-378fbf5bbc09">Hyper-V Disk Size Reduction</a> posted by Boris on May 08, 2009 on Technet<br /><br />When I re-created a VM from scratch using only the VHD file, I had an issue with the VMs networking. When the VM started, it claimed to be connected to an "Unidentified Network". There was no way I was able to change the setting. I tried various ways to resolve this. Narrowing own the isse I found that the problem somehow was with the actual physical port on the switch. I deleted the virtaul network in the host and disabled the network adapter in the VM, then plugged the cable into a different switch and recreated the virtual switch and reconnected the VM.Felix Burkhardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09399141730969360190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-626496044417949674.post-78749697621302896862010-06-27T10:03:00.006+10:002011-02-19T12:44:25.315+11:00Shrinking the Sharepoint Config DB Log fileOne of the SBS servers I look after showed a disk space issue. I had already disabled the WSUS log file, so was a bit puzzled where all the disk space had gone. Upon closer inspection using my favority <a href="http://www.jam-software.de/">Treesize</a> tool, I found that the Sharepoint Configuration Database transaction log had grown to 11GB. Well the client uses Sharepoint a bit, but surely this was out of the oridinary on a 160MB DB data file.<br /><br />I fired up SQL 2005 Express Managment Studio that is installed with SBS (make sure you run as Admin), but was initially unable to connect to the Windows internal database, as it is hidden from general view. However after a bit of googling I found that I had to connect using<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">\\.\pipe\MSSQL$MICROSOFT##SSEE\sql\query<br /></span><br />to access the database. Next I wrote a quick script that shrinks the log file:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">USE Master<br />GO<br />BACKUP LOG [SharePoint_Config_29c26fca-17b8-48c1-9704-b869932abcb6] WITH TRUNCATE_ONLY<br />GO<br />USE [SharePoint_Config_29c26fca-17b8-48c1-9704-b869932abcb6]<br />GO<br />DBCC SHRINKFILE([SharePoint_Config_29c26fca-17b8-48c1-9704-b869932abcb6_log],50)<br />GO</span><br /><br />The Database name may vary from system to system (but appears the same for all SBS 2008 installations), so the above will need to be adjusted to the name of your sharepoint config database name.<br /><br />While you are there, you may want to check and apply the same fix to the actual Sharepoint Web content database:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><br />USE Master<br />GO<br />BACKUP LOG [ShareWebDb] WITH TRUNCATE_ONLY<br />GO<br />USE [ShareWebDb]<br />GO<br />DBCC SHRINKFILE([ShareWebDb_log],50)<br />GO</span><br /><br />Happy Shrinking!Felix Burkhardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09399141730969360190noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-626496044417949674.post-6972294815321298302010-01-25T22:24:00.004+11:002010-01-25T22:35:14.979+11:00Disabling the Firewall on a 2008 member serverToday I had to install a LOB application that uses SQL Server 2005. Despite setting all possible exceptions in the firewall, I could not get client connectivity setup. <br /><br />I then decided that I would need to disable the firewall temporarily. However, this is controlled by the SBS Group Policy. I looked at all the GPOs but it was not immediatly obvious where I would find this object.....<br /><br />Eventually I found the right one: The 'Windows SBS Client Policy' defines the firewall setting. By changing this entry to 'not configured', I can still enable or disable it, but I have control over the setting from the client.Felix Burkhardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09399141730969360190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-626496044417949674.post-37359606711654804362010-01-20T06:29:00.007+11:002010-03-30T06:29:00.786+11:00Resolving Common SBS Event Log EntriesThis message used to appear on most of my clients weekly "Network Reports":<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Windows SharePoint Services 3 Search<br />Event ID: 2424<br />Event Details: <br />The update cannot be started because the content sources cannot be accessed. Fix the errors and try the update again. Context: Application "Search", Catalog "index file on the search server Search"</span><br /><br />There are quite a few references out there on how to resolve this issue, but equally enough reports that the presented solution did not work. First up I checked <a href="http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;927012">this MS KB article</a> to see if it fixed the issue. The problem persisted and eventually I found <a href="http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2009/08/05/sharepoint-services-3-search-event-errors-after-an-sbs-2008-update-rollup.aspx">this SBS blog post</a>, which looks credible and explains what happens. I implemented the suggestion they refer to - yet <a href="http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2009/05/07/event-2436-for-sharepoint-services-3-search.aspx">another blog posting</a> which resolved the issue.<br /><br />Another message frequently encountered is:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">DCOM<br />Event ID: 10016<br />Event Details: <br />The application-specific permission settings do not grant Local Activation permission for the COM Server application with CLSID {61738644-F196-11D0-9953-00C04FD919C1} to the user NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE SID (S-1-5-20) from address LocalHost (Using LRPC). This security permission can be modified using the Component Services administrative tool.</span><br /><br />This one is easier to fix, using <a href="http://msmvps.com/blogs/kwsupport/archive/2009/02/15/dcom-10016-event-error.aspx">this blog post</a> as a guide.Felix Burkhardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09399141730969360190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-626496044417949674.post-81355282015884096112009-05-23T06:43:00.003+10:002009-05-23T07:17:51.674+10:00Backups Successful but not runningThis one got me stumped! One of the Win SBS 2008 servers I look after started playing up:<br /><br />There are two USB drives attached to do backups. The backups worked without any issues since installation in February. The status reports come in with a green tick "Backup Successful". On closer inspection I noticed that the last backup date is 27 April 2009. No backups<br />since then!<br /><br />I have added and removed a backup destination, changed the schedule - still<br />not working. The backup history has no entries between the last success date<br />and today. No Error messages!! I checked the Server Manager Backup and all looks fine there too, except for the lack of success messages. I checked the event logs (Windows System & Applications and Windows backup), none of them show any errors.<br /><br />I then run the backup directly from the SBS Console using "Backup now" option. It<br />returns after about 30 seconds, claiming "Backup Successful!"<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPZxVaj3p1a5S4a4x_b-nQolsWNfJOmTh0Guem0jaNJjKlx7y2w_EG4ZJ02BNEO3G3R1L2KUJOcuQJ5D9iGm_yPzULb9c342swJXBPFarEbmQ2MQ5MHY5fNX64VzK2nrO3kN_CMJgBFRV3/s1600-h/BkupIssue_SBSBkupDone.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 249px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPZxVaj3p1a5S4a4x_b-nQolsWNfJOmTh0Guem0jaNJjKlx7y2w_EG4ZJ02BNEO3G3R1L2KUJOcuQJ5D9iGm_yPzULb9c342swJXBPFarEbmQ2MQ5MHY5fNX64VzK2nrO3kN_CMJgBFRV3/s320/BkupIssue_SBSBkupDone.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338753262527147938" border="0" /></a>Further investigations led me to the command line utility that the SBS console uses. It is called<br />wbadmin<br />and has various options. I checked the 'get versions' command to determine what was backed up when. Indeed no backups! I then ran the 'Enable Backup' command to make sure it was really okay to run. No problems here either.<br /><br />Next I tried to run the backup from the command line using the 'Start Backup' command. Alright, this is invoking the backup! Why did this not work from the SBS Console and what does 'Backup Now' do??<br /><br />The next check was to visit the task scheduler. This is an area where Windows 2008 has been greatly expanded compared to its predecessor. This is also where I found the root of the problem. The scheduler log file tells me:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Event ID 326:<br />Task Scheduler did not launch task "\Microsoft\Windows\Backup\Microsoft-Windows-WindowsBackup" because computer is running on batteries. User Action: If launching the task on batteries is required, change the respective flag in the task configuration.<br /></span><br />Why the system thinks it is running on batteries is another story... The lesson to me is that we should always double check the scheduler settings, because there are other useful things that we can set, such as when the task schould be halted if it is still running after a few hours. When the SBS console schedules the backup task it uses basic, default settings (such as 3 days before it kills a rogue task).Felix Burkhardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09399141730969360190noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-626496044417949674.post-59931091561191018632009-01-12T09:59:00.010+11:002009-01-13T20:47:51.451+11:00Remote Desktop via TS GatewayI have had an issue with the setup of the Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) via the Windows 2008 SBS Remote Web Workplace (RWW). One nice thing that the SBS installer does, it makes it easy for us, almost too easy, so we expect everything to work out of the box. When I tried to connect to a PC, I initially encountered this error:<br /><br />"VBScript: Remote Desktop Disconnected<br />An internal error has occurred (error 50331688). For more information, please contact your network administrator or Microsoft Product Support."<br /><br />RDC works via the Terminal Services Gateway, which is a new service in Windows 2008. There is a Technet article that details the ins and outs of it:<br /><br /><a href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc771530.aspx">http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc771530.aspx</a><br /><br />Having installed and battled certificate issues for the RWW before, I suspected that this would be another case of making sure the correct certificate was allocated to the connection:<br /><br />Go to Server Manager and expand<br /><br />Roles > Terminal Services > TS Gateway Manager > [Your Server] > Policies > Connection<br /><br />Select "Configure Central TS CAP" and go to the SSL Certificate tab. There pick the option to "Select an existing certificate..." and browse the list of certificates to locate the certificate you purchased for the server.<br /><br />Now that I added the right certificate, I can connect to the Server and the Client PCs remotly from the RWW. Nice!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFKDj166Tp3LqwM_Zyr-yXmSfxZCJjTZSN5QQ0mwie_Eb8EXN_GYo-JYpm1XYGplYiP71mNFSRHxnLJz33ZlWdmyHi9ItA_OUoywDJwM-lALAv6Piu_dqbIpVQ63jURceqHLFZYN298R3h/s1600-h/TSGateway.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 231px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFKDj166Tp3LqwM_Zyr-yXmSfxZCJjTZSN5QQ0mwie_Eb8EXN_GYo-JYpm1XYGplYiP71mNFSRHxnLJz33ZlWdmyHi9ItA_OUoywDJwM-lALAv6Piu_dqbIpVQ63jURceqHLFZYN298R3h/s320/TSGateway.jpg" alt="Screenshot of TS Gateway Configuration" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290187109762542898" border="0" /></a>Felix Burkhardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09399141730969360190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-626496044417949674.post-37414630880673055602009-01-08T21:40:00.011+11:002009-05-16T10:46:29.213+10:00Win 2008 SBS and QuickbooksSome of my clients and our business use Quickbooks (QB). Here in Australia, we seem to be a version behind the US release, as the local franchise applies the relevant localisations. In May 2008 I contacted their help desk about support for x64 systems. They only just released support for Vista (32bit) and told me that there was absolutly no 64 bit support. I tried it, but ended up corrupting my company file, which caused me a lot of grief.<br /><br />In August 2008 Quicken released Quickbooks QBi 2008/09. This version has got a server database engine, although it is not clear what it exactly does. I contacted the support desk again, and they indicated that they still don't support x64. Bad news as Windows 2008 SBS is only supported on the 64 bit platform. Quicken encouraged me to try the server component on x64, but of course, they would not be able to give us any support...<br /><br />In the meantime I have installed Win2008 SBS on one client site with Quickbooks and I am about to install a second site. This is what I did to get it working:<br /><br />I googled and found <a href="http://www.blogger.com/href=%22http://msmvps.com/blogs/bradley/archive/2008/06/07/quickbooks-2008-s-database-manager-on-windows-server-2008-aka-sbs-2008.aspx">this article</a> on Sue Bradley's blog (great site, btw; a must for SBS admins). The above quoted article refers to the US 2008 version, so I still had issues. I chatted with Imran from the local help desk, who dug up another article for me that clarifies what is required for the local 2008/09 version (which equates to the US 2007 version):<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The following files must be granted access through the firewall on </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Port 10172</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> for both Incoming and Outgoing Traffic: FileManagement.exe, QBDFMonitorService.exe, QBDBMgr.exe, QBDBMgrN.exe, QBGDSPlugin.exe, QBW32.exeQBUpdate.exe</span><br /><br />See Quickbooks <a href="http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/pages/knowledgebasearticle/203312">KB Article 203312</a><br /><br />Sue's article mentioned above makes reference to the DB service "qbdataserviceuser18" (US 2008), which in our AUS release is only "qbdataserviceuser17", so the relevant adjustments must be made.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:9px;" ></span>For the firewall I simply added new rules in the Windows 2008 Advanced Firewall applet. I only created 2 port rules without specific rules for the various executables. If you are very security conscious you should probably do it tight. Time permitting I might create a script for the firewall rules to fix this. I then had to re-scan the DB folder for company files and all was working.<br /><br />There was another little annoyance. When I wanted to use the Quickbooks DB manager, I clicked the bright red icon, that the QB install routine plastered on the desktop. Nothing happened. After some head scratching I found out that it can be deleted. The DB manager has a different icon, which can be found via the start > programs hierarchy.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Update - May 2009</span><br /><br />Two client sides have been using QB Enterprise 2008/09 now for a few months and we have had no issues, so I assume the above patches and settings work long term!Felix Burkhardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09399141730969360190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-626496044417949674.post-91423362650930171632009-01-07T22:05:00.007+11:002009-01-08T21:14:52.643+11:00Let's Blog!Am I an <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">extrovert</span> to start a blog? No I don't think so. I have been toying with the idea for some time. I want to share with you the frustrations and joys of working in the IT industry.<br /><br />I am going to use this blog as a notice board to publish some of the successes I have while working on the coalface. Occasionally I will also rant about the problems I have found, and I will even throw in some other issues that I feel strongly about.<br /><br />Credits go to Veronica, who says: "I'm Felix's Swinglish editor and partner in crime i.e. I turn his Swiss Australian english into something closer to the Aussie vernacular." Thanks!<br /><br />Enjoy!Felix Burkhardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09399141730969360190noreply@blogger.com0